imac wired mouse and keyboard crashed upon wake from screen sleep

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Level 1

16 points

imac wired mouse and keyboard crashed upon wake from screen sleep

i have a 2023 imac, sonoma 14.4. i am using a wired mouse and keyboard through a usb-c hub. the usb-c hub connects to a usb-c port on the back of the imac. when my imac is unused overnight, the screen sleeps. when the screen sleeps the mouse and keyboard become inoperable. the screen sleep can be interrupted by tapping the power button on the back of the imac. when the power button is tapped, the mouse arrow can be seen on the display but is not moved my mouse movements. most of the time when this happens, i can recover mouse and keyboard function by unplugging and re-pluugging the usb-c hub cable on the back of the imac. this system failure is really annoying. i am not aware of any reason why a usb-c hub and/or usb-c imac port would stop working when the screen sleeps. has anyone else had this problem? i have four usb-c ports on the back of my imac. three are connected to external hard drives which do not have functionality problems awaking from screen sleep. only the moue and keyboard which are connected to the usb-c hub.

iMac 24″, macOS 14.4

Posted on Dec 25, 2024 3:10 PM

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Answer 1

den.thed

Level 10

92,728 points

Dec 25, 2024 3:37 PM in response to garygorman

Sounds like the iMac is going into Auto computer sleep mode and disconnecting the Hub.

As a test:

turn On "Prevent automatic sleeping when display is off"

set "Turn display off when inactive" to 5 or 10 minutes

then just leave the Mac On with the display Off

and only Shutdown for longer periods of non-use.

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Answer 2

den.thed

Level 10

92,728 points

Jan 17, 2025 11:03 AM in response to garygorman

An update may have changed the settings or is causing the USB hub to not reconnect after sleep.

I would,

1) try the hub in a different port and/or try a different brand of USB hub.

2) connected the keyboard and/or mouse directly to the iMac using a USB-C to USB adapter.

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Answer 3

hcsitas

Level 6

13,970 points

Jan 17, 2025 11:40 AM in response to garygorman

Sleep causes all kinds of mystery problems. The good news is it’s unnecessary for later Macs, absolutely nothing gained using it (I.e. faulty operation when enabled).

Shut for long absences and optionally overnights, and do not manually sleep your Mac for short breaks, use Control-Command-Q to immediately lock your screen . And set it switch off on timer in case you forget to lock or don’t wish to.

I’m confident your problem is fixed, if not I’m sure you’ll let us know 😁

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Answer 4

hcsitas

Level 6

13,970 points

Jan 17, 2025 10:39 AM in response to garygorman

Post your Energy Saver setting please.

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Answer 5

garygorman Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 17, 2025 10:10 AM in response to den.thed

thanks much, denthed. "prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off" turned on as shown in your message does not solve the problem. I did manage to solve the problem for about a month using some different settings as to sleep and display. But now a month later the problem has come back. Possibly I got some sort of automatic OS update? I don't know. When I solved the problem, i thought I got that suggestion from this message thread, but now amonth later I come back to this thread and the solution I used seems to have disappeared from this thread. But maybe I am misremembering and I got my solution somewhere else. In any event, the problem persists and "prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off" does not do the trick. I have to unplug and re-plug the usb-c cable on the back of the imac. I will try a few other things now.

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Answer 6

garygorman Author

Level 1

16 points

Jan 17, 2025 11:22 AM in response to hcsitas

hcsitas, i think you are saying that the hub is treated as a hard drive and is thus could potentially be put to sleep by the second line in the "Energy Saver" dialog box? Here are my new "Energy Saver" dialog box settings, both before and after a restart. The problem only happens after a long time, like overnight, so I wont know if it worked for at least a week. Thank you very much for your help. Its really annoying having to plug and unplug the usb-c hub. Sometimes I have to do a hard power off and power on of the whole machine to get the usb-c port working again.

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