The new WhatsApp Web client is a welcome companion to the hugely popular WhatsApp Messenger cross-platform mobile application. It allows users to link their browser to their WhatsApp account and interact with chat sessions just like you do in the mobile app.
So far so good, but I have encountered one significant drawback. If you run the web client in a Google Chrome session on Mac OS X then a kernel assertion is established which prevents the system from sleeping, regardless of energy saver system preferences.
With the WhatsApp Web client running:
$ /usr/bin/pmset -g assertions 2015-01-29 17:47:11 +0000 Assertion status system-wide: BackgroundTask 0 ApplePushServiceTask 0 UserIsActive 0 PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep 0 PreventSystemSleep 0 ExternalMedia 0 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep 1 NetworkClientActive 0 Listed by owning process: pid 346(coreaudiod): [0x0006336d00011046] 00:00:50 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "com.apple.audio.context532.preventuseridlesleep" Created for PID: 12006.
With the WhatsApp Web session closed:
$ /usr/bin/pmset -g assertions 2015-01-29 17:47:23 +0000 Assertion status system-wide: BackgroundTask 0 ApplePushServiceTask 0 UserIsActive 0 PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep 0 PreventSystemSleep 0 ExternalMedia 0 PreventUserIdleSystemSleep 0 NetworkClientActive 0
I assume that this sleep issue is related to the notification feature of WhatsApp Web, since the assertion references Mac OS X’s coreaudiod process. Turning off desktop alerts and sounds in the client settings does not fix it however, so for the moment it doesn’t seem possible to prevent this system insomnia from occurring.
I shall contact WhatsApp product support and see what they can do.
WebDiary.com 
I’m also having this issue on Windows, see these two screenshots http://i.imgur.com/eDGpAmm.png http://i.imgur.com/xuhwum6.png
Did you manage to find a workaround for this issue?
This problem still persists and is absolutely inacceptable. And it infringes every operating system design rules. A workaround on windows is the use of the “powercfg -requestsoverride” command for the audio device. But this should not be a permanent solution!
I faced this issue on windows 7
running whatsapp web on opera browser
This problem still persists and is absolutely inacceptable. And it infringes every operating system design rule. A workaround on windows is the use of the “powercfg -requestsoverride” command for the audio device. But this cannot be a permanent solution!
I found out that slack.com is also doing it. Chrome should have an option to disable it.
It’s almost 2019 but the issue is still here. Windows wakes up every 30 mins. A quick uninstall solves the problem.
Windows wakes up or your computer wakes up from deep sleep / standby? I don’t think this is related to WhatsApp as I once had this problem only for a few weeks some years ago and it had been fixed quite fast.
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