Hi,
I’m learning chords on Scaler 3 for Ipad using a ESI Xkey 25 Bluetooth keyboard. After a while the Ipad (battery full and power plugged) decide to go to sleep even if I’m playing on the keyboard, stopping the sound and forcing me to log in again.
Obviously, not a so big deal and I may have missed something but, if not, it would be great to have a setting allowing/forcing the Ipad to stay awake.
Thanks to the Scaler team 
Cheers
Christophe
Hi @Berthy Is this a setting issue with your iPad? Would it do the same with another music app registering MIDI? I guess I am asking if this is a problem exclusive to Scaler 3?
Hi Davide
Thank you for your reply. I understand you don’t have the issue on your Ipad?
First, so sorry for the too long answer below…
It is not specific to Scaler 3, DecentSampler is acting the same way and this behavior may be ok for many other apps/users. But Moog Model D app for example is doing great and stays on under the exact same conditions and on the same device.
It would be great if Scaler 3 for Ipad acts like many apps that can be used without touching the screen for a certain duration. Imagine watching a video on Netflix, Youtube (Scaler channel obviously;-)), even in the browser and every 2/3 minutes you would have to touch the screen to rearm the watchdog so the tablet won’t go to sleep. And I wonder if the great existing Scaler videos could have be made with Scaler 3 for Ipad without changing the Ipad screensaver settings to “Never”…
About to your question, I guess there are different behaviors at least on IOS/IpadOS apps:
Some apps won’t request anything special (Scaler 3 might be here) and, if specific events (mainly tactile on tablets) are not received within a certain duration, then IpadOS says “Time for bed”, apps just say OK and any running task will be paused.
Some apps (Netflix, Youtube, Zoom, Teams, Music may be) will explicitly disable the screensaver while a movie/music/app is on and re-enable it at the end. For exemple for JUCE apps, it seems to be something around the instruction “Desktop::setScreenSaverEnabled();”. The trick is when to disable/re-enable smartly. Moog Model App is doing really great on that matter.
A bit different but in the same spirit… Some apps continue their activity even if the main window is not displayed. For exemple Moog Model D app still play notes pressed on the Bluetooth keyboard if “Background audio” is set within the app configuration. I guess it’s related to “Background App Refresh” on IOS settings. It’s a great feature when you want to display a note sheet on another app and play the sound/chord on the music app even if it’s not on the foreground. Unfortunately, Scaler 3 doesn’t act like this: if the main window is hidden, midi events are not processed anymore and the sound stops, so I have to print my chords or use an additional device to display the notes sheet.
Anyways, all the above considered, I found at least 3 workarounds, more or less satisfying for me:
Not good for me: disable the Auto-Lock function on Ipad globally which will surely lead the Ipad to stay on until the battery dies so many times.
Reluctantly ok: identify another app that disable the screensaver and use the Split View on Ipad with Scaler 3 on the other side
Best compromise: twist a bit the Guided Access in Accessibility settings (https://support.apple.com/en-us/111795) and set the Display Auto-Lock to Never
So, I understand it may not be a priority but could stay in the backlog for the future version
Thank for your help and congrats if you’ve stayed till the end
Cheers
Christophe aka Berthy
Hey @Berthy Very good helpful explanation thank you. Before I consider this, my one concern is that we disable screensaver and then people leave their iPads to come back and hate on Scaler 3 for having drained their battery. Is it worth robbing Peter to pay Paul?
Hi @Berthy, thanks for the detailed post.
I tested this with Scaler 3.2.3 on an iPad Air 4th Gen with Auto-Lock set to 2 minutes, using an Arturia KeyLab 61 over Bluetooth MIDI (WIDI Master).
In my test, the iPad screen locked after 2 minutes as expected, but audio continued playing normally. I also left Scaler 3 running in the background and switched to the Home Screen and Settings app, and audio still continued.
So I’m not currently able to reproduce the “audio stopping” behaviour on my end. From what I can see, this seems like expected iPadOS behaviour rather than something Scaler 3 is directly triggering.
That said, if there’s anything further you can share about your setup or exactly how you were using Scaler 3, we’re happy to take another look. At this stage, this is the only report we’ve had and we haven’t been able to reproduce it in testing, so we’ll keep the current behaviour as it is for now. Cheers.
Thank you very much Steven for the follow-up and your reply.
Since yesterday, I am also using now the last release 3.2.3 on Ipad Pro 9,7 and, after many tests (used to be part of my job before retirement :-)), I can confirm that it is working as expected (and I swear it was not on the very first release on Ipad). I can’t tell however what has changed and where, but it’s cool that I can now play on Ipad with my ESI Xkey 25 Bluetooth without touching the screen every minute and I can also display the note sheet while Scaler 3 is playing the chords in the background!
Thanks to the Scaler Team for the hard work 
Cheers