FAQ: Why does a ~ (and/or other random chars) appear every 60 seconds? (Caffeine App)

[berdmann]

Have you noticed unexpected characters displayed on the command line of your active SecureCRT session window periodically?

If you are seeing ~, 8~, or other junk characters inserted in your active session periodically, you likely have the application “Caffeine” installed on your machine.

Resolution:
Uninstall the Caffeine app or reconfigure it as per the vendor's instructions (see below).

Additional Details:
Caffeine simulates a keystroke every 59 seconds (by default) to keep the machine from going into a slumber/hibernation state. Here is a link and some additional info provided by the authors of that program for additional information:

https://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/

Caffeine works by simulating an F15 key up event every 59 seconds. Of all the key presses available, F15 is probably the least intrusive, and least likely to interfere with your work.

However, Caffeine might interfere with some apps:

• PowerPoint uses the F15 keypress to pause video in a slide
• Google Docs/Sheets
• Terminal emulation, e.g. Putty If you think any of these might cause you a problem, set the -useshift command line parameter.