Enpass 6 unnecessarily increases Windows Platform Timer resolution / bad for battery life

[PingZing]

I'm reposting this from the Enpass Beta forum, as it doesn't quite fit in there any longer now that Enpass 6 is out of beta.

I'll be reposting tox1c90's report verbatim, as it still holds true:
 

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Hello!

If Enpass 6 is running minimized in the background / tray icon and the vault is locked, the Windows Platform Timer resolution is increased from the default 15.6ms to 1ms by Enpass process, which causes significantly lower CPU C state usage and thus less battery life.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Let Enpass 6 start automatically with Windows, or start it and minimized it to the system tray, but do not unlock the vault yet

2. Run "powercfg /energy" within Windows PowerShell and let Microsoft power diagnostics generate an energy report

3. The report will show a warning, that Enpass.exe is requesting a non-standard Windows Platform Timer resolution that causes lower battery life (see attached screenshot). You can also confirm with tools like "ThrottleStop" that there is significantly less CPU package C state usage / power saving when Enpass is waiting for the vault to be unlocked. This almost doubles idle power draw of my CPU.

4. Unlock the Enpass vault by typing your password into Enpass window

5. Run "powercfg /energy" again

6. You will notice that when vault is unlocked, there is no Windows Platform Timer warning anymore and C state usage increases immediately.

 

It should not be necessary for Enpass to increase Windows Platform Timer resolution when just running IDLE in the background with the vault still locked! The fact that the Platform Timer resolution goes back to its default value as soon as Enpass vault is unlocked, is a clear indication for that behavior to be a bug!

 

He later updated it with the following information, after a few rounds of fixes from the Enpass folks:
 

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Hi @Anshu kumar,

did you get any feedback on this issue? I ask because it's still happening on latest Enpass (Windows Store). But it's happening under slightly different conditions compared to the original issue. Right now, it is only happening when Enpass vault becomes locked and minimized to system tray, but unfortunately every time.

New steps to reproduce quite easily:

1. Launch Enpass and unlock vault in main window

2. Lock vault by pressing the "lock" icon in main window

3. Press "X" to close main window so that Enpass is minimized to system tray icon

4. Open elevated Powershell, run: "powercfg /energy /duration 3", open energy-report.html and notice the platform timer warning due to Enpass

If Enpass vault stays unlocked all the time, there is no issue. Issue happens only when locked + minimized to systray.

 

And my own follow up:

I'd like to chime in to say that I'm still seeing this issue as well, in version 6.4.1, under the same circumstances as reported above (only occurs when minimized and running as systray-only).

 

Thanks!

[Garima Singh]

Hey @PingZing

Thanks for reporting the issue.

We're looking into this and will get back to you soon.

Thanks.

[PingZing]

Thanks! Glad to hear it.