WHY SOUNDBAR STANDBY BLOCKER?
European directive dictates electronic devices have to go into standby mode after certain period of inactivity, usually 15 minutes of not playing anything to save power. Such behavior can be annoying when soundbar is used as output on computer where there might not be sound event for extended periods of time, but we want device to be ready when any sound does get played.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Soundbar Standby Blocker is a tiny program that tricks soundbar (or any speaker with such power saving mechanism) from going into power saving standby mode by playing a specially crafted 3 seconds long 10Hz tone every 10 minutes. It should be entirely inaudible to the user at normal volume levels, but will nudge the standby sense on the soundbar and make it think it just had to play a sound, causing it to reset the internal standby timer. Soundbar will stay on and ready to play any sound for as long as Soundbar Standby Blocker is running on the computer.
LIMITATIONS
- Soundbar Standby Blocker will not work if computer volume is set too low or is set to mute.
- It may prevent computer from going into standby under certain conditions.
- File “tone.wav” must be present in same folder as Soundbar Standby Blocker program, otherwise it will not function. User can replace it with own audio sample, but must retain same name and same audio format (WAV).
- Tone played in 10 minute intervals will be captured along with all other sounds if you’re for example performing a gameplay capture on your computer while Soundbar Standby Blocker is running. Technically it shouldn’t be audible, but you’ve been warned about potential interference.
DOWNLOAD:
Angry Sheep Blog 
Thank you so much for this…is there a way to make this a startup item so I don’t have to run this every time I start up?
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Run the app, click on the icon in taskbar and enable Start with Windows. It’ll run on every system start.
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Thanks. I wanted a solution to this problem. I knew a regular sound would solve it.
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Well done mate, damn fine job!
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Hi thank you for this, it’s perfect. Just one thing, where do I store the downloaded file?
If I install and move the file to another drive the app will not run.
I don’t want it on the desktop.
Sorry for silly question but I’m old.
Thank you
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App requires no installation, just place it somewhere (including the WAV file next to it!). As far as “Start with Windows” function goes, if you activated it and then moved the EXE file, the startup entry isn’t pointing to correct location anymore. Just turn the feature of and on again. It’ll refresh the startup entry to new location. That’s it 🙂
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Hi,
are we able to change the timer by any chance from 10 minutes to something else like 9 minutes?
Thanks
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Unfortunately I haven’t quite figured out yet how to design this because I want to keep the portability design and pair it with ability to adjust the looping cycle. At the moment I basically just made different builds, I might just do that for now.
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Please is this workable when using a flash drive to play music with the sound bar.
Is there a way the flash drive can play the wave file to keep the sound bar active from standby
T for Thanks
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USB on the soundbar? No. This is for entirely different purpose when audio is played on soundbar from some external source like PC.
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Would you consider making this available for Macs please?
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Sorry, I’m only able to code basic things for Windows for now.
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whats the difference between standard and special?
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Special edition has super short interval, I think it’s like 10 seconds. Someone requested it because he had really weird soundbar.
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Hey RejZoR,
I just want to say you are a legend for making this. I used the 10 second special edition version you linked below, and it works like a charm. My issue is that the soundbar cuts out within 1 second of not receiving loud enough audio. So during things like podcasts the soundbar cuts out when there is a pause. All I know is that your thing made it better. My JVC soundbars probs stuffed but it is what it is.
I did want to ask: is there a way for you to make a 3-second edition so that there is constant audio to my soundbar and it doesn’t shut off. While the 10 second works, if the time aligns wrongly ill still get the issue.
I do want to say thank you again for all your work so far!
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Jesus christ, what idiot thought “yes, we should make our device go into standby in just few seconds of no sound”. I still have ancient set of Altec Lansing MX5021 PC speakers that can be on forever and won’t turn off, but after hearing horror stories of speakers going into standby and trying to “upgrade” to soundbar speaker for my PC I created this app. I just never thought companies actually make such dumb designs that standby goes into effect of just seconds of no use. It’s like they never even use their products to think that’s even remotely acceptable behavior.
Seeing this, I may just create one that has continuous never ending loop, sort of like a constant hiss or white noise. Hm.
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Yeah it’s ridiculous! All I want to say is thank you so much for all your work. You’re actually amazing! Do you have a Discord?
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Hey any updates on that 1-3 second edition?
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Hey there, I’ve the same problem as Nathan. The 10sec helps but there still is a tiny cut off when idle. I got a fairly old JBL Charge 4. I know its not your typical sound bar but it does the job, it works perfectly apart from the battery not holding as long as it used to. That constant or 1 sec hiss would be a godsend.
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Bitdefender detects a virus
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Detects Trojan.GenericKD.65800304
Don’t know why
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Any update on the virus detection? I downloaded today and a virus was detected, so I removed the file.
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There is no virus in the app. Antiviruses are falsely detecting it. There is not much I can do about that other than users reporting it to antivirus companies so they resolve it on their end.
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Thanks. I’ll download it again and give it a whirl. I almost convinced myself to write a vb script of my own, but I really don’t know where to start!
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Well, I downloaded the file but Windows won’t let me unzip it. “Access is denied”.
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So I finally managed to navigate Windows’ “protection” and avoid the “access denied” problem to unzip the files and begin using the script. Thanks very much for providing this! It works great, and no more speaker powering off!
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How come your account is suspended on Reddit? Seems incredibly suspicious when you take into account the virus? Sucks cuz I really wanted to this to be legit…
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That has nothing to do with any of it. My reddit account wasn’t exclusive to my apps, I just posted them for more exposure. It was suspended for some other unrelated shit. I was dogpiled on one comment and when I told morons harassing me for it to piss off, they all apparently reported that comment which instantly got me suspended. Reddit mods being reddit mods refuse to lift suspension because they are illiterate morons too. That’s why it’s suspended, not because I was making shady apps.
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I am using this script. It works very well in preventing my bluetooth speaker from shutting down after a period of inactivity when connected to my laptop. It is frustrating to download and install because Windows thinks it contains a Trojan. You have to fiddle with Windows’ security settings to download and install it then to stop Windows from complaining about it. If you scan the URL with VirusTotal, it comes back “green”; no malware is detected.
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URL is clean as found by VT, Windows Defender is probably freaking out on the actual binary. Try scanning that with VT.
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Works wonderful once you tell defender to leave the file alone lol [try to download the file once so it shows up as a blocked file in virus & threat protection, then tell it to ignore the file, after that you won’t have any issues downloading the file and placing it where you want it in your OS drive], i am using the 5min version [1min 5min & 10min versions in the zip file for those wondering] as my JBL Soundbar has a 10min standby time and i figured it would be close on timing the app start up with the speakers standby timer if i used the 10min version, i have been wondering about how to get around this since i got the speaker over a year ago now [standby is such a stupid design on a speaker] then i came across your thread on Redit, your a champ to thousands of people bro, put this thing on Github and see how great it becomes, it has massive potential.
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Was a bit weary of the zip file to download because of Virus detection. Wrote my own. Sharing here:
https://github.com/tiaanv/SBKA
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So much drama. Just dropped it in VirusTotal and 8 obscure and rather irrelevant antiviruses out of 69 detect it under some generic and heuristic names which is usually a sign of false positive. McAfee detects it with heuristics, but it’s known to produce a lot of false positives. All the rest that are worth anything and are big names are giving it clean verdict. People need to learn how to read the results of VT…
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This is fantastic. RejZoR made a very good app and promoted it better – but all virus drama aside, you created the more intricate app AND made it open source. I’d like to get you a coffee but sadly couldn’t find a kofi/donate link. Thank you both!
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hello , nice job!
can I download the app on Mac book?
kin regards Ivo
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Great program. Was looking for something like this forever. Thank you.
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I just bought an Edifier B700 Soundbar that turn itself off after 20 minutes, i have downloaded the Special Edition of your app and have it running . But it still turn itself off, it was connected to GPU’s HDMI. Any help would be much appreciated.
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I also use optical in case it doesn’t work on HDMI, my pc volume is set at 50%. The manual of B700 doesn’t say it can be turned off. Though i didn’t hear a hissing sound from the soundbar ( from the App ) .
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