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After installing mavericks, the iMac will not wake from sleep properly (at all)

I've upgraded to 10.9 (late 2012 21" iMac), and I notice in the morning when the iMac has been sleeping overnight, it will not wake up,

During the day, if it sleeps for a few hours, it seems fine, and wakes normally, prompting me to type my password,

In the morning however, I hit a key (on my wireless keyboard), and the display wakes up, I get a dark grey screen, and see the loading circle (not the beachball) in the middle, and see the cursor for a few seconds, before it then disappears, and reappears.

This cycle repeats itself,

The 'fix' is to do a forced shutdown by holding the powwer button until it shuts down, and then restart.


Anyone else find this problem/find a solution?

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.3)

Posted on Oct 28, 2013 2:44 AM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 28, 2013 11:06 PM

Please read this whole message before doing anything.

This procedure is a diagnostic test. It’s unlikely to solve your problem. Don’t be disappointed when you find that nothing has changed after you complete it.
The purpose of the test is to determine whether the problem is caused by third-party software that loads automatically at startup or login, by a peripheral device, or by corruption of certain system caches.


Disconnect all wired peripherals except those needed for the test, and remove all aftermarket expansion cards. Boot in safe mode and log in to the account with the problem. Note: If FileVault is enabled on some models, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.

Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including sound output and Wi-Fi on certain models. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin.


Test while in safe mode. Same problem?


After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.
210 replies

Dec 31, 2013 1:28 PM in response to BobHassinger

Just to add to my original post. Over Xmas and the new year, I serviced a 6 month old iMac 27 and in the process updated from 10.8.5 to 10.9.1. Lo and behold it has the same sleep issue now. I disabled the displays have separate spaces in Mission control and unticked all the energy saver options but it is still there. Before my customer collected, I did an SMC reset, so we will see what happens there . IMHO there appears to be something screwy with sleep and energy saver, as I have to untick everything in Energy saver for my Mac Pro Early 2008. There does appear however, to be something specific to iMacs of whatever vintage which probably needs either a 10.9.2 or a fimware update. I'm not upset, these things are bound to happen with a major OS upgrade and Apple has to get them out, because if it ironed out every little bug, it would never get published (Shame that none of the developers picked this up). Lets hope Apple comes to the party soon. Happy New Year.

Dec 31, 2013 6:48 PM in response to drerocs

I've been back in town a couple of nights now. My 10.9.1 sleep/wake is still working great as it should. From reading the other posts it sounds possible it won't last, I guess we will see.

I was close and stopped by an Apple store tonight; I talked to one of the geniuses. Nice kid, he checked their database “whatever that is” and found no references to this issue. I did show him this post on my phone and it was his opinion it was a very small percentage of Mavericks installs. He assured me there are people that continuously review these discussion boards and that he has met the people in the group. Ok sure, I could have been getting lip service but the kid seems credible… who knows?

Jan 1, 2014 3:02 AM in response to foulgernz

I helped with the beta testing of 10.9.1 and not once did I experience a problem in waking the iMac from sleep. For me, the problem has only occurred since testing the new version. Today, fo rhte second day running, the iMac has woken up. As indicated earlier, I have removed all "problems" indicated by Etrecheck and disconnected all USB devices. I have set the automatic wake up function on; yesterday the iMac woke up too early, today I don't know as I only got to it late in the morning myself, but at least a single tap on hte spacebar woke it up again.

Jan 1, 2014 5:47 AM in response to fearull

Just found this discussion. You are all obviously very knowledgable about computers, I am not a techy & would be afraid to try some of the fixes but it's good to know someone is trying to resolve this issue and I'm not the only one suffering with it.

These are my details, maybe my info might help with your puzzlings.

Computer won't wake after sleeping, I get a dark grey screen, I have to use the power button to switch off and on. Usually doesn't start the first time just get a light grey screen with no Apple logo so have to use power button again, sometimes several times, to get the computer to start up. OK once it's going though. I am very concerend this is all damaging my hardrive.

My iMac is old, 2008 and I downloaded Mavericks when it was released from the prompt sent by Apple from the App Store. Then updated to 10.9.1 on Dec 17th also from a prompt by Apple from the App Store and that's when the problem started. My computer is also slower since this update. Slower to start up and slower to load programs. I have to use power button to swtich off and on.

I have reported this as feedback to Apple using the link that one of you posted. Will keep a eye on this discussion to see if anyone finds a solution tough I really think it should be Apple who do that.

Jan 2, 2014 1:57 AM in response to UMF50

Further to my previous post, today my iMac did not wake up automatically, even though it is scheduled via Energy Saver to "Start or wake" Every Day at 10:00. Furthermore, it would not wake up by pressing a key on the keyboardor by clicking th etrackpad. Again, the hard disk seemed to be spinning, but the screen remained blank and no other response was evident.


Back to the drawing-board!

Jan 2, 2014 9:38 AM in response to fearull

I just wanted to point out that this only started happening to me 3 days ago. I have had mavericks installed for some time now. So i came to think what could be causing it what changed? And the only thing that did was that i got a new gaming keyboard that avtually supports macosx and comes with software as well. SteelSeries Apex Gaming keyboard is the model. So I ugraded the firmware for the keyboard today and I am going to do the pram reset to see if that has a longing effect.

Jan 2, 2014 10:19 AM in response to BobHassinger

BobHassinger:


My problems began after UPGRADING to Mavericks from the App store.


The "Genius" Bar guys decided that they should replace the system board because of my USB port problem (see pervious post if interested) but everything else (hardweare and software) "checked out" O.K. They could not reproduce the wake from sleep isuue. Even after explaining that it happens after the computer has been asleep for anywhere from an hour or more, they decided that it would be smart (hence the name "genius") to check it by resetting the computer to go to sleep after a minute and then to try to wake it up riught away. They did this several times with no waking issues.


At my request, they are going to do a clean install of Mavericks. I will have to reinstall EVERYTHING I have installed as well as to copyt all of my documents back from a backup. I sure hope this all goes well.


I will update after all of this happens and I see just how well the clean install works.

Jan 2, 2014 2:47 PM in response to fearull

I'm in the same boat. I've got a late 2013 iMac 27" with Mavericks. I've tired everything reset SMC, etc. disabled sleep, cleared out the sleep cache, etc. nothing seems to work. I've two ASUS 23" connected via HDMI -> Thunderbolt and when the system goes to sleep, and attempt to wake it up, either the system goes to all black screens or the primary iMac monitor turns on and one of the two ASUS monitors turn on but, the system is non-responsive. The only way to get the systme back is a hard shutdown via power button, reboot and everything comes backup without issue. There have been other times when unplugging one of the thunderbolt cables reinitilizing everything but, that is unacceptable to me.


At this point, I'm using the "command, option, eject" to power off the monitors when I'm away from the computer. I've also disable sleep, and hard drive sleep. Tested this configuration last night, and the system was responsive this morning to waking up the monitors. I'm going to continue to test for the next few days and see if this method proves to be realible.


Question, has anyone tired a DVI -> Thunderbolt connection and have had better results? Been thinking about purchasing DVI -> Thunderbolt and see if this fixes the issue, and maybe, this is a HDMI issue only. Know Apple monitors the boards, but figured I'd throw my name in the hat with everyone else. Hope Apple will investigate, and find a solution. However, my research tells me this has been an on-going issue with Thunderbolt for sometime.

Jan 3, 2014 6:18 PM in response to BobHassinger

The last session with the technician from Apple suggested setting the Mac (system and display) not to sleep which I did for several days. The computer switched to running a screen saver (iTunes album covers where the album could be played by clicking on the album cover - something I hadnt seen before) but the system remained responsive and came up with a login screen immediately in response to mouse or keyboard activity for several days, until last night. The iTunes screen saver was there but there was no mouse pointer or response to keyboard or mouse activity.


During the time that the computer was responsive it was running a Time Machine backup - Time Machine decided that I needed a new, complete backup and took to creating it - it takes several days to backup about 600 Gbytes from my internal HDD to my Time Capsule, connected via ethernet cable, which I think is slow but the technician didnt feel was unreasonable.


It leads me to think that the energy settings have nothing to do with this problem.


The next step, with the Time Machine backup complete, is a fresh install I think.

After installing mavericks, the iMac will not wake from sleep properly (at all)

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