I have noticed that my MacBook Pro mid 2012 goes into a deep sleep after a while, when I close the lid even though it's plugged in and not running on battery power. I think it started to behave like that since the last firmware update I installed recently...
Does anybody have an idea or the same problem?
Alternatively, to be a bit more future-proof, you can do this:
sudo pmset -a autopoweroffdelay 86400
Instead of disabling autopoweroff, this will change it from 4 hours (the default 14400 minutes) to 24 hours, so it will only hibernate after 24 hours.
As far as I can tell, the plan seems to be to auto-hibernate after being asleep for some time, to prevent battery drain. (I actually applaud this, because it ***** when my MacBook's battery is completely drained after sitting around for 3 or 4 days.)
However, they seem to have introduced a bug where it hibernates when plugged in, and doesn't hibernate when on battery, which is pretty much the exact opposite of what you want. Almost certainly their code just has a sign flip somewhere.
I'm pretty sure this was introduced with a system update at some point, so presumably Apple will fix it eventually. When they do, they might not reset any pmset fiddling you may have done.
This is why I recommend lengthening the autopoweroffdelay from 4 to 24 hours instead of turning it off altogether. That way, when they do eventually fix it, you'll still get the benefit of auto-hibernation after a more reasonable 24 hour span, and have a working laptop even if you don't touch it for a few days.
Yes, you both pretty much get it now.
Apple has posted an official response to this!
http://support.apple.com/en-us/HT1757
Apparently, the reason auto power off happens when plugged in is due to European energy standards compliance. So the logic isn't backwards after all. It's just that its goal is to prevent long term power grid usage, not improving user experience.
MacBook Pro always hibernates
