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Power Nap not working correctly

Good Morning everyone!


Yesterday I installed a firmware update that brought the Power Nap feature to my Retina MacBook. Now when I plug the MBP into the external power supply it should make TimeMachine backups while sleeping. But that didn't happen.


The configuration is:

MacBook Pro Retina

OS X Mountain Lion (Power Nap firmware update installed)

External hard drive was plugged in all night long


Has anyone experienced that, too? Did I overlook anything?


Thanks for any help on this!

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion

Posted on Jul 29, 2012 12:57 AM

Reply
126 replies

Jul 29, 2012 10:27 PM in response to Mad-Hias

Doesn't seem to work for me either. According to Apple, it's supposed to "periodically" update information and perform TimeMachine backups. But last night, none of this happened.


I also have an external Thunderbolt drive connected. Maybe this has something to do with it? If Power Nap activates and wakes the Mac, it would have to power up the drive as well, otherwise some applications might not be able to access data on the drive and crash or throw an error message. But an external hard drive would make some noise and probably light up an LED when it powers up... which is what Apple does not want Power Nap to do.


I'm not saying it makes sense, but maybe Apple just disabled Power Nap in case an external hard drive is connected?

Jul 30, 2012 1:59 PM in response to Mad-Hias

Today I intentionally left my Thunderbolt drive disconnected while I was away and my MacBook Pro was sleeping, but no Time Machine backup has occured in the last 14 hours. So it seems like Power Nap does not work properly, no matter whether an external drive is connected or not.


I've come across this support article from Apple:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5394

... where it says, among other things:

<< Time Machine backups are attempted hourly until a successful backup has been completed >>


But anyway, the sense of having Time Machine backup my Mac every hour while it's sleeping when a current backup is already on my Time Capsule escapes me. Maybe Power Nap is working as designed and is only supposed to complete backups that were underway when the Mac was put to sleep...

Jul 30, 2012 2:07 PM in response to Tim Lorenzen

But anyway, the sense of having Time Machine backup my Mac every hour while it's sleeping when a current backup is already on my Time Capsule escapes me.

For me that would really be a great feature as I don't have a Time Capsule and don't want to carry around my external drive all day. I thought I would just plug in the power cable and let the Mac do the rest over night. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to work.

Jul 31, 2012 2:15 PM in response to brianld

It's not working for my rMBP whether the lid is open or closed. There's no backups done to my Time Capsule.


Plus, Mail isn't being processed. It's the main feature I was hopeful for. Why? My iPhone and iPad don't have any filtering for spam, so if the rMBP doesn't hit my accounts first, I end up with a bunch of junk to sort through on my iOS devices.


😟

Jul 31, 2012 2:39 PM in response to Mad-Hias

Thank goodness I'm not the only one having this problem!


I have a base model rMBP, and recently performed the firmware update that enables Power Nap.

I enabled it in System Preferences to run on battery power, but I discovered it failed to update Mail overnight the next day. I tried closing the lid and coming back to it in a few hours, only to discover that it failed again.


It's been a few days since I updated and enabled Power Nap, and it frustrates me to say it still doesn't work!


Does anyone have a fix to this? I really hope Apple acknowledges this problem!!

Power Nap not working correctly

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