After being suspicious that it didn't working for me on one occasion, I did a basic search on this forum and some others to confirm. It sounds like it may have stopped working in previous software versions and I was hoping someone could confirm if that is the case for Catalina as well. If so, any suggestions for another terminal-based command or alternative solution would be great. Thanks!
MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.14
I never used caffeinate but by reading the man Page I assumed that it terminated on the next command. Possibly running python from there cancelled it unless a timeout option was used.
Thr free app Jolt of Caffeine that replaced the 32bit Caffeine has a timer and sits on the menu bar.
Screen burn surely went out with cathode ray tubes, (I remember our company logo burnt onto green screens) but I turn down the brightness just for energy saving if I leave the mac awake all night.
You never know what actions are sleep immune and which are cancelled with sleep so if, say, I run a full clone I just turn on Jolt for 12 hours and turn brightness down. Quicker than faffing around with settings.
I use Jolt of Caffeine app which is 64bit
Why use a third party app for this at all? Just go into the System Preferences under Energy Saver, set the slider for the display to Never, and all other check boxes off.
By leaving Energy Saver set to Never would not that produce screen burn in or is that something Apple prevented years ago?
Additionally I note that one of the third party apps 'Amphetamine' to keep your Mac from sleeping has a setting to start a screen saver after a set time.
If you enter the command
man caffeinate
into terminal it shows all the usual options available. Have you tried any specific options?
What makes you suspect it no longer works?
I have only been using the 'Caffeinate' command for a few weeks now when I started running a daily python script that takes anywhere from a couple hours to an entire day.
I'm not the most computer savvy individual and, until yesterday, I noticed that my screen saver would come on after my comp stayed idled for long enough while executing the script. Yesterday was the first time I remember having to log back into my user while the script was still running so I assumed it may have gone to sleep and stopped processing the script.
Does that, in fact, indicate my system has gone to sleep and won't continue executing the script until log back in? I haven't been using any of the modifiers listed in the manual up to this point. Would you recommend I do so? Thanks!
Maybe with really cheap LCD or LED monitors. But the very simple solution to that is to set a screen saver to come on after 10 minutes of inactivity (or whatever length of time you prefer). The computer is still not in sleep mode, and the monitor is not showing a static image.
There just isn't any reason to use a script, terminal command or third party app to do something built in to the OS.
I'd rather not have to do that as I'll like forget to switch it back after completing the python scripts I run on the command line.
'Caffeinate' command in terminal functional in OS X Catalina?
