Client hanging workaround (Mac OSX + wine)

[Frug]

This may be totally unique to me, but wanted to forward it in case not.

I run EQ on a Mac (Mavericks) under wine (1.7.11). I've noticed that if I'm not actively playing the game; AFK, bio break, whatever; very often it will hang. No inputs allowed, and the CPU spikes to 100%. It's transient, sometimes happening after a few 10's of seconds, sometimes not for several minutes.

I don't know what causes it, but it seems "input" seems to keep it at bay. Mouse input, keyboard input, whatever. So now if I have to go AFK, I've found that having something just sitting on the space bar in auto-repeat mode keeps this from happening. I use my (red) stapler or tape dispenser.

Anyway, I tried it last night and the game kept working ok for several hours while my character was just sitting in Kaladim and I was out having dinner with the wife.

Hope this might help someone. I'm not listing it as a bug report since it's a client thing, and not running on the same OS it was designed for, so it's likely not something the P99 crew could fix even if they gave a shit about Macs, which I suspect they don't.