unknown network activity prevents sleep

Summary: starting a few months ago (not sure exactly when) my Power Mac would no longer go to sleep automatically on timeout. (It will go to sleep if I hit the power button on the monitor or on the case.)

Investigation yields the following information:
* Deleting the preference files and restarting (recommended by Dale Weisshaar on another thread) had no effect.
* Unplugging all USB devices (including keyboard and mouse) had no effect.
* No Bluetooth on this machine, nor wireless network.
* Wake on modem ring and wake on LAN are unchecked.

What does work: disconnecting the network, either:
- physically detaching the ethernet cable
or
- Network->Network Port Configurations->unchecking "Built-in Ethernet" [others already unchecked] and clicking "Apply"

So it's something to do with the network connection. Furthermore:
* Turning off firewall logging (as suggested by someone on a separate thread) has no effect.
* Quitting Safari and Mail has no effect.
* Unchecking all open ports in Sharing has no effect.

I'm about out of ideas. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Joshua O'Madadhain

Power Mac G5, 2.5 GHz Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Posted on Mar 20, 2006 12:26 PM

19 replies

Mar 25, 2006 10:27 PM in response to Dean Pahl

"perhaps an AppleScript for "counting sheep" ...?"

snort 🙂

To, um, lay your fears to rest, the ways that I tell that my machine has not gone to sleep are:
* at least one fan is still on
* display re-activates in response to a mouse movement (no keyboard or button press required)
* no sound of HD spin-up on reactivation

I haven't tried any 3rd-party utilities. Mostly this is a general feeling of stubbornness, i.e., "it used to work!".

One additional datum: I've discovered that this problem also applies to my PowerBook (Ti), same version of the OS. When it's connected to the network via Airport, it doesn't sleep; when Airport is disabled, it does. This suggests that perhaps I should find out if (as someone suggested earlier) my local network provider has recently made some changes. (Any other suggestions are of course still welcome.)

Thanks--

Joshua

Dean Pahl

Level 4

3,870 points

Mar 25, 2006 10:41 PM in response to Joshua O'Madadhain

Well, Joshua,

I, for one, can understand dogged pursuits —

— particularly in the context of a trouble not yet shot by shooting. But why not give one or both of the aforementioned apps a try anyway? If it works,

...you can still try to run this down, but your Power Mac may give a sigh of relief in the meantime...

Just a thought.

—Dean

netshare

Level 1

8 points

Mar 26, 2006 7:31 AM in response to Joshua O'Madadhain

Exactly the same issues on a Powermac G5 Dual 2.0 AND on a Powerbook G4 running both OS X 10.4.5

Jun 8, 2006 2:23 PM in response to Joshua O'Madadhain

Hi,
I have the same problem, my iBook G4 doesn't want to go to sleep.

I've looked into my Console log and since there are several entries reading "AppleTalk shutdown failed", I supposed it might be because of AppleTalk activated. I deactivated it and it didn't have any effect... Console log repeats the same error.

I think it must be some problem with uncontrolled ethernet connections, but I'm using Little Snitch and so there shouldn't be any invisible connections...

Today for the first time in several months, the iBook went to sleep automatically as I had it connected only to the electricity and all other equipment and ethernet disconnected. This worked twice, but unfortunately not again.

I'm at a loss! Should I try anything else? Or might the next system update bring a solution?
Thanks and greetings,
Kristina

iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.6)

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unknown network activity prevents sleep