I have a simple Midi Translator script open in my studio at all times for (amongst other things) filtering out faulty midi data from an old keyboard. I want to have this script running at all times so I don’t quit Midi Translator. When I leave my studio, I unplug all power (including macbook charger) and the macbook goes to sleep.
I have noticed that when doing this, the battery slowly drains. About 20% per day. This looks to be connected to Midi Translator (when I quit it before sleep, no draining).
When looking in Activity Monitor, Midi Translator is not ‘Preventing Sleep’ but does have about 400 ‘idle wake ups’ (I don’t know if that’s relevant).
Is this a know issue? Is there a way I can make sure Midi Translator stops processing on sleep?
Hi arts, welcome to the forum, and thanks for reporting this issue.
We haven’t experienced this behavior. When asleep, macOS should really prevent processes like MT Pro to use CPU cycles. We know, however, that macOS regularly wakes up from sleep to check for Emails, etc. During those small awake times, a running MT Pro will slightly drain the battery.
You can tweak that macOS wake-up behavior in the Battery section of the Settings.
On the other hand, looking at the Activity Monitor, I can see that MT Pro has a slightly higher energy impact than most other applications (e.g. 1.2 compared to Safari 0.6 or Bome Network 0.1). And it is true that we have not optimized MT Pro for energy usage. Our main concern is low latency and robustness. So we use many concurrent threads and when idle, wake them up regularly to make sure everything is working correctly. But only when the computer is not asleep.
Anyway, we will look into this, and if we find anything, report here.
Following your analysis, I have tweaked my settings for the mac to wake up less. Hope that makes a difference. Will report back when I see a difference.
(and I agree that MT should be focussing on low latency operation instead of low energy use!)
Short update:
I’ve been doing some testing and my macbook pro also drains when I quit Midi Translator before sleep. Haven’t found the issue yet, might be bluetooth.
So, probably Midi Translator wasn’t the cause, but was draining a bit of extra battery when my mac continuously wakes up (making it look like the culprit in Activity Monitor).
