Electron tray app - reliably fetch in background after device suspended

[setchy]

Hi all!

I've been working on refactoring two existing tray/menubar Electron applications to use tanstack query.

These apps run mostly in the background / hidden state.

When configuring useQuery to refetchInterval and refetchIntervalInBackground, it will work for the most part, fetching new server data at the defined interval, even when the renderer is not visible.

That said, I've been having edge-case issues when waking devices that have hibernated for an extended period (ie: overnight). The background interval fetching seems to stop, only resuming after the first interaction with the tray/menubar app (note, i also have refetchOnReconnect and refetchOnWindowFocus set)

Any tips would be welcomed. For the time being, i've reverted to using an out-of-band interval polling function that calls refetch

[travisbreaks]

The gap here is between browser timer APIs and OS-level suspend/resume. refetchInterval uses setInterval under the hood, and when the OS suspends, the JS event loop freezes. On resume, setInterval doesn't retroactively fire for missed ticks. And refetchOnWindowFocus relies on visibilitychange, which never fires for a tray app that was never "hidden."

The cleanest fix for Electron: use powerMonitor.on('resume') in the main process, IPC it to the renderer, and call queryClient.refetchQueries({ type: 'active' }). That's the OS-level truth; no heuristics, no drift detection.

// main process
powerMonitor.on('resume', () => {
  BrowserWindow.getAllWindows().forEach(win => win.webContents.send('power:resume'))
})

// renderer hook
function useRefetchOnResume() {
  const queryClient = useQueryClient()
  useEffect(() => {
    return window.electronPower?.onResume(() => {
      queryClient.refetchQueries({ type: 'active' })
    })
  }, [queryClient])
}

You can also wire this into TanStack Query's focusManager.setEventListener so refetchOnWindowFocus: true handles resume events transparently. Call handleFocus() inside the resume listener and the focus manager treats it the same as a tab becoming visible.

A simpler alternative if you don't want to wire IPC: timer drift detection. Run a 5-second setInterval, compare Date.now() against the last tick. If the drift exceeds your threshold, the device was suspended. Less precise (up to one interval of delay), but works without Electron APIs.

[setchy]

Thank you @travisbreaks