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Sleep/wake crash OSX Mavericks, Macbook Air 2013

Hi there,


Since the upgrade to Mavericks my 2013 Macbook Air had a few sleep wake crashes. The problem occurs when my air turns to sleep, and I try to wake it with the keyboard within a very short time.(1-3 seconds I think) Happened a few times when I was typing and accidently pressed the on/off button while typing(which is a really stupid feature in the new OSX if you ask me) and a few times when I tried to safe my laptop from going to sleep because it was idle for to long, and just got there to late. What happens is that the Macbook just gives a black screen, but is still on. I cant let it sleep by closing the lid, and the only way to get it running again is by restarting.(holding down the on/off button)


Couldnt find anything similar to this. So i'm hoping if this is a common problem with Mavericks and is on the list to be fixed with the new patch.


I hope you guys have some info.

MacBook Air, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 11, 2013 5:37 AM

Reply
353 replies

Jan 11, 2014 1:38 AM in response to Kenny Wiess

I had the same problem with a new Macbook Air 11 - I can't say if it happened with 10.8 as I went straight to 10.9. Same issues as everyone else, sometime I open the lid and everything is fine other times get black screen, or get to the login screen but have the spinning beech ball. Really frustraiting.


I tried changing the sleep method a few days ago, and so far no reoccurence.


There a three different options noted for sleep -


hibernatemode = 0 (binary 0000) by default on supported desktops. The

system will not back memory up to persistent storage. The system must

wake from the contents of memory; the system will lose context on power

loss. This is, historically, plain old sleep.


hibernatemode = 3 (binary 0011) by default on supported portables. The

system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and

will power memory during sleep. The system will wake from memory, unless

a power loss forces it to restore from disk image.


hibernatemode = 25 (binary 0001 1001) is only settable via pmset. The

system will store a copy of memory to persistent storage (the disk), and

will remove power to memory. The system will restore from disk image. If

you want "hibernation" - slower sleeps, slower wakes, and better battery

life, you should use this setting.



I am no expert on this but from reading believe the default setting is 3.


This can be checked by using pmset -g which will list the current settings.


I took a chance that changing to hibernatemode = 25 might help. It takes a little longer to resume from sleep when opening the lid - maybe an additional two seconds, and enough that you can open the lid and still see a black screen for a second or so - but over the past few days, and going in and out of sleep lots of times no reoccurance.


I changed it using the command - sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 25


Please use at your own risk, as I am sure that changing this is not suppored by Apple.

Jan 11, 2014 1:54 AM in response to abjoc

Dear abjoc,


in my case settings are as follow:

Active Profiles:

Battery Power -1*

AC Power -1

Currently in use:

standbydelay 1800

standby 1

halfdim 1

sms 1

hibernatefile /var/vm/sleepimage

disksleep 0

sleep 0

autopoweroffdelay 14400

hibernatemode 25

autopoweroff 1

ttyskeepawake 1

displaysleep 10

acwake 0

lidwake 1


Hi, it appears that my settings are already set to 25.

Correct?

Anything else to change to be concern?


Andrea

Jan 11, 2014 2:10 AM in response to puffo25

Dear Andrea,


Looks like yours was already set to 25. I changed the settings on my Macbook from 3 to 25 - so far this is day 3 and probably 30+ Sleep/Wakes without an issue.


I have a new Macbook Air 11 (mid-2013 spec) - can only think that it might vary between different Macbook models..?


I also reset the SMC & NVRAM - this didn't make a difference when set to 3, but don't know if a combination of SMC and NVRAM reset and change to this setting made the difference.

Jan 11, 2014 6:47 AM in response to tortmeier

A few days after I posted this, I went in and changed the energy safer settings, I move the Computer sleep timer up to Never, and my MacPro hasnt crashed or stopped responding since, working perfectly.


I know that is not a complete fix, but in my case is has issues a temp fix till Apple finds the problem and fixes it correcly


thanks for all the comments and support

Jan 13, 2014 1:30 PM in response to Bryan29562

That's an interesting observation Bryan29562. Although I have an iMac, I have a second slave monitor plugged into the Thunderbolt port > HDMI interface. The configuration is probably unusual in beta testing and the issue is intermittent so may not have been reported reliably but it's certainly something I hadn't considered and probably highly likely as a cause.


I have a MBAir but don't often attach a second monitor to it. It would be interesting if the situation can be replicated.

Jan 14, 2014 3:12 PM in response to Kenny Wiess

I've had to reinstall Mavericks twice since it came out last year. Both times the reinstall cured problems but for a short time. I've now totally dumped Mavericks and operating on Snow Leopard, the last CD OS I own. I would have degraded to Mountain Lion but couldn't on the App store. Here's an article I wrote about my recent decision to never, ever use Maverickshttp://johnbpritchett.blogspot.com/p/coffee-talk.html

Jan 16, 2014 9:41 AM in response to Kenny Wiess

I am also having this issue on a 13inch MacBook Air purchased in October. Have had the issue since I downloaded Mavericks, and can reproduce the error by waiting for the screen to dim and trying to re-wake the computer. Mine wakes up fine if I leave it alone for a while. This issue has caused me to lose data multiple times by forcing a hard restart, and it is driving me crazy!


But, I had an interesting episode of it this morning. I was on a conference call using Skype, when my screen faded to go to sleep, and I swiped the touch pad. The screen went black, as it always does, and I could not wake up the screen. HOWEVER, it did not disconnect the internet or my Skype call, and I was able to continue my Skype call for another 30 minutes with no disruption, other than I could not see the screen.


So, this leads me to believe that the sleep/wake issue has to do with the montior/screen rather than the rest of the system. An interesting experiment to add to this thread.


But please, Apple, give us a fix!!!!

Sleep/wake crash OSX Mavericks, Macbook Air 2013

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