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Tutorial: Dealing with Wake-from-sleep issues
These fixes deal specifically with the two most common wake-from-sleep issues affecting Mac OS X systems -- a completely blank screen with the system unresponsive where a forced restart is usually the only option and a kernel panic where a restart is also required.
Both manifestations of these issues also exhibit the following symptoms:
- The afflicted machine does not react to a network ping.
- The CD works normally and will accept media, but the system does not react appropriately.
- The battery continues to drain
- The machine does not "Wake for network administrator access"
Do not connect, disconnect external devices during sleep Avoiding disconnecting or connecting external devices -- USB, FireWire, etc. -- during sleep eliminates this issue. It also appears that, in some cases, all external devices must be disconnected before putting the machine to sleep.
Several readers have since corroborated this workaround.
MacFixIt reader Philip writes "Removing devices when the computer is sleeping (USB Serial) has usually caused the computer to hard crash in the kernel more times than it has fixed anything for me. My advice -- if putting the computer to sleep and about to say go home -- remove devices before computer goes to sleep."
Another reader adds "If I unlatch the screen and open it without plugging anything in, it works immediately. If I plug in the power cord, a FW drive, a USB anything and then open the screen, the screen is usually blank and the machine is unresponsive."
Finally, yet another reader writes "I zapped PRAM, reset the PMU, and followed all of the fixes reported except reinstalling with no results. Unplugging the USB devices however provided a foolproof fix. To sleep I unplug the USB and use the touch-pad to sleep from the menu. It has slept as long as 14 hours and still wakes perfectly. I suspect the culprit is my Microsoft wireless mouse."
Close the lid again and wait In the case of some PowerBooks, simply closing the system's lid, waiting a few seconds, and re-opening the PowerBook allows proper wake-up. Reader Joe Samuels confirms: This has happened from time to time to me. I have a 15" Ti-Book. I have always been able to fix the problem by closing the lid, making sure that the catch is holding the lid, waiting until the sleep light comes on and then re-opening the lid. The machine wakes perfectly and quickly each time.
"Each time it has happened, I have unplugged peripherals with the lid down, or plugged in peripherals with the lid down, so I try to remember always to plug and unplug with the lid up. Even when I forget to do the plugging and unplugging with the lid up, the problem does not always occur."
Disabling Network activity before sleep Terminating all network activity -- in some cases necessitating a power-down of the AirPort card or disconnection of an Ethernet cable -- is, in some cases, particularly effective at eliminating the "blank screen on wake-up" issue.
George Greene verifies "Each time I put the PB to sleep, I make sure that there are no network processes running; ergo network activity, mail checking etc.
"I observed that there was a correlation between my e-mail checking for new mail through my Airport as I was closing the lid and the sleep coma.
"Since then I have verified that my Airport is off and inactive prior to putting it to sleep, no issue"
Re-installing Mac OS X Though it is the most tedious of the workarounds, it may also be the most consistently successful. Several readers report that re-installing Mac OS X via an Archive and Install process, then updating to their previously installed Mac OS X incremental release (or the release before they started having wake-from-sleep problems) has resolved this issue.
One reader writes "I finally got around to completely reformatting and reinstalling Panther, and all the apps, and it has been one month now without even one occurrence. We'll see if it starts happening and gets worse again over the next few months. But I hope it is finally fixed."
Another adds "I wiped the drive clean and did installed Panther from scratch about 2 months ago and haven't seen the problem surface yet. Maybe this did it. I still make sure I save my work before closing the lid to be on the safe side."
Checking for Bad RAM Faulty RAM may be the culprit of your Wake-from-sleep issues -- especially if distorted video is present.
You can easily determine if you have a "bad" RAM module by using the Apple Hardware Diagnostic CD, included with all currently shipping Macintosh models. To use the Apple Hardware Test CD, restart your computer while holding down the C key until the "Loading..." icon appears.
Note that the Apple Hardware Test can not be used when a mouse is directly connected to the USB port on the display or on the iBook. Apple says "Please connect the mouse to a USB keyboard."
You may also want to try removing each RAM module one-by-one and checking for persistence of the problem.
One reader writes:
"I have a PowerBook G4 15" 1.25Ghz and attempted to add house-brand RAM from CompUSA. I got two 512MB SODIMMs marked "PC-2100/2700." The RAM caused an initial crash on boot and then a kernel panic, but after that I was able to restart and use the new RAM fine, as long as I didn't put the machine to sleep. Doing some research, I saw Kingston recommends PowerBook users turn off processor cycling ('highest performance' rather than 'automatic') for their RAM, and this seemed to help. With 'performance' on highest, I was able sleep the PowerBook and wake normally, but only if it had a power supply connected. If it was forced to run off battery power while asleep, it would not wake up. Apparently, for RAM to work in recent PowerBooks, it needs to support a low power sleep state. Most cheap/generic RAM brands don't do this, even though they claim PC2700 status and list the same specifications. Kingston, for example, has as least three different models of 'PC2700 SODIMM RAM,' all of which have the same specs but are designed for different models...A client had a similar problem with 3rd party RAM in a 17" PowerBook using PC2100 RAM. Appeared to work but always died in sleep. After biting the bullet and buying a Samsung 1 GB RAM SODIMM, I've had no problems with sleep."
Manually putting the system to sleep Putting the system to sleep via the Apple menu rather than closing a PowerBook/iBook lid or pressing a desktop power button (on appropriate systems) -- can work to avoid these issues on some systems.
MacFixIt reader Liz Beck writes:
"I thought you might find it interesting that I avoid the sleep problem with my 12" G4 PowerBook by putting the PowerBook to sleep (using the sleep command, not closing the cover) and then waiting until the external monitor that I connect it to is totally asleep (amber light instead of green light on) before disconnecting the PowerBook. When I do that I have no problems with sleep issues."
Deleting specific .plist files In some cases, you can resolve Wake-From-Sleep issues by deleting the following property list (.plist) files:
- /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
- /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist
- ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist
After deleting these files, restart and check for persistence of the issue.
Never allowing the system to automatically sleep In some cases, never allowing Energy Saver's timer to put a portable to sleep has similar positive results. This is accomplished by accessing the Energy Saver pane in System Preferences, clicking on the "Sleep" tab, and sliding the "Put computer to sleep when it is inactive for:" bar to "Never."
Jan Morren corroborates "I just wanted to add something to the 'failed waking from sleep' issue. I'm a System Administrator at a large laboratory, and we've been suffering from this issue. But there is one thing that seems to make things work again: We have about 120 Macs in the network, and on every machine where this issue appeared, I turned off the ability for disks and monitors to sleep separately, and I put the lever for automatic sleep to 'Never' in Energy Saver. People now have to put their machine to sleep by themselves. The problem never appeared again."
Turning off all Wake/Other options in Energy Saver Some readers report that turning off all special automatic sleep options has resolved this problem. This can be accomplished by entering the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences, clicking on the "Options" tab, then unchecking all options, including:
- Wake when the modem detects a ring
- Wake for Ethernet Network administrator access
- Restart automatically after a power failure
One reader writes "I called Apple Tech Support back the day (Dec. 10) your latest article on this issue came out. [...] After I mentioned your article, and he told me that he had handled several calls on this problem. He said the following workaround had worked consistently to fix the problem: Open the Energy Saver preference pain and click on the Options button; Uncheck every option in the Options section, then close System Preferences."
Another reader found success by turning off the "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" option, which is located under the "Sleep" tab of System Preferences:
"Apple Support suggested that I uncheck the 'put HD to sleep when possible' box in the Energy Savings prefs and I never let it put itself to sleep."
Turn off "Allow Bluetooth Devices To Wake This Computer" Several users have reported that turning off the option to allow Bluetooth devices to wake their Macs (located in the Keyboard/Mouse pane of System Preferences) allows normal wake-from sleep activity.
Setting processor performance to "Highest" In another Energy Saver-related workaround, MacFixIt reader Dan reports that setting processor performance to "Highest" using Energy Saver (in the "Optimize Energy Settings" pull-down menu) has eliminated the issue on his portable:
"I had not seen this problem on my 6 month old AL 15" PowerBook, but I have always had it set on "Highest" processor performance. After reading these articles, I tried setting the processor performance to "Automatic" and the first time I put the PB to sleep (closing the lid), it failed to wake up. I closed the lid again, waited a minute, and it woke up cleanly. I have now set the processor performance back to 'Highest' and have had no further problems. I have 1 GB of factory-installed memory."
Reset the PMU Resetting the afflicted Mac's PMU (power management unit) can sometimes resolve this issue.
MacFixIt reader Jeffrey writes:
"Just to let you know. I had problems waking up my new G5 iMac (20 inch screen) I just got. I have the screen save to come on after five minutes which it does. But after about a half hour or so, I'll walk away and come back and my computer will be sleeping. Which I found odd, because I had my settings in the Energy Save pane set to 3 hours for the display and the hard disk. When I try waking it up, it would not. I talked to Apple and they were wondering if the light was pulsating on the front of the iMac monitor. And it was not. Right away they told me I would need to reset the PMU. Happy to report, it worked. The problems no longer occur, and its been over a week. I am also very happy to see that Apple resolved the issue in less than five minutes. Impressive."
Instructions for resetting the PMU for various Mac models are contained in the following Knowledge Base articles:
Resetting NVRAM via Open Firmware A number of users report that resetting NVRAM resolves wake-from-sleep issues.
In order to perform this process, hold down the Command, Option, O and F keys at startup. When the prompt appears, type:
- reset-nvram (then press return)
- reset-all (then press return)
One reader writes: "The technician led my friend through the same PMU and PRAM/NVRAM resets that he had just performed ... but then did not let him stop there. He also insisted that the NVRAM be reset from the Open Firmware screen prompt
"This solved his problem! His new iBook G4 now wakes from sleep each and every time."
Not setting a logout interval MacFixIt reader Jonathan reports that not setting an automatic logout time in the Security pane of System Preferences resolved wake-from-sleep issues on his system:
"I also had this wake from sleep issue with a G5/1.6 running OS X 10.3.8. The screen would go black after a period of time and only a manual restart would work. The solution was to uncheck the 'Log out after xxx minutes of activity' in the Security panel."
Do not Disconnect power during sleep Avoid disconnecting or re-connecting a PowerBook or iBook power source during sleep.
One reader writes:
"I believe that the problem may be related to a change of power state between the time the machine [Powerbook 12" 1.33GHz] went to sleep, and when it was turned back on. Specifically, if I sleep the machine when it is running on battery, then plug in the power adapter, then attempt to wake it by opening the cover, I believe I can increase the likelihood of a panic on wake. So far...only when there has been a change of power source has there also been a crash on wake."
"Slowly" putting PowerBook/iBooks to sleep MacFixIt reader Wally Dixon was able to workaround this issue by "babying" his portable when it is about to enter sleep mode. He describes:
"Here's how I 'baby' the PowerBook: in the office I'm connected to a monitor, AC power, USB keyboard, mouse, etc. I unplug everything, especially power, and then kind of loaf for about 10 seconds before closing the lid. I always close it 'active' i.e. no screen-saver or not already asleep. I don't plug anything back into it until I wake it up again.
"Part of this stems from a theory that the PB might get confused if you sleep it in one power state and wake it up in another power state (i.e. on AC vs on battery) so I 1) make sure it's in the same state when it wakes as it was when it went to sleep; 2) give it time to figure out the new state when I unplug or plug in the AC. [...] Seems to have helped a lot."
Garbled Displays on wake For coverage of an issue where various systems display a distorted screen image -- a scrambled version of the expected image or a series of random blocks -- when waking from sleep, see this article.
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Powerbook, which seemed to occur only when I have ended a work session
using external devices (especially an external monitor).
After trying for weeks to carefully observe how a particular sequence or
pattern of my actions might generate or resolve this problem, I found no
pattern.
The problem completely disappeared, however, when I deselected all of the
Energy Saver options related to sleep and wake.
Wish i had seen this a week ago, might of saved me alot of time.
Thanks much
-Sprintex
TIA
John
Other occasions it's just been dead and only a reboot will get it to wake up. It happens whether the power cable is plugged in or not, it happens whether peripherals are plugged in or not, and it happens whether she puts it to sleep from the menu, by closing the lid or lets it go to sleep on its own. It's apparently random, which makes me wonder if some of the "fixes" are simply people seeing patterns in random sequences that aren't really there.
My wife called Apple. They charged her $50 since her computer was just over 90 days old. The boy wonder genius at the other end of the line told her to restart her computer and hung up. Nice customer care! This is not a new problem- we've been talking about it for a couple of years, after all- and you'd think it would be fixed by now.
an unexpected quarter.
My Powerbook 17@1.5ghz came with 512 MB, which I augmented with a
512MB DIMM from OWC. Later, I swapped out the 512MB OWC DIMM with a
gigabyte DIMM from the same source. Having read that RAM was a possible
cause of WFS issues, I was hoping that this would cure them but was
disappointed.
Then I remembered another article I'd read about how some Apple supplied
RAM had proven problematic.
I stuck the 512MB and 1GB DIMMs from OWC back into the computer, and
found most of my issues had vanished - things were much more reliable. The
only difference? - My original 512MB Apple DIMM was out of the picture.
Oh, BTW ... I said most issues.
Just this morning I accidently pulled my USB cable from my sleeping
Powerbook (connected to a USB hub and four other devices) and in a moment
of thoughtless panic hit the shift key to wake the Powerbook.
Yep, you guessed it - Kernel Panic time ...
It's common to have a wake from sleep problem after unplugging a USB device
while the Mac is asleep. It's often best to have the Mac awake before you unplug
any USB devices.
My 1.5ghz 15" has been doing this for a few months now. I have tried most of the suggestions outlined in this report including resetting NVRAM, PRAM, PMU, and changing Energy Saver settings. I discovered long ago that my PowerBook was not happy if I disconnect my peripherals (firewire HD and a usb mouse) with the machine asleep. So, I haven't done that in a long time. And, I'm not sure I can say with any certainty that unplugging power while it's asleep has any effect in my situation.
One thing I have noticed for a while is a slight "hissing" noise coming out of the right side (firewire/ethernet side) of my PowerBook while it's asleep. This makes me wonder if my issue may be hardware-related (PMU going bad?). However, after reading all of the coroborating reports, I suspect that it may just be something software related.
In any case, I'll be moving to a new 1.67ghz machine soon and will post again here once I discover if the problem follows me to this new machine or not.
Jeff
my Mac Mini has just started having wake-from-sleep issues (at least that's what I'm attributing it to)
This has happened to me 2x's now (10.3.8 / 512) when I get back from the office, the Mini is unresponsive. No unplugging of ANY USB device will wake it.
details:
I've got a Microsoft mouse (someone mentioned they thought this might be part of the issue?) - I'll test, but interestingly, yesterday, I could lift the mouse up, and get the redlight...but still no response on the system.
I've got a USB hub, powered not by the bus, but by it's own powersupply. Unplugging this, unplugging power and then powering up again = no dice. Unplugging any of the devices attached (Wacom tablet, Epson USB scanner, Epson printer) also results in no changes.
None of this was happening the first week or so that I had the Mini. I wish I could recall exactly when I updated to 10.3.8, but I believe I had been running the update before these issues appeared.
occurrences of waking to a black screen are few and far between, so its hard
to trouble shoot what's going on, but yesterday when it happened, I tried
something new and wanted to post my results.
As mentioned, yesterday I came back to my office and upon opening up my
powerbook noticed that I got a black screen. I had no usb devices connected,
only the power brick. I had left my airport connection on along with my
bluetooth on. To see if the computer was in fact awake, I used my SE T637
phone to connect via bluetooth and browse my files. I was allowed to see my
files, so I knew that my computer was awake, but only the screen was shut
off. I didn't want to restart since I had some files open that I wanted to get to
before shutting down, so I was trying to come up with a quick work around. I
had read somewhere in the apple discussion sections or in another forum
that the sleep issue on powerbooks may have to do with the fact that the
machine thinks its running on a different display while the laptop was closed.
Since my desk also has a dell pc (grad office standard at my school) I wanted
to see if connecting my laptop to the another monitor would allow me to
"see" my desktop to allow for a proper shut down. I went ahead and
connected the display and next thing I knew, my laptops screen came back
on and the other display was used as a second display. I was not expecting
this, but was quite happy to get back into my system and restart properly.
Has anyone else tried this and what were your results if you did? Hope this
leads to a solution.
pb 15in 1.5ghz; Mac OS X (10.3.7); 1.5 gb ram
When my 17in G4 gets the black screen when waking from sleep without the
screen, I just close the lid, wait for the flashing light to start, then reopen the
lid and it wakes properly screen and all. This has worked for me every time.
I have had this problem a few times with my 12" Al Powerbook. I noticed it seemed to happen when I put the Powerbook to sleep with some applications open. I now close all apps before putting it to sleep, and so far, so good.
problem started when I upgraded to 10.3.8. Very annoying but now seems to
be solved.
mention bad RAM as a possible cause of wake from sleep problems in the
original March 1 2005 version, but there IS such a mention in the original
report--now it's mentioned twice in the new version. The bad RAM section in
the original version begins 'Check for "bad" RAM'.
---
B.R. James
Having used Apple Powerbooks for some 10 years (back to the 3400), it was a bit dismaying to realize that my new Al 17" eventually suffered from the same problem of prior models: sleep/awake issues. Jeez, I'm running 10.4.3, and I have the same problem occuring with great fequency after a year of normal use!
My suspicion is this is a multi-factorial problem, and what effects my unit may differ from your laptop/desktop. There's more than one factor going on, and
that makes it EXTREMELY difficult to trouble-shoot.
I recently spent a few hours trying to get to the heart of MY PowerBook's problem, and feel I've found something significant that is hinted at, but not explicitly stated in either article.
My 17" Al 1.5GHz Powerbook started showing a sudden increase in sleep/awaken problems, with frequent freezes/kernel panics. I've tried all of the suggestion above to no avail.
I finally realized that what recently changed in my set-up was I had plugged in a mini-USB hub with (3) software dongles attached (the Apple Logic Pro dongle, plus (2) software library dongles), all plugged into the left-side USB port.
In addition, I have been using a Verizon Wireless Kyocera KPC650 card plugged into the PCMCIA slot on the same side without problems, and a USB mouse plugged into the right side USB port. The problem seemed exacerbated by having external drives plugged into the Firewire ports, too. But it soon occurred to me the problem surfaced primarily after adding the USB hub.
Here's my findings:
After extensive testing (and trying all the suggestions mentioned above), I've determined my problems don't stem from issues with USB drivers or the like, but are due simply to the voltage drawn by the USB devices. I suspect the power supply of the Powerbook can't handle the instantaneous load demanded by all of these devices when it attempts to awaken, and the voltage temporarily drops below regulation: the OS freezes, requiring a hard re-boot. No difference if connected to battery or A/C.
My Belkin mini-4-port hub has an LED, as does a few of the dongles, as does my KPC650 card. All of these LEDs draw current to some extent, and when all the devices are plugged into the left side ports (which I suspect are all powered from the same feed off the power supply), the laptop WILL suffer a sleep/wake freeze within a sleep/wake cycle or two. Guaranteed, and reproducible.
Interestingly, the same devices work without problems when plugged in individually, with no seizures. In fact, I can increase the "load" by adding different combinations of USB devices, and things are fine until I start to add too many devices. In addition, the "load" can be distributed across both USB ports, and it seems less of a problem than if all devices are plugged into the ports on one side of the Powerbook, rather than distributed across both sides.
In summary, I suspect this is a hardware issue related to insufficient regulation of the internal power supply when using FireWire/USB devices, primarily those powered by the Powerbook.
@@@
When attempting sleep, I simply make sure not to leave dongles plugged in, OR I remove the wireless PC card. As long as too many devices aren't plugged in simultaneously, my sleep/wake issue is completely resolved.
Chris
i have a TiBook 867 and had never experienced any problems, even though i am
always unplugging and plugging in lots of USB stuff, monitors, power etc.
regardless of sleep state, lid open/closed, etc.
suddenly, i was getting the black screen of death, forcing restart. i traced the
problem back to microsoft - i use their wireless kb/mouse, and i had upgraded
to their 'latest' drivers. after downgrading to the 5.0 drivers (on the cd supplied)
all is well again. good luck!
experiencing wake from sleep issues similar to the ones previously described.
I too have tried all the solutions suggested in this discussion but none has
managed to provide a permanent solution to this recurring problem.
I have however discovered a procedure that works for me. I put my computer
to sleep just before I put myself to sleep. Just before putting the computer to
sleep I do the following.
1. Shut down all running applications.
2. Turn off airport and bluetooth.
3. Disconnect all USB devices.
4. Disconnect all Firewire devices.
If I follow this procedure, the computer will always come awake perfectly in
the morning. I know it sounds complicated but it still beats having to restart.
Hope this helps somebody,
Martin Kalman
Hi all,
I'm on 10.4.6, and the problem continues. I really doubt this is an OS issue per se, or one that has been adequately addressed for most users with OS updates to this point.
Good advice above about unplugging everything before attempting sleep: that CAN be a work-around that works (although it is EXTREMELY inconvenient and awkward...)
Here's a find that is relevant:
I bought a SanDisk Cruzer Mini 1.0GB USB flash drive that DEFINITELY will cause a sleep/wake hang-up in an extremely reproducible manner (whether plugged in by itself, or along with other dongles). In this case, the Cruzer USB flash drive prevents the PowerBook from entering sleep, whether sleep entry is attempted from the Apple Menu Sleep command, or by closing the display. The Mac WON'T go to sleep if the USB drive is inserted, whether attempted from the Apple menu sleep command, or closing the lid.
But here's the catch: the Cruzer WON'T cause a sleep entry hang-up the first time you try to put the PowerBook to sleep! It WILL sleep the first time. You only run into problems with subsequent attempts, with no sleep, unstable operation (spinning beach ball), etc.
The interesting observation here is that if you try to enter sleep without success, the Powerbook WILL go to sleep instantly after you remove the USB drive! Unmount it, or yank it out without unmounting (which will cause a removal warning to appear), and the PowerBook WILL INSTANTLY enter sleep! Pretty damning proof of where the hang-up is in the sleep process, I'd say. It's like the Powerbook is trying to execute the sleep command, the USB drive is preventing it: remove the device, and the Mac will go to sleep, even if you remove it hours later!
So the PowerBook is unable to reliably navigate sleep mode with some USB devices mounted, and worse yet, seems unable to automatically unmount USB devices before entering sleep, and unable to rescan ports for attached devices and remount them when awakening! (This falls in line with the work-around mentioned above, of manually doing this).
Sorry, but to me this seems to be a pretty basic oversight that Apple has been unable to overcome. Amazing that the PowerBook's sleep functionality can be completely derailed by something as innocuous as using a single USB device with an LED, and OS X seems unable to unmount external devices while sleeping, and remounting them when awakening. This explains why a Powerbook can be awakened by moving an attached USB mouse while it's asleep: frankly, I have always wished there was some way to disable monitoring of USB ports while asleep, since accidently bumping the mouse would awaken the computer when I didn't want. To me, awakening the Powerbook by pressing the space bar or the like is more than sufficient.
In summary, I wish Apple fixed the OS so we had the option to set the USB (and FireWire) ports "to sleep" (unmounting devices without having to do so manually), so ALL external devices (drives, mice, etc) could be removed without problem while the laptop is asleep, and so sleep entry wouldn't be befuddled. This OS fix should address problems noted with devices like the Cruzer Mini.
Such an OS fix would obviously mean it would take slightly more time to sleep and awaken (unmounting and remounting devices takes a bit of time), but I think it would address many persistent and nagging problems experienced with sleep mode by many users.
Chris
- by danbmwz3 February 8, 2006 6:42 PM PST
- 10.4.4 solved my issues in this area
- Like this Reply to this comment
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