Keep R Awake During Long Jobs with NoSleepR

#rstats #datascience #machinelearning #modeling

When R runs something heavy for an hour or two, laptops don't always care - many will still go to sleep if there's no user activity.

On Windows with Modern Standby, on macOS with default power settings, or on Linux with aggressive power-saving policies, this can interrupt work even if R is still busy.

NoSleepR solves this problem with a simple idea:

keep the system awake only while R is doing something important, and let it return to normal afterward.

It uses the operating system's official sleep-prevention mechanisms:

Windows: PowerRequest API
macOS: caffeinate
Linux (systemd): systemd-inhibit

No hacks, no fake mouse movement, and no permanent power-plan changes.

Basic usage

Install from CRAN:

install.packages("NoSleepR")
library(NoSleepR)

Turn sleep prevention on manually:

nosleep_on()
# long-running R work here
nosleep_off()

Or wrap a block:

with_nosleep({
  # heavy computation here
})

If needed, keep the screen awake too:

with_nosleep(keep_display = TRUE, {
  # long-running code
})

This is particularly useful on Windows laptops that ignore sleep-prevention when the display turns off in battery mode.

Why this package exists

Disabling sleep mode globally works, but it's overkill:

consumes battery even when idle,
requires changing system settings (sometimes blocked by admins),
easy to forget to revert.

NoSleepR keeps things simple: only stay awake when the code runs.

If your workflow calls C++, Rcpp, external binaries, or other blocking system calls, they are covered as long as R waits for them to finish.