MacBook won't sleep

Question

MacBook won't sleep

Hello,

I have a late 2008 unibody aluminum MacBook (before it became the 13" MacBook Pro) which won't sleep anymore. It doesn't sleep when I close the lid and it won't sleep when I select "Sleep" from the Apple menu. The screen and keyboard light both turn off, but the status light stays solid and I can hear that the fan stays on. It can sit like that for hours without ever going to sleep (I've left it over night). I'm running Mac OS 10.7.2 and haven't installed anything at all recently. This has just started to occur within the past couple of days and I can't figure out a reason that would have caused it.

I've browsed the internet trying to find a solution and have tried a couple things including even resetting the System Management Controller, but nothing has helped at all. I'm a bit OCD about what I have running and so I'm very familiar with the list of processes which should be running at any given time. There does not appear to be anything out of the ordinary running that would keep the MacBook from sleeping.

Any suggestions?

Thank you!

Alex

Unibody MacBook - Late 2008, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Dec 9, 2011 2:56 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Andrew Wolczyk

Level 5

5,249 points

Dec 9, 2011 4:54 AM in response to eiskalteschatten

Try resetting the PRAM

Here’s how to reset your PRAM:

Shut down your machine. Yes, all the way down, not sleep or logging out.
Press the power button and then press command-option-p-r. You have to make sure you get those keys pressed before the gray screen comes up or it won’t work.
Hold those keys down until your Mac reboots again and you here the startup chime.
Let go of the keys and let your Mac reboot normally.

When you log back in, you’ll probably will have to adjust your mouse speed, time and date/timezone, and a few other things, but otherwise you should be good to go. Back in the day, we would often let the PRAM zap several times (like 2 or 3) to make sure it was clear. Sometimes, in fact, the machine needed that kind of kick in the pants to clear everything out. However, today’s Macs seem to be good to go with a one shot zap, so no worries there.

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Answer 2

Dec 9, 2011 10:49 AM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

Thanks for the suggestion! I tried it, but it didn't seem to help unfortunately... I also tried it 2 or 3 times as you suggested worked with older Macs, but again, to no avail... 😟

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Answer 3

Dec 9, 2011 11:08 AM in response to eiskalteschatten

Something else interesting I've tried: I've had Windows 7 installed via Boot Camp for about a year and a half now. I booted into Windows 7 and violá! My MacBook can go to sleep both when the lid is closed and by selecting "Sleep" from the Start Menu.

That clearly tells me it's a software issue of some sort. Anyone know of a reason Mac OS X would not put the MacBook to sleep?

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Answer 4

Dec 9, 2011 11:12 AM in response to eiskalteschatten

Do you have Internet Saring enabled?

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Answer 5

Dec 9, 2011 11:15 AM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

Nope. I've got nothing under "Sharing" enabled....

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Answer 6

Dec 9, 2011 11:40 AM in response to eiskalteschatten

Does it do it when on battery power?

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Answer 7

Dec 9, 2011 11:51 AM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

No, it doesn't sleep when on battery power either...

I have, however, made some progress. I've gone through all currently running threads at user level and killed them one at a time while testing to see if I could get my MacBook to sleep. It finally went to sleep when I quit one called "UserAgentEvent". Any idea what that process does?

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Answer 8

Dec 9, 2011 12:42 PM in response to eiskalteschatten

Not exactly sure what it does, but from what I could see when people have had issues with it, it generally involved audio software like iTunes or ProTools. It is definitely part of OSX though and not installed by third party software. It is possible that it is conflicting with something else you've installed.

Did UserAgentEvent restart after you force quit it? If not, fire up iTunes and see if it relaunches.

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Answer 9

Dec 9, 2011 3:26 PM in response to Andrew Wolczyk

There are actually two verisons of the UserAgentEvent process: one that is run at the user level and one that is run at the root level. When I quit one, it always immediately respawns. Oddly enough, even though I've restarted my computer several times in the process of trying to figure out the problem, it seems to have gone away simply after force quitting the UserAgentEvent process the first time -- even though it restarted itself immediately afterwards. 😕

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