billimek

Q: MBA fails to wake (Platform Failure) after entering Low Power Sleep state

2011 MacBook Air 13” model number A1369

 

 

The issue: every time the battery drains empty and the device automatically shuts off, it will not properly power-on after being charged.  The display backlight is active (and apple logo on the rear is illuminated) although the screen is blank.  The machine doesn’t respond to any command or action.  The machine will not respond to ping requests and does not appear to attempt to join the network according to the Airport logs.  Closing the clamshell and re-openning does not appear to make any difference.  The only action that yields any response is to hold the power button until it turns off and then turn it back on again.  This has happened 100% of the time since the MacBook Air was purchased. This behavior does not happen with the 2009 MacBook pro also running OSX Lion. 

 

pmset -g output:

Active Profiles:

Battery Power           -1*

AC Power                -1

Currently in use:

standbydelay   4200

standby        1

halfdim        1

panicrestart   15

hibernatefile  /var/vm/sleepimage

disksleep      10

sleep          10

hibernatemode  3

ttyskeepawake  1

displaysleep   5

acwake         0

lidwake        1

 

 

pmset -g log output of problem situation:

* Domain: sleep

- Message: Sleep: Success - BATT 0 - Low Power Sleep

- Time: 8/13/11 10:32:55 PM EDT

- Signature: Success

- UUID: 79B0FD75-93BF-4F54-9206-F88EFDD9539A

- Result: Success

- Sleep count : 0

 

* Domain: sleep

- Message: Sleep: Platform Failure - AC 82

- Time: 8/13/11 11:58:45 PM EDT

- Signature: Platform Failure

- UUID: 399B3402-C3A6-451B-B5AC-60CF6CD5176F

- Result: Failure

 

Observations:

  • FileVault is enabled
  • This issue does not seem to occur when the device enters the ‘hibernation’ state after sleeping for an extended-period of time

 

 

Actions taken (with no resolution yet):

  • SMC reset (multiple times)
  • PRAM reset
  • Set main HD (“Macintosh HD”) as Startup Disk
  • Complete reinstall of OSX Lion

 

Any advice?

MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.7), mid-2011 13" 1.7GHz i5 model

Posted on Aug 14, 2011 9:00 PM

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Q: MBA fails to wake (Platform Failure) after entering Low Power Sleep state

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  • by triumph1337,

    triumph1337 triumph1337 Jan 27, 2012 5:21 PM in response to Spacemarine
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 27, 2012 5:21 PM in response to Spacemarine

    Spacemarine wrote:

     

    triumph1337 wrote:

     

    The fact the the key is not purged is PROOF that the cryptosystem is broken.

     

    Why? If there were no thunderbolt port or if the OS would prevent the ram from being read without the consent of the user, would you still make this statement?

     

    Yes I would still make the statement but I wouldn't be making as much of a fuss becuase only extremely well funded adversaries would be able to preform the attack at that point.  It could be done by freezing the RAM cryogenically and then retrieving the key. 

     

    Cryogenically frozen RAM bypasses all disk encryption methods ...

     

    This attack vector is less of an issue on the MBA because the RAM is on board but it's still vulnerable.  However I don't want to digress into the specifics of this obscure freezing attack becuase the reality we face is much worse.  Under the current system anybody can preform the attack with a regular old thunderbolt cable.  It's not just some obscure software security companies who have the code to preform this attack.  Immunity Inc leases it out to whatever corproations can afford it.  That means if you're an executive and you keep confidential information on your laptop your competition could hire someone to steal your laptop and then they could lease the thunderbolt attack from Immunity Inc, and then you're owned. 

     

    This is not just the rantings of some paranoid who's worried about the FBI getting at his data. Corporate espionage is a reality and the professionals who participate in it have access to Immunity's codebase.  As loyal customers of Apple we deserve to not be lied to.  In this case I think we are being lied to.  They are selling an intentionally crippled security software.  No competent security professional would advise Apple to leave the key in RAM or on disk.  It's the single most obvious way to break the security of the whole system.  Apple must have made the decision to do so against the common sense advice of the professionals. 

  • by fabian.zeindl,

    fabian.zeindl fabian.zeindl Apr 14, 2012 7:41 AM in response to billimek
    Level 1 (1 points)
    Apr 14, 2012 7:41 AM in response to billimek

    Hi,

     

    new solution: disabling the automatic brightness adjustment for the display works for me as well as adding a second user to the system.

     

    Second, i sent an email to Tim Cook about the bugs and got the chance to talk to an apple-engineer. They are apparently aware of the issue and the reason for the key to stay in the RAM was a performance-tradeoff apparently. They fixed the DMA-Access to the FireWire port in one of the 10.7.* releases and are actively looking into it.

    The engineer also sent me this new link about Thunderbolt: http://erratasec.blogspot.com/2011/02/thunderbolt-introducing-new-way-to-hack.ht ml

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