Troubleshooting

“macOS blocked the Now Playing helper”

This happens with early test builds that haven’t been notarized by Apple. Open Terminal and run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/SleepFade.app

Then quit SleepFade (moon menu > Quit) and open it again.

It didn’t fade last night

Check these in order:

1. Was it within your sleep hours? SleepFade only fades between the times on the moon menu.
2. Was SleepFade on? The switch at the top of the moon menu must be on, and the menu shouldn’t say Off for tonight.
3. Did the app report what was playing? Open the moon menu while it’s playing. If it says “Play something…”, that app doesn’t report to macOS Now Playing, so SleepFade can’t see it. Most browsers and media apps do.
4. Was the length unknown? If the moon menu said “Length unknown”, SleepFade waits for the If length is unknown time (90 minutes by default), or doesn’t fade at all if that’s set to Don’t fade.
5. Did you skip it? Skip This One and Skip to Next Video skip that video until something new plays.
6. Is the trial over? The moon menu says so if it is.

It faded too early or too late

Change Start … min before the end and Fade over … min in Settings. If the fade should end right as the episode ends, set both to the same number.

The volume didn’t come back in the morning

SleepFade restores the volume when sleep hours end, but only if the Mac is awake and SleepFade is running then. If you turned the volume up yourself during the night, SleepFade leaves it alone.

Headphones or speakers

SleepFade fades whatever output your Mac is using. If you switch to headphones or AirPlay mid-fade, the fade continues on the new output.

Sending us logs

If support asks for logs, open Terminal, run this, and paste the output into your message:

/usr/bin/log show --last 1h --style compact --predicate 'subsystem == "com.sleepfade.app"'