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bengmugenr Author

Level 1

14 points

Mac Pro sleeps after being woken up by WOL

Hi Folks

In order to wake up my Mac Pro on demand, I have set up Wake Over LAN (WOL) over the network and enabled "wake for network access" at System Preferences > Energy Saver on the Mac Pro. Now I am able to wake up the machine from my local router or across the Internet, but just wake up for a little while only.

The issue is, after the Mac Pro is being woken up by WOL for about 30 seconds, the machine always goes into sleep mode again for no reason. During the short alive period, the virtual machines running on the Mac Pro are pingable but the monitors are not on and the replaying YouTube video has no audio.

However, if I click the mouse or press the keyboard, the Mac Pro can be woken up as expected: the monitors are powered on, YouTube video is audible, all VMs are pingable too.

Why does my Mac Pro get woken up this way? How to fix it?

Thanks heaps in advance.

Regards,

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8), Mid 2012

Posted on Oct 11, 2013 4:44 AM

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,553 points

Posted on Oct 11, 2013 5:22 PM

Depending on the model, WOL may only cause a "dark wake" for the purpose of providing network services. It's not clear why you would need anything else.

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37 replies

Dabluest

Level 1

10 points

Nov 6, 2013 10:16 PM in response to bengmugenr

I used the pico editor in Terminal.

Copy and paste the following in a Terminal window:

sudo pico /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

Enter your admin password and press enter.

Using the arrow keys on your keyboard, position the cursor between "<string>" and "</string>" under "Kernel Flags" and type "darkwake=8" without quotes.

Press CTRL + O to commit changes and press enter.

Press CTRL + X to exit.

Reboot and you're good to go.

Also darkwake=8 works flawlessy with WOL and normal sleep settings. Your screen will now turn on after waking with packets.

bengmugenr Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 7, 2013 12:46 AM in response to Dabluest

Fantastic! It works like a charm, just as what I expected!

A BIG THANKS to you Dabluest.

One more detail. Compared to the previous dark-screen Dark Wake, the monitors now turn on after the Mac Pro is woken up with "darkwake=8".

Dabluest wrote:

Addendum: I also read darkwake=8 may be more suitable if 0 interferes with sleep.

bengmugenr Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 7, 2013 12:48 AM in response to Dabluest

Thank you again for the instruction.

Dabluest wrote:

I used the pico editor in Terminal.

Copy and paste the following in a Terminal window:

sudo pico /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

Enter your admin password and press enter.

...

Also darkwake=8 works flawlessy with WOL and normal sleep settings. Your screen will now turn on after waking with packets.

bengmugenr Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 7, 2013 1:41 AM in response to bengmugenr

BTW , is it possible to remotely power up Mac Pro via WOL?

I can do this with Windows. For Macs, I can only wake the sleeping computers.

Dabluest

Level 1

10 points

Nov 7, 2013 2:55 PM in response to bengmugenr

Glad I could help. Unfortunately, I don't know how to go about remotely powering a Mac.

Donkas

Level 1

30 points

Dec 6, 2015 3:02 PM in response to Dabluest

Is this still required for El Capitan?

bengmugenr Author

Level 1

14 points

Dec 6, 2015 4:14 PM in response to Donkas

Donkas wrote:

Is this still required for El Capitan?

I am still running Mavericks and enjoying the shadows and animations, but it would be great to know if EI Capitan still supports the same or better? Thanks.

Mac Pro sleeps after being woken up by WOL