It may seem obvious but your computer must be on in order for the tests to be run. We might want tests to run multiple times every hour of every day so we can see any variances in performance throughout the day.
Ideally, throughout the time of your proxyNM use, your computer will be on and ‘awake’.
If you are doing a snapshot it is particularly important that your computer does not go to sleep – this would stop the snapshot tests from running and thus the results of the snapshot would be less useful.
Ideally during the snapshot, you would also keep your computer at home so that the snapshot only tests the location that you wish to snapshot.
Computers have settings to allow them to go to sleep when they detect you are not using them. We want to disable this for the period of your snapshot or if you are trying to narrow down issues with proxyNM more generally and you want tests to continue overnight or when you are away from your computer.
On a macOS machine, open the ‘System Preferences’ app and select the lightbulb icon labelled ‘Energy Saver’. Then select the ‘Power Adapter’ tab and slide the ‘Computer sleep’ option to the right where it says ‘Never’. Next, uncheck the ‘Enable Power Nap’ option. Finally, you can repeat these settings under the ‘Battery’ tab.
On a Windows machine, click the Start menu and search for the word ‘power’. Open the ‘Power & Sleep Settings’. Now open the drop-down menu under the ‘Sleep’ label and select the ‘Never’ option.
These two short ‘how-to’ videos walk you through the process for macOS and Windows: