MBP keeps crashing on wake from sleep

Removed Avast as recommended. Machine more responsive (no surprise).

Today woke from sleep (RAM) OK.

Have now switched back to hibernate.

Machine still waking due to sleep timer for a couple of minutes four hours after closure overnight.

Have set display to turn off after 3 hours now to see if any impact on sleep timer.

So far, so good!

Further update. So hibernatemode=1 doesn't cure the problem. Last night no wakeup during the night but also failed to restart from RAM this morning.

I am now trying hibernatemode=3 again but disconnecting the ac power overnight. I understand from this article

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/126669/how-to-add-hibernate-mode-to-macbook-pro

(see comments on standby mode, "European directive") that this might account for the 4 hour wakeup during the night.

So the progress so far:

1/ Avast removal clearly helped. General behaviour much better. But was that really the problem? Crashing is still there.

2/ Hibernate mode seems to have an influence.

(by the way I also increased display sleep from 1 to 3 hours)

With SmartSleep extension set to "hibernate" (which pmset shows is hibernatemode = 1) the startup is from RAM and is successful, and there is no wakeup with lid closed in the night.

With SmartSleep extension set to "hibernate and sleep" (which pmset shows as hibernatemode = 0) the startup is also from RAM but fails with an eventual automatic reboot and the console log shows there was a wakeup with lid closed during the night due to sleeptimer after 4 hours.

Conclusion: I suspect the hibernatemode is wrong so it looks like the SmartSleep extension has become the problem. But why I have no idea. Neither hibernatemode = 0 or 1 seem to be recommended, although hibernatemode=1 seems to work. I think if I recollect correctly from earlier log inspection I had hibernatemode=5 set. No idea how it got there. I can probably live with hibernatemode=1 if it avoids the crashing but would like to go back to being able to startup from disk.

How should I set the hibernatemode (with pmset?) and what to?

Should I and how to remove/disable the SmartSleep extension?

Btw the machine is on power during the night.

Another update.

With hibernatemode = 3 and disconnecting he ac power overnight I have had several nights where the system did not crash on opening the lid the following morning.

Except last night.

I attach 2 logs:

1/ last night's where it crashed

2/ the nights before where it didn't crash

Maybe one can tell something from these?

Oh dear.

If I have to start now with Apple support then I have no chance.

My experience with them is not good.

That's why I came to the discussion forum - to get real help.

Anyway with an old machine and old software they are not interested.

So I guess I'll just have to live with it.

Thanks nevertheless for your help so far, even if not the solution.

I am a bit reluctant to undertake such a drastic reset given that this cure is for Catalina whereas I am running Yosemite - 5 OS versions behind. I am left wondering whether this would even work on a Yosemite machine. And if not I would definitely be worse off than today!

I inspected the logs of crashes and noncrashes overnight for EFI commands and they are always there to some extent, with no discernible difference in the two cases.

I am going now to take a line by line look at the logs to see what is really going on at 3 am. Why is the system waking at all (what is setting the sleep timer) and why is it sometimes causing the machine to fail to start on lid opening?

Here's an update on my situation:

After a week of working OK, I had another overnight crash last night.

Each night I have followed the routine of disconnecting the AC cable and then closing the lid. I have hibernatemode set to 3.

Last night I stopped working earlier than normal so looking at the log the device woke at 1:58 and then slept (for good) requiring me to reboot at 10:34. Then I left the machine open until 15:50 when I closed it (on ac).

The log shows the machine woke itself after exactly 4 hours at 19:50 and then did some hibernation activity and slept again at 19:51.

I then opened the lid at 20:04 and instead of the machine restarting from disk it restarted from RAM!

Interestingly the reason was "EC.PME (User)" whatever that means, not lid open.

So it seems if at any time if I close the machine on ac power for more than 4 hours it awakes after 4 hours and thereafter doesn't allow me to restart from disk.

But if I close the machine not on ac power it restarts from disk, at least most of the time.

Is there any way I can stop these constant wakeups after 4 hours caused by the sleeptimer when the lid is closed? That seems to be triggering the problem.

Thanks for the quick response.

Yes, that's what I meant by resetting sdram.

Sorry for the imprecision.

OK, I'll try it step by step and see, and report back.

Thanks for your help!

Here's the Egtrecheck report.

On the major issues I don't see a problem. I am using Carbon Copy Cloner for backups and I know the OS is old but I have legacy data and need legacy software, which doesn't run on later systems, to read it. This probably accounts for the unsigned files too.

Of course I could try working my way through the extensions and preference panes and turning them off one by one but nothing there really surprises me. There could be some old extensions that are no longer supported but why are they causing a problem suddenly now when the system has not been updated for ages? Everything was working OK for a long time before.

Maybe if you could cast an expert eye over the report you could see a productive way forward?

One other idea occurred to me. The pmset command showed autopoweroffdelay = 14400 which is 4 hours in seconds. I have the screen sleep on power adapter now set to 1 hour. I previously had it set to 2 hours, and then the wakeup in the night was occurring after 3 hours not 4. Unfortunately I didn't run the pmset command then so I don't know what the autopoweroffdelay setting was then, but the settings seem related. I would be tempted now to set the screen to never sleep and see if that helps.

What do you think?