laptop keeps going to sleep halfway through my night sky timelapses... help??

ok so I've been trying to shoot a timelapse of the Orionids (they peak later this month!!) with my camera tethered to my old laptop Every time I check on it around 1am the laptop's asleep and ive got maybe 40 frames... out of like 600

I already set sleep to "never" in power settings. Pretty sure I did any

check whether you set "never" for both plugged in and on battery, theyre separate settings and windows loves to quietly ignore one of them. also look up what closing the lid does, by default it usually puts the laptop to sleep. and turn off USB selective suspend in the advanced power options, because that can drop the tether even when the laptop itself is still awake or skip the laptop and get a $20 intervalometer. it doesnt sleep, doesnt update itself at 1am and doesnt have opinions. kind of like a good analog watch...

yeah the intervalometer thing is real, mine cost $18 and it's outlasted two laptops and a marriage well, my cousin's marriage, but i was there for the timelapse if you're set on the laptop, check whether it's the lid some machines sleep when you close the lid no matter what the power plan says, so set "when i close the lid" to do nothing. also it gets weirdly cold out there at 3am, and a cold battery can drop fast enough to trigger a low battery sleep i wrapped mine in a hand warmer and a wool sock once. looked deranged but it worked. a park ranger asked if i was incubating something and i said yes.

if it's still dying after all the settings stuff, try PowerToys Awake on windows or just run `caffeinate -dimsu` in terminal if you're on a mac. those ignore whatever the power plan thinks it wants. tbh also check usb selective suspend in the advanced power options, because sometimes the laptop doesnt sleep at all, it just cuts power to the camera's usb port and the capture software freezes so it looks like it slept. i lost a whole meteor shower to that and spent 40 minutes yelling at a field.

heh 40 min yelling at a field, been there other thing to check is whether its on battery a lot of laptops have separate sleep timers for battery and plugged in, so people fix one and still get burned by the other. run `powercfg /requests` in an admin cmd while the capture is going and itll tell you if anything is actually holding the system awake. most capture apps dont bother. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/design/device-experiences/powercfg-command-line-options

if you want something quick, `powercfg /change standby-timeout-dc 0` and the same with `-ac` turns sleep off on both. also check what closing the lid does, people forget that one.

ngl

check whether you set "never" for both plugged in and on battery, theyre separate settings and windows loves to quietly ignore one of them. tbh

oh man the lid thing got me SO bad last month i kept thinking my laptop was crashing during long astrophotography stacking sessions but nope, it was just going to sleep every time i closed it to keep the screen glare off the telescope lol. it's under power options > "choose what closing the lid does" and yeah, plugged in and on battery are separate there too!! also check that windows update didn't quietly flip them back, mine did that once and i forgot I'd ever changed them in the first place

also if youre running on battery out there, cold nights drain it way faster than you'd expect and windows will hibernate once it hits the "critical battery" level, no matter what your sleep settings say. you can lower that threshold in advanced power options, or just bring a power bank and stop trusting the battery percentage and pause windows updates before a long session too, nothing ruins a 4 hour timelapse like a surprise 2am restart 🤦

or skip the laptop entirely and use the camera's built-in intervalometer, or a cheap $20 remote one. i dropped my laptop babysitting after i found it at 3am with a frozen capture window, covered in dew, and a moth sitting on the trackpad. the camera never needed it in the first place

also if you're shooting in the cold, the battery percentage basically lies my laptop once went from 60% to dead in about ten minutes in a field in november. tuck it in a jacket or something

...battery out there, cold nights drain it way faster than you'd...

yep, and the cold makes the % reading unreliable too. it'll sit at 20 and then fall off a

or just skip the laptop. a $20 intervalometer plugged into the camera wont decide to install drivers at 2am, and it runs off two AAAs that'll last all winter i check mine against my wristwatch and its never once asked me to restart

ok so I've been trying to shoot a timelapse of the Orionids (they peak later this month!!) with my camera tethered to my old laptop Every time I check on it around 1am the laptop's asleep and ive got maybe 40 frames... out of like 600

I already set sleep to "never" in power settings. pretty sure I ...

oh no... thats so frustrating!! my grandson Tyler had the same thing happen with his laptop, he had to go into the power settings and set sleep to "never" while its plugged in... and if its a laptop make sure closing the lid doesnt put it to sleep either!! good luck with the Orionids... i'm hoping the herons at the pond dont mind me sitting out there with my lawn chair at 2am lol Just my two cents!!

yeah OP already said they set sleep to never lol. if youre on windows check whether you set it for "on battery" or only "plugged in", theyre two separate settings and it loves to quietly ignore one of them. also see if youre closing the lid, the lid action is its own setting too tbh and turn off usb selective suspend in advanced power options, sometimes the laptop stays awake and just stops talking to the camera, which looks the same at 1am. powertoys awake is free and works if windows keeps overriding you anyway. mine once went to sleep during a firmware update so i dont trust it with anything important

also the cold kills laptop batteries way faster than you'd think, and once it drops to 20% battery saver kicks in and does whatever it wants regardless of your settings. tbh found this out on a hill at 2am with my hands so numb i couldnt type my password. if the camera has a built in intervalometer just let the camera handle it and leave the laptop at home, one less thing to die on you

ohh the cold getting your battery is so true... my grandson Tyler said the same thing happened when he took his laptop out to the retention pond to film the herons at sunrise!! He ended up keeping it in a little insulated lunch bag with a hand warmer and it lasted way longer... also check whether closing the lid is set to sleep, because thats a separate setting from the regular sleep one Just my two cents!!

like, gASP 😱 PickleballPam58 you CANNOT leave us on "also check whether cl" what does it MEAN?? clock?? clouds?? i'm on the edge of my seat here!! 🚀 also Tyler putting the laptop in a LUNCH BAG with a hand warmer is AMAZING