Develop Bugs

[Q] How to prevent Fire TV from sleeping?

Maybe I'm blind, but I can't find any way to prevent the Fire TV from sleeping? It stays awake if I have a sideloaded app like XBMC loaded, but if I am in an official Fire TV app, it goes to sleep after 30 minutes. This confuses guests at my house when they turn the TV on and get nothing but a black screen from the Fire TV.

Red Eye Sleep Awake seems to work fine on my Fire TV. Once running, FTV never goes to sleep.

I mainly used it for the AirPin PRO app, when FTV goes to sleep, AirPin stops working. But, after letting FTV run without sleeping for 3 to 4 days, I did find FTV much warmer to touch. It was not that important for AirPin to be available on demand for me, so I uninstalled the Red Eye app and let FTV go to sleep.

martyxng said:
Maybe I'm blind, but I can't find any way to prevent the Fire TV from sleeping? It stays awake if I have a sideloaded app like XBMC loaded, but if I am in an official Fire TV app, it goes to sleep after 30 minutes. This confuses guests at my house when they turn the TV on and get nothing but a black screen from the Fire TV.
Click to expand...
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What was your solution? I am looking for a way to disable sleep to allow the screensaver to stay active.
Thx,
riz

Screensaver.tv said:
What was your solution? I am looking for a way to disable sleep to allow the screensaver to stay active.
Thx,
riz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I need to look at it more, but I put a needle through the mic and into the ic under to prevent the mic from ever working. left it alone for ten hours, and when I turned on the tv next, the fire was fully up. usually it takes a few slaps in the head to wake up; I think the error thrown by testing voice may have also kept it awake. I'm hoping this doesn't kill the batteries in the remote.

roustabout said:
I need to look at it more, but I put a needle through the mic and into the ic under to prevent the mic from ever working. left it alone for ten hours, and when I turned on the tv next, the fire was fully up. usually it takes a few slaps in the head to wake up; I think the error thrown by testing voice may have also kept it awake. I'm hoping this doesn't kill the batteries in the remote.
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Click to collapse
Hey guys, anyone have a solution? thx

dbdoshi said:
Red Eye Sleep Awake seems to work fine on my Fire TV. Once running, FTV never goes to sleep.
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Click to collapse
I have sideloaded RedEye Sleep Awake onto my Fire TV and launched it but it does not keep my Fire TV box from going to sleep. A few seconds afterwards, the Fire TV white LED goes out.
What should I try?

Not a geek said:
I have sideloaded RedEye Sleep Awake onto my Fire TV and launched it but it does not keep my Fire TV box from going to sleep. A few seconds afterwards, the Fire TV white LED goes out.
What should I try?
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Click to collapse
Works fine for me... on both my FTVs. These are rooted FTVs (if you are not rooted, I am not sure if this app works)
My settings within the app are:
Awake Level: Fully Awake (you will need to go into that option to select it)
Start at boot: Yes
Disable when screen is turned off: No
Enable when on AC: Yes
Enable at startup: Yes
Disable on low battery: No
Disable notification Icon: No
(Yes means checked, No means not checked).
Once you have the settings verified, reboot your FTV and see if it stays up. Also, my RedEye Sleep Toggle version is 1.5.2 (free version)
Also, on my FTV under Settings, Display & Sounds, Screen Saver, the "Start Time" is set to "Never". Not sure if that makes any difference, but wanted to put it out here.

Thanks for your rapid reply, dbdoshi and for the settings detail you included.
I tried again and this time the Redeye Sleep Toggle app does indeed work.
I too have two Fire TVs and why I failed on both of 'em to get the app to work, I have no idea. Anyway, all's well that ends well...
Re the sceensaver settings, I've mine set to 5 minutes and this doesn't disturb the app behaviour at all.
Also, my Fire TVs are not rooted, merely sideloaded.
For anyone confused by the app name, at the time of writing it shows up in Google Play and on the BinaryMagi Inc website as Redeye Stay Awake, but on Android devices it shows up as Redeye Sleep Toggle.

XBMC Screensaver after 5mins, suspend after 20mins?

SPMC is setup as launcher, but the FireTV doesn't sleep when SPMC is running. So I have the elmerohueso Screensaver that puts the device to sleep after Xmins. Just wondering if there's any way to have the screensaver come on after just a few minutes, but sleep not happen until later, maybe 20mins etc.?
Thanks.

modstore said:
SPMC is setup as launcher, but the FireTV doesn't sleep when SPMC is running. So I have the elmerohueso Screensaver that puts the device to sleep after Xmins. Just wondering if there's any way to have the screensaver come on after just a few minutes, but sleep not happen until later, maybe 20mins etc.?
Thanks.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The latest SPMC allows for Suspend on rooted Android devices. In Settings, set whatever screensaver you want, then in System > Power Saving change your Power Saving mode to Suspend and set the timer for 20 mins. Et voila!

elmerohueso said:
The latest SPMC allows for Suspend on rooted Android devices. In Settings, set whatever screensaver you want, then in System > Power Saving change your Power Saving mode to Suspend and set the timer for 20 mins. Et voila!
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Click to collapse
Oh perfect! Thanks for the quick response.

elmerohueso said:
The latest SPMC allows for Suspend on rooted Android devices. In Settings, set whatever screensaver you want, then in System > Power Saving change your Power Saving mode to Suspend and set the timer for 20 mins. Et voila!
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Click to collapse
Is anyone else having trouble with SPMC 13.3.2's Suspend feature? I have an issue where if I launch Netflix (from SPMC), SPMC will suspend my FireTV after the allotted suspend internal even while Netflix is playing.
Example:
SPMC Suspend set to 15mins
Launch Netflix from SPMC
Watch Netflix for 15mins
FireTV is suspended by SPMC
Anyone else running into this issue or have a workaround that prevents suspend while the FireTV is in use (even if that use isn't XBMC/SPMC)?

TornSack said:
Is anyone else having trouble with SPMC 13.3.2's Suspend feature? I have an issue where if I launch Netflix (from SPMC), SPMC will suspend my FireTV after the allotted suspend internal even while Netflix is playing.
Example:
SPMC Suspend set to 15mins
Launch Netflix from SPMC
Watch Netflix for 15mins
FireTV is suspended by SPMC
Anyone else running into this issue or have a workaround that prevents suspend while the FireTV is in use (even if that use isn't XBMC/SPMC)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Anyone else using SPMC? Is there a better XBMC FireTV solution?

TornSack said:
Is anyone else having trouble with SPMC 13.3.2's Suspend feature? I have an issue where if I launch Netflix (from SPMC), SPMC will suspend my FireTV after the allotted suspend internal even while Netflix is playing.
Example:
SPMC Suspend set to 15mins
Launch Netflix from SPMC
Watch Netflix for 15mins
FireTV is suspended by SPMC
Anyone else running into this issue or have a workaround that prevents suspend while the FireTV is in use (even if that use isn't XBMC/SPMC)?
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Click to collapse
I tested this using Netflix in the same way, and unfortunately while watching netflix the FireTV went onto suspend after 20mins.

modstore said:
I tested this using Netflix in the same way, and unfortunately while watching netflix the FireTV went onto suspend after 20mins.
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XBMC doesn't have any power settings for Android, so unfortunately I can't test that to compare.
Edit: I just tested XBMC on Windows, and the power saving features (set to "hibernate") do indeed kick in while XBMC is minimized. I'm guessing this may be because the Shutdown Timer functionality may have originally been intended to be used on XBMC appliances. Anyway, I'm sure if a fix gets checked in to XBMC (to only apply the Shutdown Timer if XBMC is active) that it would bubble up into SPMC.

TornSack said:
Anyone else using SPMC? Is there a better XBMC FireTV solution?
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Yes, I use elmerohueso's screen saver and I never worry about Netflix being cut off or the box not sleeping after 3min (which is my timer).

Ipse_Tase said:
Yes, I use elmerohueso's screen saver and I never worry about Netflix being cut off or the box not sleeping after 3min (which is my timer).
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I've now done the same Ipse. Hopefully elmerohueso will continue to support, it's a great plug-in.

elmerohueso said:
XBMC doesn't have any power settings for Android, so unfortunately I can't test that to compare.
Edit: I just tested XBMC on Windows, and the power saving features (set to "hibernate") do indeed kick in while XBMC is minimized. I'm guessing this may be because the Shutdown Timer functionality may have originally been intended to be used on XBMC appliances. Anyway, I'm sure if a fix gets checked in to XBMC (to only apply the Shutdown Timer if XBMC is active) that it would bubble up into SPMC.
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Click to collapse
Do you happen to know if there's a bug report for this already? I did a quick search but haven't found one. But don't want to report one if it's a duplicate.
Alternatively, I'm not sure if it's something you would consider, but would it be difficult to offer an option in your screensaver add on, to allow selection of another screensaver at a certain time (5mins or whatever) before getting to the sleep time (20mins etc.)?

modstore said:
Do you happen to know if there's a bug report for this already? I did a quick search but haven't found one. But don't want to report one if it's a duplicate.
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Click to collapse
I added it to the Feature Request forum but not to trac. I'm pretty sure I know what needs to be changed, but I'm having issues with my dev environment. Once I get it working I'll make a pull request (assuming the fix I'm thinking of actually works).
modstore said:
Alternatively, I'm not sure if it's something you would consider, but would it be difficult to offer an option in your screensaver add on, to allow selection of another screensaver at a certain time (5mins or whatever) before getting to the sleep time (20mins etc.)?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I think that'd be overly complicating things.

elmerohueso said:
I added it to the Feature Request forum but not to trac. I'm pretty sure I know what needs to be changed, but I'm having issues with my dev environment. Once I get it working I'll make a pull request (assuming the fix I'm thinking of actually works).
I think that'd be overly complicating things.
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Click to collapse
Hi elmerohueso, im currently using your screensaver and ran itno a problem: if i leave the video paused, your screensaver will correctly send the device to sleep, but my usb HDD will stay awake until i stop the movie and let it sleep again. i was trying to edit your python script but its the first time i see python XD. is there a way to send a command to stop video playback right before it goes to sleep?

Volc7 said:
Hi elmerohueso, im currently using your screensaver and ran itno a problem: if i leave the video paused, your screensaver will correctly send the device to sleep, but my usb HDD will stay awake until i stop the movie and let it sleep again. i was trying to edit your python script but its the first time i see python XD. is there a way to send a command to stop video playback right before it goes to sleep?
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Click to collapse
By default, the XBMC screen saver won't actually kick in if a video is paused. However, you can manually set it to do so. I can't actually think of a good reason that someone *wouldn't* want their video stopped once the screensaver kicks in, so I'll see if I can add "Stop Video" as a feature.

elmerohueso said:
By default, the XBMC screen saver won't actually kick in if a video is paused. However, you can manually set it to do so. I can't actually think of a good reason that someone *wouldn't* want their video stopped once the screensaver kicks in, so I'll see if I can add "Stop Video" as a feature.
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Click to collapse
Awesomesauce

Volc7 said:
Awesomesauce
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I'm pushing the 2.8 screensaver update to my repo now. XBMC should automatically pull it down within 24 hours. It now has a setting to "Stop Paused Video" (remember to set it, it's off by default).
The biggest issue was that any call that manipulates the Player (ie. stopping a video) will kick XBMC out of the screensaver. I got around that (hopefully) by calling ActivateScreensaver after stopping the video, basically starting the screensaver again (1st pass - stops the video, 2nd pass - runs whatever power call you chose).

Great ill test it as soon as im able to get it

just tested it.works peftectly so far. xbmc correctly stops the video, goes to sleep and a few mins later my harddrive sleeps too. thanks you!

Volc7 said:
just tested it.works peftectly so far. xbmc correctly stops the video, goes to sleep and a few mins later my harddrive sleeps too. thanks you!
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Click to collapse
Glad to hear it.

XBMC/Kodi keeps FireTV awake

If the device is idle Kodi will dim the screen but the the FireTV will never go to sleep.
I found this in the KODI FAQs:
Note: Some options might not be available on all hardware or OSes. For example, XBMC/Kodi cannot control shutdown or sleep on Android.
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Click to collapse
I'd like to know if there is a known workaround for this issue?

Llama?

Phil402 said:
If the device is idle Kodi will dim the screen but the the FireTV will never go to sleep.
I found this in the KODI FAQs:
I'd like to know if there is a known workaround for this issue?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
"Android Power Options" screensaver from here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2790392
P.S. For rooted device only.

Try SPMC. It allows the aftv to go into standby and it performs really well

Just go to the XBMC setting page and set Power Saving to shutdown XBMC in 60 minutes of idle or less. This will solve your problem

SPMC does not shutdown but it allows the aftv to go into standby.

lowbee said:
Just go to the XBMC setting page and set Power Saving to shutdown XBMC in 60 minutes of idle or less. This will solve your problem
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Click to collapse
Thank you. Totally overlooked this option.

I like SPMC so far more crashes less for me and i like that it has a button to put the fire tv in stand by mode

[Q] How do I get the FTV to sleep while in xbmc/kodi?

I set up my first FTV 4 months ago and recently got another. Everything went pretty smooth except I cant remember what I did to make it sleep after x number of minutes idle in xbmc/kodi. I think the first FTV might have SPMC on it while the second has elmerohueso's XBMC/Kodi.
Any ideas what I did last year? I have kids, my brain is mush.

cardboardbox said:
I set up my first FTV 4 months ago and recently got another. Everything went pretty smooth except I cant remember what I did to make it sleep after x number of minutes idle in xbmc/kodi. I think the first FTV might have SPMC on it while the second has elmerohueso's XBMC/Kodi.
Any ideas what I did last year? I have kids, my brain is mush.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Can't you just review the settings on your old AFTV and emulate the same to the new one?
But if not, go to:
System settings - Settings - Power saving -> toggle the Shutdown function timer to 5 min and Shutdown function to quit.
Then, under Appearance - Screen saver - Screensaver mode to dim and Screensaver time to 3 mins.
Keeping in mind that by default AFTV takes 30 mins before it actually goes to sleep.
These are my settings on my AFTV and works like a charm.
Good luck!

Macpatto said:
Can't you just review the settings on your old AFTV and emulate the same to the new one?
But if not, go to:
System settings - Settings - Power saving -> toggle the Shutdown function timer to 5 min and Shutdown function to quit.
Then, under Appearance - Screen saver - Screensaver mode to dim and Screensaver time to 3 mins.
Keeping in mind that by default AFTV takes 30 mins before it actually goes to sleep.
These are my settings on my AFTV and works like a charm.
Good luck!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the help. I did look at my other AFTV but the settings you mention are "Off" and "Quit" which is the default setting. I checked for installed apps that might do the sleep function but didnt see anything. I really have no idea how I did this and I did search the forum for quite a while. I'd never have figured it out myself so I know the answer must be here somewhere.
I'll try your recommendation, maybe it will be good enough.

I got it working by installing elmerohueso's screensaver.

5.0.5 firmware will not let me wake up from remote; not sure which user settings uses

I use my tv remote to control my firetv over hdmi, and previously, the 'escape/back' button would wake up the firetv. after 5.0.5, it no longer works. The simplest solution i can think of is to keep the screensaver on all the time (i like it). I found this post that says you can configure the screen_off_timeout via adb
- stupid rules prevent me from posting link. so here's the text from the other webpage -
you could try adb commands
//Will set screensaver time adb shell settings put system screensaver_timeout 30000
//Will set sleep time adb shell settings put system screen_off_timeout 300000000
permalink
[–]mattgyver83 2 points 1 year ago*
Oh wow this sounds right up my alley and I have an adb session open to my ftv as we speak, it's fate I tell ya!
update:So I did it and just figured id post my findings here in case anyone else follows suit. First of all heres the conversions for the numbers reported from the 'get' variant of these commands;
1000 = 1 Second
60000 = 1 Min
3600000 = 1 Hour
86400000 = 1 Day
2147460000 = "Never" 24 days
So, I didnt modify the screen saver because that can be done via the UI but i did the screen_off_timeout and I just set that to the same value as the "Never" Option for the screen saver because assuming the TV is not touched in 24 days, im dead.
Thanks for your help ill update if it worked as expected and fixes the problem!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
However, it doesn't work - and it seems that settings now has a per user settings
Code:
|[email protected]:/etc $ settings
usage: settings [--user NUM] get namespace key
settings [--user NUM] put namespace key value
settings [--user NUM] delete namespace key 'namespace' is one of {system, secure, global}, case-insensitive
If '--user NUM' is not given, the operations are performed on the owner user.
so I'm not sure which user NUM I should use, or if it's just ignored now. My most recent attempt is to brute force it
Code:
i=0; while [ $(($i)) -le 5000 ]; do i=$(($i + 1)); settings --user $i put system screen_off_timeout 2147460000; done;
not sure what to do - next step would be to try to root the box which just seems like a pain that i would like to avoid. my fire tv stick still works fine over hdmi (esc to wake it up) so I think it's a unique issue with the fire tv (1st gen).
Any thoughts?

Root not needed. User not needed.
It's almost like screensaver_timeout
and screen_off_timeout are opposite.
Change your Screensaver to Never and screen_off_timeout changes to 2147460000.
You don't need to brute force it as the [--user NUM] is not needed.
Changing screensaver_timeout has no effect.
To recap "screen_off_timeout" IS the screensaver start time within the Amazon settings.
screensaver_timeout does nothing - that I can tell.
I would like the Amazon screensaver to run more than 15 minutes but can't find how to do that.

Bevnrick said:
Change your Screensaver to Never and screen_off_timeout changes to 2147460000.
You don't need to brute force it as the [--user NUM] is not needed.
Changing screensaver_timeout has no effect.
To recap "screen_off_timeout" IS the screensaver start time within the Amazon settings.
screensaver_timeout does nothing - that I can tell.
I would like the Amazon screensaver to run more than 15 minutes but can't find how to do that.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
About a month ago, I set the "screen_off_timeout" to 2147460000 (never) on my Fire TV Stick and it has worked beautifully playing the screen saver over and over. Then, today, it has mysteriously stopped. While the Stick doesn't go into sleep mode, the screen goes black with no screen saver. I suspect the culprit is Amazon's auto software upgrade to 5.0.5.
If anyone can help with a work around this, I'd be forever indebted to you!

marclamb said:
About a month ago, I set the "screen_off_timeout" to 2147460000 (never) on my Fire TV Stick and it has worked beautifully playing the screen saver over and over. Then, today, it has mysteriously stopped. While the Stick doesn't go into sleep mode, the screen goes black with no screen saver. I suspect the culprit is Amazon's auto software upgrade to 5.0.5.
If anyone can help with a work around this, I'd be forever indebted to you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this request. I have noticed the same behavior with 5.0.5.
I am also curious if there is a list of all keys in the 'shell settings system' namespace. I could not find an adb command to output a list. It seems to require a key such as "screen_off_timeout". I noticed in another thread that you could access these keys via sqlite but I can't seem to get that to work on a non-rooted 5.0.5 aftv device.

Hi,
+1 follower here. I have a Fire TV Stick and My screensaver only stays approx. 20 minutes. it seems the setting screensaver_timeout is not read anymore because I tried changing its value to 60000 (1 minute) and 2147460000 (Never) but no effect, the screensaver still only runs approx 20 minutes. It seems Fire TV has another variable for that or maybe the max it could go for is 20minutes. I cannot comment about the version because this is a new stick.

I am also stuck with the same issue. Somebody please help!