[Parky]

I have discovered an issue with the 6.1 update for Airport Express Base Stations.
I think it is related to the addition of the Keyspan Remote Control capability.

If you set your screen to sleep when there is no user activity this no longer works while you are streaming music to the AE Base Station.

If you play music to the computer speakers the screen will sleep, but as soon as you stream music to the base station the screen will never sleep.

I have tested this on an iMac G5 and a 12" PowerBook and it is repeatable on both 100%.

The best way to see it and understand it is to set the screen sleep time to 1 minute.
That means that after 30 seconds on most machines the screen will dim to half brightness and then after the full minute it will go off totally. T
This works OK unless you are streaming music to the AE.

Once you start to stream music and you then leave the computer alone to let the screen sleep the following will happen.
The screen will dim after 30 secs and then it will come back bright again.
How long it takes to come bright again can vary as it think it depends on a cycle of communication that is being made between the AE and the Mac.
This is why I think it is related to the Keyspan Remote, I think it is a regular heartbeat communication that the device requires to work.
I think there is a communication event happening every minute from the AE to the Mac, which looks like a user event and therefore prevents screen sleep.
Depending on when you fall into that 1 minute cycle with the screen sleep, it affects how long it takes for the screen to come bright again after it dims.

Give it a try, see what you think.

It looks like a bug to me and a bad one, I really don't want my screen to be on full for hours a day when all I am doing is streaming music.
It worked fine before the update, but now this has made iTunes / AirTunes and AE a problem as using them will shorten the life of my screen due to no sleep.

Ian Parkinson

[tooki]

Wrong forum.

tooki