Mac mini crashes whilst asleep

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PeterR_2018 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mac mini crashes whilst asleep

I have a Mac mini (2018). Whist my mac is asleep it quite often crashes. I go to wake it up with a keyboard press and nothing happens. I have to use the power button to restart it. An error report is produced which is usually 'element modified after free'. This occurs whether allowing the user to time out or whether manually selecting sleep frpm the apple icon. The mac has never crashed whilst I'm using it, only when asleep.

I've reinstalled the OS, Monterey 12.2.1 and run the diagnostic tests which all pass. I've created a new test user, but the error still ocurs if this goes to sleep.

Any ideas?

Mac mini, macOS 12.2

Posted on Mar 2, 2022 6:17 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

hcsitas

Level 6

11,510 points

Mar 2, 2022 6:24 AM in response to PeterR_2018

Disable Sleep, it’s unnecessary on later Macs, all pain, no gain. To disable, set your Energy Saver settings to as shown:

Avoid manual sleep; use screen lock instead or let your Mac display turn-off on timer. For long or overnight absences, shut.

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Answer 2

PeterR_2018 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 5, 2022 2:47 AM in response to PeterR_2018

I now have the settings below.

Sleep has so far functioned correctly without crashes, both timing-out and setting manually.

So, it seems that one or both of the two now unticked options 'Wake for network access' and Enable Power Nap' were causing the problem. I'll leave it like this now.

Again thanks for your help

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Answer 3

PeterR_2018 Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 4, 2022 1:00 AM in response to den.thed

I've now used the settings that were suggested for two days. I set it to sleep from the Apple dropdown menu each night. There were no crashes!

This suggests that it was one of the now unticked options that was causing the trouble. So, it's probably 'Enable Power Nap' or 'Wake for Network Access'.

Many thanks for your help. I'm quite happy using this workaround.

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