Reminders app waking mac from sleep

For what it's worth, I had this same issue since I updated to Catalina in January. After trying almost everything on the forums, I had turned off all reminders and notifications but my computer still turned on twice a day and the exact same time. In my terminal, I followed someone else's advice and typed in this command:

pmset -g log | egrep '\b(Sleep|Wake|Start)\s{2,}

to see that it was in fact waking at those times

and then

pmset -g sched

to see that I did in fact have it scheduled to wake.

Something someone else wrote gave me the impression to check my iCloud account, which I rarely use. I logged in and lo and behold, I had 2 reminders that were in my iCloud that weren't on my phone reminders anymore. I deleted those 2 items and this morning was the first in months that my computer did not wake!

So, in addition to the list that Apple provides, I recommend checking your iCloud reminders or notifications because that is what was causing the problem for me.

Hi guys,

Nice work pursuing this so far.

First of all, after some contention around whether or not this issue is a bug or intentional, I have some thoughts and I welcome anyone who considers this NOT to be a bug to please provide a clear, logical argument to each of the following facts.

1) Reminders are silent on iOS when in Do not Disturb mode, and always have been.

2) MacOS provides check-box options in System Preferences to prevent an array of events from waking the computer from sleep, therefore:

i) Checking all of these, logically, should prevent the computer from waking in any situation. If a user wants the computer not to wake for any reason, surely they should have the option for it not to wake for all reasons.

ii) IF it is not a bug, the lack of an option for reminders (or any other event which triggers waking) not to wake the computer when sleeping is an oversight and should be added.

3) The Apple Community Specialist replied and DID NOT argue that this is not a bug, and offered a post containing SOLUTIONS to try.

4) Since this post was created, NO Apple Representative have replied that it is not a bug.

5) I personally have experimented with turning the various options on and off, and I have noticed as I am sure others can replicate, that when Do Not Disturb is turned off, reminders wake the computer and produce a banner notification. When it is turned ON, a reminder will wake the computer, turn on the screen / external display, and yet the banner notification is suppressed. In System Preferences > Notifications > Do Not Disturb, the advice is that "Banners and alerts will be hidden and notification sounds will be silenced". A reminder is a Banner / Alert, therefore, it is CLEAR that the alert is supposed to be suppressed, and that the screen turning on is a bug and an oversight that it should be suppressed.

Ultimately, Do Not Disturb, should ensure the computer remains asleep when it is asleep no matter what alert is occurring. There may well be a perfectly desirable use case for reminders or any other types of alerts to wake the computer, but that should be a selectable option, and it is not.

For now, I switch off my external display at the wall, but I really shouldn't have to just to ensure that my monitor won't be burning itself out all night long. Please offer a clear argument to ALL of the above if you think this is not a bug.

Otherwise, Apple, please fix this issue.

All the above, completely correct and disappointing that there's not even a glimmer of a fix in the offing. How can anyone not take from this that Apple do not care about their poor software. Sad, but indisputable.

It's disappointing to see that this is one of the Top3 commented issues in the MacOs Catalina area of this discussion board, but Apple is ignoring it since months. Not even a statement from their side to let us know if it's a bug or not...

The usage of my Macbook became really inconvenient as I have attached an external screen, mouse, keyboard and it is always closed under my desk. As I don't want my Macbook to wake up during the night, I shut it down everyday now, which means that I have to open the lid of my Macbook every morning to start it. I know, it's definitely a first world problem, BUT it's so annoying and not what I expect from a premium hardware/software company like Apple. Everything was fine before this occurred with the release of Catalina.

APPLE: Fix this, please!

I did just find that turning off wifi before putting the Mac to sleep seemed to be a workaround that actually "works" for me. Had tried everything else I could find: do not disturb, turning off notifications etc. After turning off wifi and putting the Mac to sleep, I made several reminders on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch with various due dates/times or none at all. The Mac did not wake once. Have provided feedback at apple.com/feedback in hopes of a resolution. Fingers crossed.

So I had this same issue. I had caffeine installed. Apparently it kept the system awake after the reminder wake was triggered. I installed Amphetamine and checked "Allow system sleep when display closed" option. Since then when the reminder woke my mac when it was asleep, it would go back to sleeping a minute later. Hope this helps for you guys too

So it didnt work.. on my mbp , it would stay awake once the reminder was triggered.. would not go to sleep.. ended up removing reminders from icloud

update : even when reminders were removed from icloud in mbp, wake events are updated in power menu for reminders created in iphone :(

Thank you to @socceryo3 for the stackexchange post (a huge help) and @FUNK1196 for starting this thread.. Thanks also to others who posted various diagnostic approaches. There's a lot of helpful info, even if none of it fixes built-in Catalina bugs.

I've been working with Apple Sr Advisor and Engineering for weeks because, not only does my Mac mini wake, it unlocks via my Apple Watch when I'm in another room. Neither the advisor nor engineering replies seem aware of this issue or any of the info in this thread. They suggested unplugging external displays, drives, and devices. (So basically, NOT getting work done...) Yesterday, thanks to Stackexchange post and OSXDaily, I figured out why the Watch was unlocking my Mac and was able to recreate at will. Worse than the bug itself, is not knowing what's going on!

It seems to me very clear that this is just another significant way Catalina is broken. The new Catalina Notifications system pref clearly added another check "When screen is locked" and neither that nor "When display is sleeping" have any effect I can see -- at least for Reminders. If these worked as they seem to be intended, everyone here could be happy.

I doubt apple plans to fix this or the other problems in Catalina. Let's just hope Big Sur is the next generation of High Sierra -- a stable, well-working macOS. That seems a big ask right now.

What @jd2020 says makes me sad! This is by far the most commented thread in Apples "macOS Catalina"-section and senior staff/engineers are not aware of this bug? Sorry, thats unacceptable. People are digging as deep as they can to solve this problem and Apple simply doesn't care, otherwise we would have received a bugfix with any of the last updates. Hopefully Big Sur will fix this!!!

Hello - here to throw my hat into the ring. I also had no idea why my Mac kept unlocking from my watch while I was in the other room. Thanks jd2020 for going through the support process, this is super frustrating. I hope one more person on this thread helps add some visibility to this issue.

I also worry that Big Sur will be this and more.

Thanks @hehappysymptom for the kind words. Just was in touch with Apple yesterday and I'm submitting yet another round of diagnostic files for engineering. I think they may understand this is a real problem and stop thinking I'm "doing it wrong." Well, that's what I hope anyway. I should hear something sometime next week....

Yikes, I was trying to collect some data for Apple Support and I couldn't replicate the problem today. Reminders were not waking my Mac mini on Catalina. They were about 7 days ago.

What are other seeing?

There has recently been an update to Reminders. Having thoughtlessly accepted this on my iPad, I am now unable to use Reminders (in that account) on my Mojave Mac which reports Catalina is required to utilise this new version of the iCloud Reminders data. I have not yet checked how a Catalina Mac responds to this.

However, it occurs to me that this new version may have fixed the problem. I don't yet know until I test my Catalina Mac. Is it possible jd2020 that you have allowed this update to occur? Have Apple perhaps finally fixed it?

It wouldn't be the first time that a Manufacturer, while denying a problem exists, or simply apparently doing nothing, in fact slips in a fix, at the same time insisting they've done nothing, or at least, leaving their front line support unaware of any fix.

Or does the problem still exist for others even after the Reminders update?

I'm not sure what you mean by "recently" and "new version." Reminders was updated in iOS 13, some 11 months ago. When you open Reminders in iOS 13 you're presented with the "upgrade" choice. Nothing visible has changed with the format of Reminders in Catalina or iOS 13 since September 2019. The latest update to Catalina is 10.15.6, released on 12 Aug 2020.

None of that has nothing to do with my situation, or probably anyone here. I think most everyone here talking about Reminders waking the Mac with DND set is on Catalina. The 10.5.6 update didn't change anything for me -- unless it mysteriously changed after being installed for 10+ days. Possible, but seems most unlikely. This problem doesn't occur for me at all on Mojave.

Again, can anyone else (who has experienced it) confirm whether the problem still exists?

Well jd2020, having been involved in this thread all along and indeed identified the problem even before that, I think I am well aware of what it's all about.

We have a problem with Reminders in Catalina and recently (a few weeks ago, I should have been more specific about that), after an update to iPadOS 13.6.1 (on the iPad to be clear) and trying to create a reminder, I was informed that there was now an update. I cannot now recall the exact wording, but I think the gist was Reminders.app had been updated in the new iPadOS and so the iCloud data needed to be updated to suit. Without thinking I agreed to that.

I was later (that day) informed on my Mojave Mac that the updated iCloud data required Reminders in Catalina (and probably specified a version, but I cannot now recall what that was) and could not be used in Mojave.

That IS what happened and since the raison d'être of this thread is about the Reminders app (and associated data/systems) and there has clearly some sort of update involved with Reminders, I'm not sure how you can dismiss this as being unimportant as it clearly IS relevant.

I cannot state that the update has fixed the issue and never claimed that. But it is obviously worth considering and trying to discover if it has affected this problem. However, I have not yet checked with my Catalina Mac (which is elsewhere).

Of course, if you believe that an update to the very same app/system with which we are experiencing problems is irrelevant, feel free to ignore it. But IMO it would be foolish to dismiss this and it is worth checking, even if it proves not to be the fix we require.