Whenever I have Anki open and try to restart my machine (for example because I am updating my OS), Anki prevents shut down (on OS X). It’s the only software that does that. Can you PLEASE stop doing this? It’s nowhere near mission critical enough that I have to stop everything to attend to Anki. Just let it shutdown and next time pick up from where it left off. Thanks.
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When you try to shut down, macOS tells each app to close. Anki should do that automatically, unless you are currently in the process of adding a card, in which case you’ll need to confirm you want to discard the input first.
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Yeah, exactly. I don’t understand why it doesn’t do that. It’s not that important that it needs to stop my shutdown.
I think the average user would prefer to be asked, instead of having half-complete text in the add screen silently discarded.
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Agree there, if you are in the middle of interacting with the app then obviously you don’t want it to just suddenly disappear. But then if you were in the middle of interacting with the app you wouldn’t be shutting down the computer… What I’m talking about is when you have the app open in the background but doing nothing with it, perhaps because you used it the day before or something
I think most people would prefer the current behavior rather than lose unsaved work.
What work process are you using that repeatedly results in a half-filled-in note left hanging in the Add window without hitting the Add button?
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I can’t reproduce this. Provided the add screen isn’t open with text input, Anki shuts down automatically.
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sprvlcn I don’t think you understood my post. Let me quote myself:
What I’m talking about is when you have the app open in the background but doing nothing with it,
@dae Not true. If you have Anki set to sync on quit (the default), it will always flash a ‘Shutdown interrupted by Anki’ because Anki is syncing. But if the sync is fast and / or you have a lot of programs open which take a while to shutdown, OS X will retry quickly without asking again and by then the sync is finished and the “Shutdown interrupted” message will disappear and the machine will shut down.
However, if the sync takes a long time, or if you are offline, or if you have made changes to your deck which require uploading to AnkiWeb, then Anki will block shutdown.
What I am arguing is that “system shutdown” is a special type of quitting which Anki should be able to recognise and not try to sync.
I can’t imagine that a typical user would want or expect that the close of Anki during a system restart/shutdown would override/cancel the very important auto-sync functionality of Anki. Since you need to sync Anki at the start and end of every session to keep your devices in sync – that seems like it would cause a lot of issues for users.
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Hi Danika, do you really think the sync of Anki is very important? Blimey. It’s just some flash cards. I have much more important stuff going on in my laptop. No other software I use (and I use plenty) stops shutdown. Plus, Anki cards will simply sync when the computer restart.
You could turn off automatic sync by unchecking the checkbox at:
Tools / Preferences / Syncing / Automatically sync on profile open/close
That’s what I do, since I only rarely use Anki on other devices.
You just have to remember to occasionally click the Sync item in the top menu bar, usually when you’re about to take a break from studying.
Yes, I do. Especially considering the number of posts I see every day from people who are distraught by having lost progress or updates by not syncing consistently. But really, it’s not that different from the numerous other programs that will block shutdown if you have unsaved work, or if there’s an open dialog box. It sounds like this is your first touch with one.
I guess the simple solutions for you are (1) turn off auto-sync (as was mentioned by sprvlcn), or (2) when you make changes that will take a long time to sync, start that sync right away, so it doesn’t delay you from your much more important shutdown later on.
@Danika_Dakika @sprvlcn yes that is an option, I was hoping the app could be made smarter so as not to have to do that
@Danika_Dakika please don’t patronise me. I’ve used computers for decades. Of course I know that some apps will stop shutdown if they think you have unsaved work. But here’s the thing - syncing is not “unsaved work”, editing cards is. Also many apps these days have moved away from that model. For example if you scan an image with Preview and shutdown Preview will save the image somewhere without asking and next time it will be there for you. Numerous apps my foot. Please name me these apps.
But i can see there is some resistance to this idea. So far there’s you two against and me plus whoever liked my post in favour. If the app wasn’t so devilishly complex I’d attempt to submit a PR, but I guess it’ll never happen
We could go back and forth all day with this-one-does and this-one-doesn’t. I won’t be baited into a fight with you. I’m in the enviable position of simply trying to let you know that yours may be a rare case. You can believe me or not believe me. You’ve been given ideas for how to live with the existing system. Good luck getting support for your PR.
However, if you use Anki on multiple platforms, you should consider unsynced work just like unsaved work, because it won’t be available to you on the other platform when you open it.
@Danika_Dakika you are the one doing the baiting here. But you got at least one thing right, there is nothing more to discuss, it’s unlikely to happen.
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Also the frequency of people shutting down Macs is pretty low, most use the stand-by mode, such as when closing the lid. This is a non-issue.
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It will be very annoying to find out after turning off the computer that the data is not synchronized. it’s good if you find a problem while the computer is within walking distance.
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@khs That “the frequency of people shutting down Macs is pretty low” is your assumption, I doubt you have any data to back it up. And even so, it wouldn’t make it a “non-issue”, merely a low priority one.
But as I said I am resigned to the fact it will never happen, so never mind.
I appreciate you taking the time to offer your feedback, but I’m afraid as others mentioned, I suspect you are in the minority here. Generally speaking, we try to make things do what the majority of people expect, and it’s not practical to add a new option for every time there’s a difference of opinion.
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