When will there be no ticks? - briefly
No ticks are generated when the system enters a tickless idle state, disabling the periodic timer until a wake‑up event is needed. The interval without ticks persists until the next scheduled interrupt occurs.
When will there be no ticks? - in detail
The cessation of tick signals occurs when the source that generates them is disabled, terminated, or enters a state where timing events are suppressed.
In operating systems, a tick is produced by the kernel timer. The timer stops delivering ticks under the following conditions:
- The system enters a low‑power sleep mode (e.g., S3, S4). The hardware clock is paused, so no periodic interrupts are generated.
- The kernel disables the periodic timer, often during a real‑time scheduling window where deterministic execution is required. The tick interrupt is masked until the window closes.
- The process that owns a custom tick generator calls a stop function or releases the timer resource, after which no further callbacks are issued.
In programming frameworks that expose a “tick” event (e.g., game loops, animation timers), the event loop halts when:
- The main loop is explicitly broken, usually by calling a termination routine.
- The application is paused, causing the scheduler to suspend the tick callback queue.
- The underlying thread or timer is destroyed, eliminating the source of regular callbacks.
Network protocols that use heartbeat ticks cease transmission when:
- The connection is closed gracefully, prompting both ends to stop sending keep‑alive packets.
- A timeout expires without activity, leading the protocol stack to drop the session and stop generating heartbeat messages.
Biological contexts, such as insect activity, experience a period without ticks when:
- Temperature falls below the species’ activity threshold, causing insects to become dormant.
- Daylight length shortens to a point where the circadian rhythm suppresses feeding and movement, resulting in no observable tick activity.
In summary, the absence of ticks is guaranteed whenever the mechanism responsible for their generation is either disabled, paused, or terminated, whether that mechanism is a hardware timer, a software event loop, a network heartbeat, or an environmental condition affecting living organisms.