PC goes to sleep while recording.

[#1 Gamemaster]

I have been trying to set up my parents HTPC to stay awake for them while a recording is in progress, because they have a Harmony remote, so that when they press the Watch TV button it sends a signal to the TV and their HTPC. Which means if a recording is in progress it will go to sleep during the recording.

I found an old post here where someone mentions a program called smartpower. I installed it and tried using the “keep PC awake when certain processes are running” option where I put NRecord down as the process. But it still couldn't keep windows from going to sleep while a recording was in progress.


Is there something I missed on this or is there another way that works. The PC is running Windows 10 if that has something to do with it and NextPVR 3.7.7.


Thanks for any help.

[scJohn]

You might look at your power management settings. If they are really aggressive they might be causing the problem. The other thing would be to update NextPVR to the current version 3.9.2.

[gEd]

do you mean that when they press watch tv on their Harmony remote, the pc goes to sleep? If so , you need to modify your power settings for the mediapc device you have configured in the harmony remote. I configure the power on command but have configured it to not sent a power off command but instead let the pc go to sleep by itself (which it only does if no recording is in progress and after 20m of idle time).

(sorry if I have misunderstood)

[mikeh49]

+1 on gEd. My Harmony is set up as he describes and handles the OP's scenario. That said, you'll love the Harmony app.

[HarryH3]

I picked up a Harmony 650 for cheap at Sam's Club recently and like gEd, I ended up customizing the function of the power-off button so that I could turn off the TV and sound bar without affecting what the PC was doing. My wife loves the Harmony remote because she no longer has to think about which remote controls what function.

[mikeh49]

Only about what button does what, and how do you start the HTPC. "It never works for me."

[#1 Gamemaster]

I don't remember seeing an option to set the remote to only send a power on command to the PC, but before I set up NextPVR my parents used media center and if they pressed the Watch TV button it would turn on the TV and send the PC to away mode (PC stays on but the screen goes black) so that it would stay recording. That way all you would need to do is just press any button to bring the picture back. Also they have a Harmony 350 if that makes a difference.


Also I seen where someone mentioned updating to the latest version of Npvr. Did they set it up to keep windows awake even if you manually try to put the PC to sleep? (Press power button on the PC or remote)

[gEd]

Only about what button does what, and how do you start the HTPC. "It never works for me."

it depends what (if any) remote software you run on your pc but if can configure a button to sent (say) CTRL+SHIFT+1, you can then create a shortcut to Nextpvr.exe and associate this keyboard sequence with the shortcut in order to launch it. it will then work some of the time (in my experience).

[edit]you can also setup a windows scheduled task to run nextpvr.exe when the pc starts and another task to run it when it resumes from standby (just in case it isn't running)

[mikeh49]

Thanks gEd, it's all set up fine using a MCE receiver, but due to flaky buttons on the Harmony 650 and the fact that the sequence of commands to wake the HTPC, turn on the TV, switch the TV to the correct input takes about 15 seconds and you have to keep the remote pointed at the TV there is plenty of opportunity for problems. Maybe I should not get the remotes on eBay, this is the second one that has developed bad buttons. I should have added a joking emoji to my post.

[gEd]

"It never works for me."

Ah right you are. The wine last night caused me to totally miss your meaning :-) Yes I often have this problem as well....

I used to use an HP MCE receiver with Intelliremote which I could then use to launch some autoit programs I wrote which could launch npvr and/or kill of other apps that I may have left running.
However the receiver did not always wake up reliably (annoyingly) so I recently bought a FLIRC device which simply converts an IR signal into a key press. Was a bit of a fiddle to get it working with my harmony one as I had to create a fake device called FLIRC (based on a Panasonic TV in the harmony database) that would send IR signals within the frequency range that the FLIRC would recognise. To launch npvr.exe, I did as said above and associated a key sequence with a shortcut but that seems to be a bit hit and miss (even when using a keyboard) which sounds like a windows problem. The aforementioned scheduled tasks seem to work well to ensure npvr is always running.