Mac Sleep Timer (through 'Energy Saver' in System Preferences) won't work

I have a 13" Macbookpro i7, with the latest updates. July 25 I think. Not sure if that is when this started for me. I know my computer has gone to sleep in the past if I leave it overnight. But, the other day, nope. And now, it refuses to sleep when I leave the lid open. Display goes off, etc. The console app tells me the message "com.apple.systempreferences couldn't find any matches" when the sleep timer engages. I've deleted the powermanagement.plst, and tried even restoring it from a may backup. NOTHIN.

I saw hope with this thread: discussing ttyskeepsawake 1 value. If it detects network activity, it keeps awake if longer than the sleep value. So... maybe that's why it isn't sleeping? I found that Adobe synchronizer is there keeping attachments to the internet, so, I stopped that from login... I'm lost.

http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=33172

Is this just an update thing? I have not tried making new profiles, or anything. I'm just now tired of the amount of time I am spending obsessing about it. I've disk repaired, restarted, restarted that powerboard thing (smc?). Nada. I must be apple? I duno.

Hope someone finds what is keeping my computer up at night, (and sadly me 😉 )

UPDATE: I restored my com.apple.powermanagement.plist from a much earlier time machine version, and I deleted the com.apple.awake.plist as one thread suggested. It worked ONCE on it's own, but then, reverted. Maybe because I went and looked at the preferences for energy savings. As soon as you open and close energy savings, I get the console message

11-08-08 11:58:48 AM [0x0-0x1aa1aa].com.apple.systempreferences[4915] Couldn't find any matches.

On the happy side, I did start up the "Pleasesleep" application, and it makes my i7 sleep right away. I'm curious if this sleep issue is related to the thunderbolt ports. There are no ways to configure that, like USB, so maybe the thunderbolt is preventing sleep?

Hello? Anyone out there? 🙂

As mentioned earlier I had this issue both on Snow Leopard and after I installed Lion on my MBP and iMac.

The last four days I really had time to investigate this problem and I found something that maybe will help you. I decided to do a clean install of Lion on the MBP by first deleting the partition before installion Lion. I also did a Lion install without haveing to install SL first. In that way I get a totally new and clean OS. The first think I did, was to change my settings i Energy Saver. What surprices me was, that the "Couldn't find any matches" error message still appears in the log. That tells me, that this message is not really releated to the sleeplessness, because my MBP was now able to sleep. The only problem I had, has the if I for instance set Computer Sleep to 1 minute, it took ~7-10 minutes before the MBP sleeps. You can read more about this problem her: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3246087?answerId=15875142022#15875142022

After that I decided to do a clean install in my iMac and here the exact same situation appear.

So my fact is: On a clean OS my MBP and iMac is able to sleep even though the "Couldn't find any matches" messages appear then changing something in the Energy Saver.

Instead I noticed, that Google Chrome prevented both my Macs from sleeping. The only solution is to exit the App before leaving your computer for auto-sleep. It seems that this is a general problem, and maybe some of you are having this to? I submitted a bug report here: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=92017. At one forum a guy mentioned, that he had this problem with Firefox too, but I don' t know if this is general too.

My macbook fell asleep JUST NOW by itself. I did not have fire fox running, and after opening it again, with firefox, it did not fall asleep. That could be it. I'm also not on my home network, with my airport extreme, which could be an issue. I read that airport through bonjour allows your computer to wake from sleep to share itunes music. I just unchecked 'share my library' from itunes. Again, not sure if this is going to be the issue.

I'll have to try and leave it alone again without firefox running. Why would FF keep it awake? Wierd.

UPDATE:

I contacted AppleCare about my sleeping problems. I was on the phone for 2 or 3 hours. Did the resets for the ram etc. Created new accounts, started in safe mode, and nothing. Finally, we removed my ESET security suite from the start up login items, as well as in the Library/Startup items. Also removed net.culater.SIMBL.Agent.plist from launch agents, as well as from the computer. I saw it in my login startup items, and had no idea what it was. Apple told me it was a third party app plug in for video of some kind.

After that, it slept normally after 2 minutes, or whatever it was set to. So, I think it was my antivirus, because I put it back on, and now, no sleep. That's wierd. Wonder if anyone else has seen this with ESET for Mac Security Suite. I'm contacting their support later.

Add me to the list. I have had this off and on since Dec 2010 when I bought my iMac now on 10.6.8. I found that if I closed Firefox it would sleep. However, I now use Chrome and it's hit or miss whether Chrome is running or not.

I also have the same console message "Couldn't find any matches" any time I go into sys pref. Screen goes to sleep as it should and machine sleeps as directed by menu and lid shut. I have also tried the usual trash plist, safe mode, etc and have just learned to use the menu or shut the lid. Lame.

I would have thought that after almost a year Apple would have ironed this out.

for me uninstalling little snitch solved the problem. (10.6)

FIXED IT - in the energy saver preferences uncheck the box that says "wake for network acess" - I guess apple took this a little too literally

My solution, sadly, was to uninstall my ESETS Security suite. No matter how hard I try to work with the team at ESETS, my computer sleeps only 1/10 (guesstimate) times. IF THAT!

When I uninstall the virus checker, it sleeps religiously, no problems what so ever. So, for some wierd reason, that was preventing sleep. Not sure how.

It doesn't appear to be Firefox preventing it for me. She seems to sleep fine. ONLY that security sweet. Which saddens me because I want to have protection. ESETS has been very helpful, giving me beta versions to try. NOPE. Not for me... no sleep. I wonder if anyone else who has insomnia has virus protection running.

Sorry to bring this back up after a couple of months, but it's still not fixed. Wondered if anyone had a solution - I've had the problem for over a year now. I'm used to manually sleeping my iMac but a basic auto-sleep would be nice.

Guess it's a just a fundamental bug in OS X? I've completely formatted and re-installed my iMac since I first noticed this, even from a completely fresh install I got the same bug ("no matches found" and the auto-sleep happened after a random time). It was one of the first things I checked after finishing the install.

I download the absolute minimum third party apps, so would like to avoid the ones that force your Mac to sleep. They seem like overkill for, what's supposed to be, a very basic piece of functionality.

To me it just seems like a bug in the sys. prefs. when updating the plist file and resetting some system memory values somewhere(?). Forgive my simplicity...

PS. I'm also on Lion now - no fix.

I have the same problem and I must say that it is incredible that noone has found a common solution to this problem. The ones that have managed to bypass the issue all have had different solutions.

Please come up with the supersolutions that helps everyone!!!

🙂

We read of all the Homeland Security crap and the Telecommunications Act of 1996 somewhat mandating all sorts of tracking technology for government to have back door access into everything, we read of the FBI's "Operation Magic Lantern" where those US Constitution slashing criminals, traitors and betrayors to their oaths of office, justify, based on the Patriot Act, putting keylogging software and trojans onto computers, all without warrants, without propbable cause, and upon the whole of the society.

Is that what all this is? Apple, another huge corporate sellout to government, lets government pop our macs on for constant access? It may not be as bad as all that, but why would I not suspect such? Reveleations continue to come forth, and government and it's officials continue to lie and lie, and lie, and again and again we find out that what is happening behind the scenes is vastly larger in scale and criminal than what we ever would have imagined.

I've installed 3rd party applicactions that were supposedly designed to force the mac to sleep, but to no avail, my machine still comes out of sleep and remains up and running. It's infuriating to find no solution, and to have the energy and electricity going to waste, especially if we have a nasty treasonous government behind the scenes working this crap.

Yeah, would love to find a real solution to this problem, my mac refuses to sleep for long, and the system wakes it up, according to the "Please Sleep" log, one of the applications I've downloaded in attempt to force this mac to sleep and to stay asleep, until I, not the network, not apple, or the filthy, privacy hating US Government calls upon it to do so.