Terminal "Uptime" command result seems incorrect on my Mac mini after latest macOS Sonoma update.

Until this is fixed, I found that the following Terminal command to get the correct non-sleep-adjusted uptime is more convenient than the documented "Apple Menu Item > System Settings > General > About > System Report > Software":

system_profiler SPSoftwareDataType -detailLevel mini

The up-arrow key can be used to recall this command in a newly-opened Terminal window.

Ken

Hi x_user,

On my machine, it appears that the 14.4.1 update fixed the "uptime " problem. I have the "Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off" disabled, and "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" enabled, just as in 14.4.0, so I'm assuming that my machine slept as I left it running overnight, and the "uptime" value agrees with the uptime shown in the system profiler results as well as in the System Software Overview display.

Ken

Hi etresoft,

I'll accept that the "last reboot" information might not be completely correct, but in my case, but in the attached screenshot, which shows the macOS date in the top menu bar, the system date, uptime data, and boot history in the Terminal window, and the uptime in the System Information window:

1. The menu bar system date (1) and the the results of the "date" command (3) in the Terminal window match
2. The "Time since boot" value (2) in the System Information window is consistent with the reported last reboot time (5) displayed by the "last reboot" command in the Terminal window (only off by one minute)
3. The output of the "uptime" command (4) in the Terminal window differs significantly from the "Time since boot" value (2) in the System Information window. Doing the math, the "uptime" value would indicate that the system booted at 4:21 A.M. on March 11th, and there's no indication that this happened. What I'm guessing is happening is that the "uptime" command is now accessing an incorrect value somewhere in the system when calculating (incorrectly) the system uptime. I phoned Apple support earlier today to report this discrepancy, and they'll be looking into it.

In the meantime, I'm curious as to whether anyone else can reproduce this behavior.

Thanks,

Ken

HI x_user,

Thanks for the detailed information. It now seems quite clear that the "uptime" command is no longer reporting the total elapsed time since the last reboot, but instead, only the "awake" time since the last reboot. What we don't know yet is whether this change was intentional or whether it's a bug. Personally, I'd consider this a bug, considering how the "uptime" command is generally understood on other Linux systems, though an interesting enhancement to the "uptime" command would be a parameter that could toggle the output between "total uptime" vs. "awake uptime".

Ken

Hi Matti,

I think you might be right about this. I do have sleep enabled (my Energy Saver settings are attached), but in the case I reported on 11-Mar-24, the "boot" time that I calculated, 4:21 A.M. occurred about 1 1/2 hours after I left my computer and went to bed (I leave the computer running overnight, but turn off the power to the monitor). The 1.5 hour delay doesn't immediately correspond to the time I stopped using my computer, nor does it correspond to the delays I have for starting the screen saver (5 minutes) or for turning off the display (10 minutes), but it's possible that Sonoma was doing some sort of cleanup or other maintenance that might have kept the drive running for longer than the specified "before sleep" interval. When I started using my computer this morning, I ran the "uptime" command, and the uptime value appeared to be very similar to what it was when I left the machine last night. Unfortunately, I closed the Terminal app last night, so I don't have access to the actual uptime value that was reported last night. Tonight, I'll run "uptime" again right before leaving the computer for the evening, but I'll leave the Terminal session open, so I can easily compare tonight's "uptime" value with the one I'll get tomorrow morning.

Thanks,

Ken

Hi SoYoung24,

By chance, is the system drive in your iMac a spinning disk drive and not an SSD? I'm asking because I'm running my 2018 Mac Mini from an external spinning disk drive. From what I've read, the "Put hard drives to sleep when possible" setting in the "Energy Saver" settings only has an effect on spinning disk drives, and since others here have found a link between the "uptime" discrepancy and machine sleep durations, and since I believe that there are no current Macs for sale that use spinning disk drives, that it's possible that during testing for the 14.4 release, the "uptime" command broke and testing it with a spinning drive hosting macOS may not have been been part of Apple's test suite.

Ken