iMac does not sleep

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iMac does not sleep

I finally got fed up with the fact my iMac (27 inch, 2011 model 3.4 Ghz i7, OSX 10.7.1) refuses to go to sleep, even after a complete wipe and reinstall following the upgrade to Lion. I decided to boot to safe mode and identify what was preventing it sleeping. Here is what I found:

1) As you would expect, the up to date versions of Apple programs are fine and do not inhibit sleep (I won't mention them all, but I tested iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture, Mail, iCal, Address Book etc);

2) I also found the following did not cause problems: (a) Syncphotos; (b) Skype; and (c) Sophos Anti-Virus.

3) Facetab and Temperature Monitor cause sleep problems through over frequent refreshes (to be fair Marcel Bresink, who writes Temperature Monitor, states this on his website) and the refresh rate needs to be adjusted (push out hard drive monitoring on Temperature Monitor to 15 minutes and refresh on facetab to 15 minutes) to avoid sleep issues.

4) Both of (a) Windows Live Mesh; and (b) Cinch prevent my iMac from sleeping and cannot be user adjusted to remove the problem. I've logged this as issues with the respective publishers.

This is a frustrating problem that I think many software companies don't take seriously. It would be interesting if others could reply with other apps/programs that they have identified as causing Mac sleep issues.

For those being driven mad by this, you can use a program called PleaseSleep to force your Mac to sleep, but if you are using your Mac for Music through iTunes and Airplay it will drive you mad cutting songs off. Another program called Jiggler can keep your Mac awake while itunes is playing, but it leaves your screen on without a screensaver.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

Message was edited by: sgoldswo

27 inch iMac, 15 & 13 inch Macbook Pros etc..., Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Sep 17, 2011 11:44 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 6, 2012 7:23 AM in response to sgoldswo

Hi sgoldswo,

Happy (not for you ...) that somebody else experiences the «sleep issue». After 2 years, I have found a way to manage this problem by playing around with AppleScript, Power Manager and Caffeine. I wrote a little idle handler that monitors the activity of some specified application. If those apps are using more than a predetermined level of CPU activity, Caffeine (that is scriptable) is activated and the sleep process is prevented because Caffeine resets the system's idle time.

While I thought that I had found a perfect work around, buying an Apple TV created a new problem. Streaming to the Apple TV from iTunes does not reset the system's idle time, so does not prevent the computer from falling asleep in the middle of a projection. Monitoring iTunes CPU usage does not work either ... the CPU usage is not amplified when iTunes is streaming to the Apple TV.

I created a not so perfect work around. I started monitoring the position of the mouse pointer to create a new condition activating Caffeine. Whenever the mouse is moved to the suspend screen saver hot corner, the handler activates Caffeine, thus reseting the system's idle time and also the sleeping process.

But I am still looking for a more complete solution, to prevent these 2 problems:

(1) I would like to find a way (shell script ???) to detect iTunes streaming activity automaticaly: not requiring the manual intervention of putting the mouse pointer in the hot corner is basic ... you realize the importance of this when the streaming stops in the middle of a projection and when you have to go in the den to awake your computer because you forgot to put the mouse pointer in the hot corner; it is more frustrating, if you forget that repeatedly;

(2) while streaming to the Apple TV, the screen saver should be activated without allowing the sleep process.

These 2 could easely be done by reseting the system's idle time when streaming. It should be a standard iTunes features, nor requiring any work around.

Well ... hoping this will help to bring a more perfect solution.

Regards.

Robert Lespérance

Québec, Canada

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