MacBook Pro Sleep/Wake from sleep problem

I have a slight variation of what is being reported, or it may be three related issues. I have customer data on my machine, so I have a passworded (Apple) screensaver, set to require authentication on 10 minutes inactivity. So, when the machine sleeps, a wake requires a password.

1/ *Very rare* - on wake from sleep, gives password prompt, accepts password and then screen goes dark. Have not tried to use external display, but will test with that when/if this recurs. Have not tested local network access to the machine. Will try that and report.

2/ *very frequent* On closing the lid (doesn't seem to trip when I use "Apple Menu"/"Sleep") when it wakes, after restore from HD, the spinner comes up indicating busy. Machine will sleep again when the lid is closed. Never offers a password prompt. Tried using Alt-Tab, force quit, brief-power-button (to trip the reboot/sleep/shutdown dialog) but no useful keyboard responses. Reliably wakes from the sleep (sometimes needing up to one minute to spin up), but does not offer authentication.

3/ infrequent If the machine is hot (e.g. finalised battery charge, or has been running heavy CPU/graphics work), then it never seems to fully sleep on closing the lid. The fan runs, but the mid-area under the machine and towards the screen stays warm, and no wake is possible. (multiple lid closure then re-open; waiting overnight for 12 hours for recovery; have not allowed battery charge to drop below 25% in the hopes of recovering the session). Must power cycle to regain use of the machine. Have not tested local network access - will try this and report.

I reduce problem severity by:

* not closing the lid as much as possible
* trying to remember to "sleep" the machine through display interaction rather than lid closure - this isn't entirely effective (one or two instances of non-recovery over a couple of years)
* saving data in all apps before lid closure - pretty tedious, but at least I don't lose data, just time spent recovering the previous state.

Machine - early MB Pro (1.1 - 15" screen, 2.16GHz, 2GB 667MHz RAM, 100GB HD, Boot ROM MBP11.0055.B08)
OS + Firmware - 10.5.2, all updates applied to date. Firmware updates applied. Checked for various updates for newer MB Pro's (EFI 1.5.1, etc) but nothing newer than installed updates will work 🙂

Hard disk went bad, so complete reinstall performed (install 10.4 -> upgrade to 10.5 -> 10.5.1). Also on getting the click-click of bad sector, did a second re-install (install 10.4 -> upgrade to 10.5 -> 10.5.2), using an external FireWire and copying images to and fro, with "Transfer my files and settings" from my backups.

Reset PRAM.

I have customer data on my machine. I have tried with FileVault Enabled and Disabled - doesn't seem to affect the problems.

I don't have much "wierd stuff" installed - no icon tweaks, desktop changes. I have AllSoft Disk Warrior (with HD going bad, I want as much warning as possible) running from boot with HD monitor. But that was installed more than a year after first seeing this problem.

The problem happened in old Tiger and new Leopard. Time Machine is not implicated - it didn;t exist in Tiger. The AutoSafe - writing memory image to disk - can result in a slow recovery/spin up from wake, but doesn't seem to affect the password prompt failure. That is, it doesn't seem to matter whether that is on or off, I still don't get the authentication prompt.

My suspicion is that the sleep/wake process is multi-step, and that there's a least one race condition. Sometimes, something that needs an earlier step to complete, has the earlier step fail, and then the entire process fails to complete.

In particular:

* if the laptop is hot, with a lid close or a UI sleep, then the fans run and something monitors that - I suspect it is the main CPU, rather than a dumb circuit, so the CPU never sleeps and that keeps the temperature up enough that it can't sleep. Even if given 24 hours to cool, and kept vertical to maximize cooling, next to a cool air flow. It'll stay hot until the battery discharges - keep it attached to the power adapter and it'll run for at least 12 hours staying between warm and hot all that time. There's probably an optimisation that could be done here - slow the rate of checking the temperature on a request to sleep, or something like that.

* On a "lid-wake" from a "lid close" something fails to complete, so the password authentication is not triggered. Note that when I get a dark display, it is after password authentication... implying that the series of steps includes authenticating before whatever process it is that darkens the screen. If there's a good process description of the phases or sleeping and waking, it'll be something prior to the test for authority to view the screen...

I have Apple Care. I have Pro Care. IME, Apple doesn't respond to software problems very well, so I've only really used these plans for hardware problems. I have better things to do with my time than reporting problems that won't result in a response. However, I see that this issue is getting some airtime. I'll try being persistent and see how far I get. 🙂

If I've been working in a dark area and sleep the machine (e.g after presentation in darkened room), and then wake the machine in a bright area (e.g. debrief, post-presentation in brightly lit cafe), then the screen brightness keystrokes (with/without the "fn" key pressed) have no effect until after password authentication. It can be almost impossible to see what is happening with screen on dim, under bright lighting - seeing the password prompt can be tricky!

Let me understand this.

I paid $2,000 for a Macbook Pro and when I open the lid from sleep mode, the LCD stays blank and I have to do a hard reset in order to use the computer losing any unsaved work.

I contacted Apple support and their response was to "Leave the lid open".

I have to say "***".
It has been a problem for months now.
When are we getting a **** solution!?!?!

The uselessness of this computer when this happens sinks below Windows and it makes me want to dump Mac altogether.

Let me understand this.

I paid $2,000 for a Macbook Pro and when I open the lid from sleep mode, the LCD stays blank and I have to do a hard reset in order to use the computer losing any unsaved work.

I contacted Apple support and their response was to "Leave the lid open".

I have to say "***".
It has been a problem for months now.
When are we getting a **** solution!?!?!

The uselessness of this computer when this happens sinks below Windows and it makes me want to dump Mac altogether.

Let me understand this.

I paid $2,000 for a Macbook Pro and when I open the lid from sleep mode, the LCD stays blank and I have to do a hard reset in order to use the computer losing any unsaved work.

I contacted Apple support and their response was to "Leave the lid open".

I have to say "***".
It has been a problem for months now.
When are we getting a **** solution!?!?!

The uselessness of this computer when this happens sinks below Windows and it makes me want to dump Mac altogether.

Sorry for the multiple posts.

Anyhow, I spoke to a technician at Apple who advised some things like deleting the power profile (com.apple.powerprofile.plist i think) from my home dir.

We tried the disk utility, repair permissions and verify disk.
Tried booting with apple RP for some sort of BIOS value reset but none of that worked b/c it happened the VERY next time I closed the lid. Was ironic.

Anyhow, she recommended trying a test profile and using the sleep mode to see if the problem was somehow related to my main profile on my powerbook.

I have migrated between powerbooks to this macbook and maybe a problem migrated itself right along.

I may just rebuild it since that would likely fix it.

Hope that helps someone : )

Apparently there is a fix on the way thru 10.5.3 for the "sleep mode" problem. Google 10.5.3 and various articles should pop-up on it.

I have to chime in here. I purchased my 2.4 MBP in Feb and must say that I have been mostly underwhelmed from the "MAC is better than PC" perspective. My MBP is experiencing the same problem. I close the lid, wait for the light to blink to indicate it's sleeping, then move the laptop to my office, plug it in, open the lid and I hear the thing try to come to life (the DVD drive seek noise) and it does not wake up. I plugged an external monitor in and saw it was sleeping and saw the screen saver for a second but no luck.

This is a royal pain and honestly I'm tired of it. I spent an hour on the phone with a genius the other day. He was quite patient but did not really help. He took me through the goofy reset sequence and this did not fix the problem.

Apple to me is a case of "The Emperor's New Clothes". There are so many M$$oft haters out there that they want to love the Apple products. I have to tell you that I'm unimpressed. If it looks like... smells like... it probably is.

Try this: create another user and log on with it and see if the problem persists with that account.

I did that and it hasn't happened since.
I can't explain how one profile would affect another but it has worked.

Compared to the huge number of bugs on the competition, I think we're far ahead

: )

Greg

PS the next patch supposedly covers this. we'll see.

burp!

Me too. Specifically, a MBP 2.4GHz, 4GB ram, from June 2007 running 10.4.11. Latest firmware updates applied.

Putting the machine to sleep by closing lid, or choosing sleep from Finder results in a 1 second snooze, then immediate wakeup.

But, this only happens after the machine has been up and running for a bit. When it is first booted, it will sleep normally. I'm not sure how long it has to be running before the sleep problem crops up, but its in minutes. I wonder if it is heat related given how hot the machine runs (120F when idle).

I tried with a new system install just yesterday, and a new test user and the results were the same. In fact, this machine just came back from AppleCare with a new super drive and the problem persists.

If I'm feeling up to it, I may call AppleCare back about the problem. The last call was just about the DVD not working.

I found that turning safesleep mode ON again allows my MacBook Pro to reliably go to sleep now. (hibernatemode was set to 0 previously).

Since it is working, I'm afraid to turn it off and confirm this was the solution.

Here's what I did:

set hibernatemode to 3
shutdown
reset power management (remove battery, hold down power button for 10 seconds)
powered it on

it sleeps again!

I have the same problem with the display not waking up. I also have the vertical stripe/ uneven backlighting problems. Wonder if they're related?

I followed the steps listed in this post and changed my sleep mode to Hibernation (sleep mode 7) and so far so good. My MBP seems to fall asleep more naturally now and the process doesn't take too long at all especially considering it actually *wakes up* and doesn't forget to turn on the screen! haha.

Anywho, I highly recommend using a different sleep mode because the new "safe sleep" really stinks.

I might be a bit late to this thread but I was experiencing similar issues. MacBook Pro won't sleep or shut down properly - also restarts randomly. Aftre reinstallgin Mac OSX and resetting PRAM etc the problems still occurred. I then realised the problems started after I had plugged my MBP into an external monitor (actually a Sony LCD TV). I took the TV away and immediately all the problems went away and my MBP has been perfect ever since. I can only think there was something in the TV that was affecting the MBP - a magnet perhaps?

Thanks, that did the trick! I started seeing this problem recently with my MacBook after replacing the battery; changing to hibernate mode 7 fixed the problem for me. I might add that I had to reset the SMC per this article for the fix to take effect: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1411?viewlocale=en_US