[Mayor McCheese]

Ever since the last upgrade, my Playbook is going into standby mode while watching videos, listening to podcasts and audio books after 5 minutes. I don't remember this happening before the last upgrade. Either way, it is annoying to have to keep doing the bezel swipe every 5minutes to restart my Tosh.0 or Conan stream on thecomedynetwork.com time well waisted.
most screen savers or power management settings have an option to choose "none" under the time-out scroll down menu. we have 10sec to 5min on the backlight and 30sec to 5min on the standby. Is there a fix for this or something I have completely missed here?

[jaspergrizzly]

We're waiting for a fix for this, but in the interim, there are a few ways to get around it by searching some of the posts on this forum. One of them includes downloading the white noise app from app world and just opening the app without playing anything then leaving it running in the background, then run your podcast or other stream on your browser and it should not timeout. The white noise app is a free download.

There are a few other suggestions such as downloading the offline browser I think.

Sorry, the app mentioned above is called SilentNoise, not white noise.

[casanova1012]

Hello, I have heard about this solution on a few threads. I downloaded both 'white noise', and 'silent noise'. They both seem to run all the time, however when minimizing them (run in the background) and opening a web browser, the back light times out, even though i can still hear the white noise.
Any ideas?

[rotorwrench]

I've not had this issue on our PBs at home. I'll try the ones at work and see if any of them are experiencing this issue. Just out of curiosity are you in showcase mode?

[peter9477]

There is no good solution for this yet.

The White Noise app (which is mine) works -- as any well-designed app should be able to -- by properly managing the power state so that it can keep running even when in the background. It works the same whether it's full-screen or not, and whether the system is in Paused, Default, or Showcase mode, and whether its in standby or not. Basically it does what it's supposed to do, no matter what.

The Silent Noise app probably uses the Keep Awake feature. My other app Battery Guru implements the same feature, not for its own functionality (because it works properly under all conditions the same as White Noise does), but as a convenience for people who may want that.

The problem with Keep Awake -- and I stress that it's an OS problem which no app can overcome, regardless of what it says it will do -- is that it works only when some portion of the app's window is visible and the app is considered "active" by the system. That latter bit is a bit complicated. In Paused mode, the only active app is the one that's fullscreen (if there is one). In Default mode, the currently fullscreen app is active or, if none is fullscreen, then the most-recently fullscreen one is still active provided it hasn't been closed. In Showcase mode, all running apps are active.

If you read that carefully and think about it, you'll realize that the keep awake feature can never help you keep the system awake when some other, "dumb" app is fullscreen. The closest you can get is to run a Keep Awake app (like Silent Noise, or Battery Guru with the keep awake mode enabled), while using Showcase mode and with it either fullscreen or minimized (thumbnailed) but still visible onscreen, even if it's just one small slice of its window at the side. Only when you do that will you be able to keep the system awake, but of course the other app that you're really interested in will have to be thumbnailed too. (If you're doing this just to keep audio running in that other app, then this is an adequate workaround I guess.)

Long term, RIM has apparently said they will have a change to the relevant behavior (in BB10? probably, but maybe not at launch) and you may not have to resort to such tricks any more.

The rationale behind this is apparently related to screen burn-in, by the way. Contrary to some claims, LCD screens can have a form of burn-in, and it seems RIM wanted to protect against people damaging their devices this way. They really wanted developers to write their apps properly, so that like White Noise they function the way people want them to without tricks or special settings. I guess too many devs failed to do that, and/or the user demand is just too strong for them to stick with that position, so they're going to give in in some fashion. No official details yet on how that will work, or when we'll see it.

[casanova1012]

Wow, thats pretty bad news.
Currently i have the settings, on showcase.
What i am intending to do is use my playbook as a display for business. The silent noise app does stay awake and does not dim, but when i minimize it and open a browser in fullscreen...backlight tomeout.

I also found an app which claims to override the backlight (backlight override). I tested it and it seems very limited to the amount of websites that will work.

Is there a browser on the playbook which offers the ability to never sleep, such as 'silent noise'?

[PB_Warrior]

@peter9477 Will Battery Guru--or any other app for that matter--allow me to run another app full screen while overriding the PlayBook's tendency to dim the backlight or go into sleep mode within a set delay?

Example of what I want to do: use PlayBook as a GPS device in a car running in full screen and not have to stroke the screen every five minutes to "wake it up," which is very annoying.

Thanks for your help.

[pacoman03]

Will Battery Guru--or any other app for that matter--allow me to run another app full screen while overriding the PlayBook's tendency to dim the backlight or go into sleep mode within a set delay?
.

No.

[peter9477]

That's correct. Unfortunately on both the PlayBook and BB10, if you want a given app to be fullscreen AND you want the screen never to go off, the only way this can be done is if that app itself provides the keep-awake feature (or, rather, supports telling the OS to keep the screen awake). The API for this works only as long as the app asking for keep-awake is fullscreen (in the case of BB10) or has some portion of itself visible (even if thumbnailed, the case of the PlayBook).

It's a long-standing beef of many people, and so far there's no sign of BB actually changing this situation. The only explanation I've ever heard was basically "screen burn-in concerns".

[F2]

That's correct. Unfortunately on both the PlayBook and BB10, if you want a given app to be fullscreen AND you want the screen never to go off, the only way this can be done is if that app itself provides the keep-awake feature (or, rather, supports telling the OS to keep the screen awake). The API for this works only as long as the app asking for keep-awake is fullscreen (in the case of BB10) or has some portion of itself visible (even if thumbnailed, the case of the PlayBook).

It's a long-standing beef of many people, and so far there's no sign of BB actually changing this situation. The only explanation I've ever heard was basically "screen burn-in concerns".

Obviously, they don't care about USER SLOW BURNS!

[blueberrymerry]

How can an LCD have burn-in? It's only a concern with AMOLED screens and even that happens over a few years. Otherwise LCD TVs would have burn-in issues too but they don't.

[dugggggg]

Is there a browser on the playbook which offers the ability to never sleep, such as 'silent noise'?

SimpleBrowser+ has a "Keep PlayBook Awake" option which may do what you want.

[rossjackson01]

Thank you all for the advice. Read about 'Silent Noise' and thought, Cracked it. Tried it. No, it doesn't work in the background, even in 'showcase'. Bummer! Nor does 'Simple Browser'. Back to the drawing board. No facility to use satnav programme. Swiping whilst driving is not safe. Bummer again.

Regards to all.

Ross

[peter9477]

Thank you all for the advice. Read about 'Silent Noise' and thought, Cracked it. Tried it. No, it doesn't work in the background, even in 'showcase'. Bummer! Nor does 'Simple Browser'. Back to the drawing board. No facility to use satnav programme. Swiping whilst driving is not safe. Bummer again.

Silent Noise uses the same API I use in Battery Guru for the Keep Awake feature and, as I described above, there are limitations that make this feature largely useless on both BB10 and the PlayBook other than in the app which enables it. Trust me, I'm the expert on this particular item... :-)

[peter9477]

How can an LCD have burn-in? It's only a concern with AMOLED screens and even that happens over a few years. Otherwise LCD TVs would have burn-in issues too but they don't.

I always had the same reaction, but some research shows that our belief about that is to some extent false. It's not classic "burn-in" as in the old phosphor screens, but it's a form of burn-in nonetheless. As one source, see Screen burn-in - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[F2]

I always had the same reaction, but some research shows that our belief about that is to some extent false. It's not classic "burn-in" as in the old phosphor screens, but it's a form of burn-in nonetheless. As one source, see Screen burn-in - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If that new info is true, it needs to be made more available. Still folks should be able to chose if they want to risk it and Rim could make it known that there is some chance of burn-in.

[peter9477]

If that new info is true, it needs to be made more available. Still folks should be able to chose if they want to risk it and Rim could make it known that there is some chance of burn-in.

I don't think it's exactly new. I first learned of it almost two years ago when researching this in the early days of Battery Guru, but even then it wasn't "new" in any way. It's just not widely known.

I agree choice would be nice though. I'd also like some choice about having a fake shutter sound with my camera, same as how I do have a choice about whether to risk damaging my eardrums by turning on audio boost when I'm using earphones.

[F2]

The CAMERA SOUND is probably a security issue - don't want anyone photographing the new battery cages for the Dreamliner.