Sleep Problems with Eudora

At 3:12 AM -0700 8/30/08, Robert A. (Bob) Hall wrote:

>My computer will not sleep automatically if my Eudora 6.2.4 is open.
>It works fine when the Eudora application is closed. I am using
>Tiger, 10.4.11 on a Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics) ( and a CPU upgrade).
>
>Any suggestions how to correct the problem will be appreciated.

You asked this same question on the Eudora for Mac list two days ago.
My response is the same now as it was then:

At 9:35 PM -0400 8/28/08, Roger D. Parish wrote:
>At 3:03 PM -0400 8/28/08, Robert A. (Bob) Hall wrote:
>
>>My computer will not* sleep automatically if my Eudora 6.2.4 is
>>open. It works fine when the Eudora application is closed. I am
>>using Tiger, 10.4.11 on a Power Mac G4 (AGP graphics) ( and a CPU
>>upgrade).
>>
>>Any suggestions how to correct the problem will be appreciated.
>
>Do you have Eudora automatically check for mail? If so, at what
>interval? What is the idle duration for auto-sleep?

And then James Sedgwick responded:

At 9:49 PM -0400 8/28/08, James Sedgwick wrote:
>Bottom line is if you have set your computer to go to sleep after
>being idle for a period of time, and then told it to do stuff
>according to a regular schedule, chances are good it will never go
>to sleep.
>
>Most of the electricity a computer uses is burned by the display,
>the HD and the wireless (if you have wireless) so rather than
>worrying about sleeping, just turn off the wireless and tell it to
>sleep the monitor and HDs when possible, saves the electricity but
>lets what must happen, happen.

--
Roger
Lovettsville, VA

At 03:12 on 30-08-2008, Robert A. (Bob) Hall wrote:
> My computer will not sleep automatically if my Eudora 6.2.4 is open.

How often does Eudora automatically check your accounts for new
email? That check resets the computers sleep timer. As long as the
time between automatic email checking is greater than your sleep
time, all should work as expected.

_________________
=> Jolin

On 30-Aug-2008, at 04:12, Robert A. (Bob) Hall wrote:
> Any suggestions how to correct the problem will be appreciated.

1) Quit Eudora
2) Switch to another mail program
3) possibly don't set Eudora to check for mail every x minutes.
4) don't sleep your machine. Sleep is highly overrated anyway. My
MacPro *never* sleeps.<1>

<1> OK. I put it to sleep when I am going to physically move it, but
that nearly never happens. It is shutdown more often than it sleep,
and I never shut it down unless I am changing hardware.

On 2008-08-31, at 03:58, Roger D. Parish wrote:

> At 9:49 PM -0400 8/28/08, James Sedgwick wrote:
>> Most of the electricity a computer uses is burned by the display,
>> the HD and the wireless (if you have wireless) so rather than
>> worrying about sleeping, just turn off the wireless and tell it to
>> sleep the monitor and HDs when possible, saves the electricity but
>> lets what must happen, happen.

That's certainly incorrect for the Mid 2007 iMac. According to Apple,
for 230 volt usage (other voltages show a large difference too):

Off... 1.43 W
Sleep, Wake-on-Lan off... 2.02 W
Sleep, WOL on... 2.40 W
Idle, display off... 47.9 W
Idle, display on... 82.3 W

<http://www.apple.com/environment/resources/specs.html>

On 2008-08-31, at 03:58, Jolin M Warren wrote:

> How often does Eudora automatically check your accounts for new
> email? That check resets the computers sleep timer. As long as the
> time between automatic email checking is greater than your sleep
> time, all should work as expected.

Eudora must be doing something special to keep the Mac awake--I wonder
if that's deliberate or a bug. I have Apple Mail checking every 5
minutes yet my computer still goes to sleep with sleep time > 5 minutes.

At 6:31 AM -0700 8/31/08, Tom Robinson wrote:
>On 2008-08-31, at 03:58, Jolin M Warren wrote:
>
>>How often does Eudora automatically check your accounts for new
>>email? That check resets the computers sleep timer. As long as the
>>time between automatic email checking is greater than your sleep
>>time, all should work as expected.
>
>Eudora must be doing something special to keep the Mac awake--I wonder
>if that's deliberate or a bug. I have Apple Mail checking every 5
>minutes yet my computer still goes to sleep with sleep time > 5 minutes.

It's a bug.
In particular, it's a bug in the SpamWatch plugin.
I _thought_ that this fix was included in the 6.2.4 release.
--
-- Marshall

I've worked around it by writing an AppleScript application which I called "Eudora Monitor"

1) On first run, "Eudora Monitor" asks if it can install itself as a "cron" job.

2)Once installed, it checks at intervals if Eudora is running (the default is 30 minutes, but can be changed). If it is, "Eudora Monitor" displays an alert with vocalisation. If the user dismisses the alert (escape, return, mouse-click) "Eudora Monitor" goes away until next check. Otherwise it assumes you are no longer at your computer and (politely) shuts down Eudora. This allows the computer to fall asleep.

3) "Eudora Monitor" can also be configured to remind you if Eudora is not running and give the user the option to restart Eudora (so you don't forget to restart Eudora when you are back at the computer).

I find it works well. I could make it available for download if anyone is interested.