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

Next time the display would lock up, I would watch the status of the WindowServer process.

Just food for though, would it be possible to restart the process if it is crashed ?

Here is the full path : /System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Frameworks/CoreGraphic s.framework/Resources/WindowServer -daemon

If the process is still in memory, I would definitly try this : sudo killall -HUP WindowServer

Here is a peek in my logs :

imac:log root# cat system.log | grep -i windowserver | more

Jan 27 00:25:19 imac.yhan.ath.cx WindowServer[87]: _CGXHWCaptureWindowList: No capable active display found.

Jan 27 00:56:14 imac.yhan.ath.cx WindowServer[87]: _CGXHWCaptureWindowList: No capable active display found.

Jan 27 01:21:04 imac.yhan.ath.cx WindowServer[87]: _CGXHWCaptureWindowList: No capable active display found.    

I have the exact same issue on my 2009 iMac.  Black screen but most other low level services appear to be running (ssh, etc.)

I am seeing the "No capable active display found." more often than I am seeing the problem.  I will definitely try the killall for the WindowServer next time it hangs up though to see if that at least fixes it without a hard restart.

I did issue the command just now to see what happens when it is NOT blacked out.  It kicked me back to a logon screen after going gray screen with mouse for a bit.

I'll post back next time I am stuck to report the results.  This is very annoying.

Looks like a crash of the Graphic User Interface process.

I had some similar issues with Ubuntu Linux. In that case, a reload of the process would kind solve the problem (/etc/init.d/xorg restart).

Most of the time, that was related to a bug with the video driver and the Xorg process.

Apple, are we going to get a fix for this problem with 10.9.2 ?

I am not sure about the designation of Graphic User Interface process as a specific entity, but WindowServer for example shows up in the logs.

But in any case I think a while backk someone mentioned an update to video drivers being mentioned in some information about 10.9.2, so maybe...

(OTOH, I seem to recall someone with access to beta 10.9.2 saying it did not fix the problem - but then there may well be more than one ptoblem and/or that beta might not have had everything - you never know...

BTW - I have mentioned that stuff in the logs I see seems to be saying those crashes and reports of them that I see are being uploaded to Apple - if so they could be more aware of WindowServer crash incidents than it might seem from out here.

So, does anyone have a clue about how soon we might see 10.9.2?

Ok I have just got the issue this morning.

Impossible to restart the WindowServer process though. Not even to kill the process.

This time, I had the issue while using my iMac as external screen from my MBP with a DisplayPort. The screen continued to work though, until I unplugged the DisplayPort cable from the MBP.

This is not the first time I have the issue while using the iMac as external screen.

Same exact problem, each morning a struggle...!

Fix this :c

Here is my problem, Late 2012 iMac 27", goes to sleep and the display will not back come on after waking up.  The screen is black but on closer look you can see things on the screen it is just REALLY dark, virtually completely dark.  The only way to get it to come back is to adjust the screen all the way back and then position it back to normal.  You would think this would be a bad connection but I took it into the Apple store and they could not replicate it despite it happening at home fairly often.  Since taking it back home it is getting worse.  Checked on here for some insight and thought I would post my troubles.  I assume they will have to open it up when I take it back in.  It is to the point now that it will not wake up even by tilting the screen sometimes.  This computer is one year old and the latest gen iMac.  Very frustrating to say the least.  Apple has been very courteous up to this point I just hate to run my iMac down to the Apple store.  Not very convenient at all.

I've put a couple of posts up in this forum wrt to my wife's iMac 27" Mid 2011.  I tried everything in regard to software diagnostics and correction post 10.9.1.  I found that macs fan control helped a lot by setting 40 degrees as the threshold for maximum fan revolutions.  I then began to think beyond the square and I decided to think along the lines that perhaps this latest variant of OS X Mavericks was somehow using more power and therefore creating more heat, causing the GPU temperature sensor to shut down the GPU.  This morning I disassembled the computer, took out the logic board and found the inlet ducts to the GPU heat sink to be clogged with dust, as was the GPU fan.  After blowing out the complete computer with compressed air from an aerosol can and reassembling it, I find that when viewing Macs fan control, the GPU chip (and presumeably the CPU) is running much cooler and the computer has not gone to sleep once since that time.  So perhaps this would be something to look at after (in my case) over 2 1/2 years of use?

wumpnutt : when you have the problem, just call Apple support to get some hep and open a case.

Point them to this post.

Ask the engineer on the call to escalate it to the devleopement team. If it refused, ask him/her to requeue the ticket and eventually to talk to the duty manager.

I work for another big IT company, this is how call centers usually work and this is what I do in similar cases when I need to escalate on behalf of customers.

foulgernz : agree with you, cleaning the fan pipe would not hurt. This is not an easy task to do it for an iMac.

In my case, the issues started to appears with Maverick. So there is something with Maverick for sure.

APPLE : you need to fix this, this is annoying.... really annnoying (staying polite).

I recently have been working with Apple for my 4-year, 2-month old computer desktop.  I happened onto this community site while looking for a solution for my computer freezing out to a silver screen.  I finally took my computer to Apple and I asked that they not put Mavericks into my computer because people have been having so much trouble with it.  The salesman who checked me in said there were problems the first three months or so but those problems were fixed and people like OS Maverick now.  I reiterated that I didn't want Mavericks because the Apple support community seemed very disturbed.  So he said he would relay my message to the technician.  I later talked to the technician and he said computers were made for the OS system that was installed when the computer was sold. He didn't say any more and didn't talk at all about Mavericks.

My computer has now been repaired but I have not picked it up yet.  I am hoping that Lion is still the OS system ----it was Snow Leopard when I purchased it and Apple upgraded it to Lion when I took it in for a harddrive recall. 

My point is that I think the advice to escalate the problem to the development team and point them to this site is good because my experience is that Apple doesn't believe Mavericks is a problem.

I'll be honest and say I haven't bothered to read the many responses but in reality, we have three Macs here all running Mavericks.   The iMac is 10 months old and it has never not shut down when we wanted it to.   My Mac Mini Server with the Thunderbird display has been in the locking up state maybe twice or three times maximum.   My 2009 MacBook Pro has always shut down.  The point I'm making is that they all run Mavericks and it's a darn good operating system which is still being updated and believe me or not Apple will be aware of these anomolies and will be working on them.  Hopefully in 10.9.2 this may well be resolved, but it could also be due to remnants of previous operating system lurking around in the bowels of your Mac causing these difficulties.  So cross your fingers and hope it gets resolved!  Good luck. 

The sleeping problem is persisting on my computer (mid-2010 I7 iMac).  I'm developing the view that its something to do with the disks - my antivirus software cant complete a full scan of the system (which takes several hours).  It stalls mid-way, several hours into the scanning operation while the computer is asleep.

I have two Firewire 800 disks connected to the computer configured as an Apple software Raid set.  I disconnected them and the problem still occurs which only leaves the internal disk, which is set to go to sleep in the power management menu.  Perhaps the system is putting the disk to sleep and then not waking it, which would be odd if the disk is active (i.e. with a scan of the disk contents in progress).

I've also noticed problems when the system does wake, open programs are inactive and wont come to life (e.g. if I leave a Safari window open, Safari is frozen, same with Word, Excel, Pages, Aperture etc.) again poijnting to the disk?

Is there a utility for testing the physical memory in the computer that anyone has good experience with?

The disk issues theme for the source of this problem seems to be emerging on several fronts.  I was just downloading a small eps file from the Internet (<100 kb) and was told that my internal disk was full.  It has 300 Gbytes free and disk utility reports the volume is OK.

I tried disconnecting the two Firewire 800 drives I have attached to my iMac, suspecting that they may have been the source of the problem.  It made no difference.  The system was frozen when I tried to wake it from sleep.

The only other common thread I can think of is that the problem is being caused by Safari.  It has been open each time I have had the problem.

I was away from home for 10 days recently.  My iMac was on and my family were streaming iTunes movies from it to the Apple TV with no problems for the entire time.  Safari wasnt in use.

Over the past few days I have deliberately closed and exited Safari before allowing, or putting my iMac to sleep.  It's worken each time (brought up the login screen and allowed me to log in and see the program windows), but on most occasions the programs are unresponsive and I wind up rebooting by holding the power button down until the computer switches off, waiting and powering up again.

Time Machine seems to run and complete a backup while the computer is asleep.  I only get Time Machine backups running once or twice per day (not hourly as Apple specifies).  The backup drive is a Time Capsule connected by ethernet (wireless in the iMac is turned off).

I use an antivirus program (Avira for Mac which has been updated for Mavericks) which scans the computer every few days.  A brief scan runs OK.  A full scan of the system never completes (file activity stalls - the counter does not advance, but the elapsed time for the scan advances in real time).

My daughter put Mavericks on her Macbook Pro.  It runs flawlessly.