Question: mavericks does not wake up some times

Question

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Question: mavericks does not wake up some times

I'm using a macbook pro purchased new in fall of 2011 and recently installed mavericks on it.

What I have noticed is that when the screen auto locks due to inactivity, almost all the time it takes a long time for it to respond to keyboard clicks or touchpad action to bring up the password screen. This happens while the screen is still showing screensaver, ie not in sleep mode.

On two occasions now, while the the screen has been showing screensaver for a while, no matter how many times I click or type, the password screen does not show up and the mac is completely irresponsive. The only way to get out of that is to hold the power button to hard reboot.

Two questions:

1) is there a better way to get the mac to respond other than hard rebooting?

2) is there something I can do to prevent this from happening to begin with?

Thanks.

MacBook Pro, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Nov 15, 2013 9:56 AM

Reply

Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

(107,446 points)

macOS

Nov 15, 2013 10:11 AM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

Please determine if the problems also occur in "Safe Mode":

Safe Mode or "Safe Boot" is a troubleshooting mode that bypasses all third party system extensions and loads only required system components. Read about it: Starting up in Safe Mode
You must disable FileVault before you can start your Mac in Safe Mode.
Starting your Mac in Safe Mode will take longer than usual, graphics will not render smoothly, audio is disabled on some Macs, and some programs (iTunes for example) may not work at all.
Merely starting your Mac in Safe Mode is not intended to resolve the problem, it's to observe its performance without certain additional components.
To end Safe Mode restart your Mac normally. Shutdown will take longer as well.

Some users have reported an SMC resetto be beneficial. Be sure to read the procedure carefully and follow all the steps exactly as written, even if they seem inapplicable or trivial:

Before Resetting the SMC

Try each of the following steps in this order before you reset the SMC. Test the issue after completing each troubleshooting step to determine if the issue still occurs.

Press Command + Option + Escape to force quit any application that is not responding.
Put your Mac to sleep by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Sleep. Wake the computer after it has gone to sleep.
Restart your Mac by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Restart.
Shut down your Mac by choosing the Apple () menu from the upper-left menu bar and then choosing Shut Down.

Resetting the SMC on portables with a battery you should not remove on your own

Shut down the computer.
Plug in the MagSafe power adapter to a power source, connecting it to the Mac if it's not already connected.
On the built-in keyboard, press the (left side) Shift-Control-Option keys and the power button at the same time. The power adapter indicator light will cycle off / on once.
Release all the keys and the power button at the same time.
Press the power button to turn on the computer.

Nov 15, 2013 10:11 AM

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Answer 2

quatrieme

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Nov 16, 2013 7:27 AM in response to John Galt In response to John Galt

Thanks, John. I've just gotten around to rebooting in safe mode. I will leave it running like this and report back within a day or so whether that issue still happens.

Nov 16, 2013 7:27 AM

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Answer 3

quatrieme

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Nov 17, 2013 5:52 AM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

Hi John, while in safe mode, I've tried to leave my mac screen locked as much as I could including overnight and tried to wake it several times. Each time there was no delay in bringing up the password screen and have not encountered any situation where it froze. As I type now the keyboard is not backlit.

Should I reboot normally to try the "before smc reset" steps? Thanks.

Nov 17, 2013 5:52 AM

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Answer 4

John Galt

Level 10

(107,446 points)

macOS

Nov 17, 2013 7:13 AM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

Yes.

Nov 17, 2013 7:13 AM

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Answer 5

quatrieme

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Nov 17, 2013 10:03 PM in response to John Galt In response to John Galt

Hi John, thanks for your help. I've been running in non-safe mode now since this morning. The response of my mac on waking up is again back to being slow, not initially but now after about 15hrs. For example the password screen would take 10 sec to come up and once I put the pw in it took another 10-15 sec for the screen saver to disappear. However, so far it has not frozen to the point I need to reboot by the power button.

Two things seem a bit pertubing. 1) sometime earlier this evening upon waking up a pop up showed up saying "the disk is close to being full" or something to that effect when in fact the finder was showing 8.89GB free. 2) Just now upon waking up, while without another warning of disk being full, I noticed the finder now showing 7.75GB free. Between now and then I did not do anything that would have used up 1GB of space. It's been mostly sitting there asleep most of the time. The mac does feel slightly warm. Something errant does seem to be happening.

I have not done an SMC reset yet. Should I? Or something else? Thanks.

Nov 17, 2013 10:03 PM

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Answer 6

John Galt

Level 10

(107,446 points)

macOS

Nov 18, 2013 1:27 AM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

quatrieme wrote:

I have not done an SMC reset yet. Should I?

Yes. There will be more troubleshooting steps to follow.

Nov 18, 2013 1:27 AM

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Answer 7

quatrieme

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Nov 18, 2013 3:45 AM in response to John Galt In response to John Galt

ok. firstly, my mac finally froze requiring a reboot via power button. the screensaver showed 2:57 so about 3-4 hours ago.

I have tried to do a SMC reset per the instructions you provided. I'm not certain it got reset. When I press the leff-side shift+control+option plus the powerbutton, the power adaptor indicator lights did NOT cycle off/on once.

To be honest I thought the power adaptor indicator lights were either the single light on the magsafe connector or the white light on the front edge (rightside). Neither of those flashed. Then I looked it up to find out it was talking about the 8 green LED on the left edge. But subsequently trying to do the SMC reset those LEDs did not cycle off/on either.

thanks.

Nov 18, 2013 3:45 AM

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Answer 8

John Galt

Level 10

(107,446 points)

macOS

Nov 18, 2013 9:25 AM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

To help determine the possible causes of this behaviour read the following. None of what follows is intended to fix anything, but it will provide the additional information required to advance troubleshooting:

Boot OS X Recovery by holding ⌘ and r (two fingers) while you start your Mac. At the Mac OS X Utilities screen, select Disk Utility. Select your startup volume (usually named "Macintosh HD") and click the Repair Disk button. Describe any errors it reports in red.

When it finishes restart your Mac and test again for operation. If it's still not behaving as you expect it should, please post the results of EtreCheck in accordance with the following instructions:

Apple Support Communities contributor etresoft wrote a very useful app to quickly gather certain system information that may help point to a cause of this problem. Go to his website, download and run EtreCheck:

http://www.etresoft.com/etrecheck

Etrecheck will be in your Downloads folder. Open it from there. You may see the following dialog box:

Click Open - etresoft contributes to this forum frequently and can be considered a trustworthy developer.

It will take a moment to run as it collects its data.

Copy and paste its output in a reply.

Do not be concerned about anything that says "Problem" or “failed” or anything else that may appear in red.

EtreCheck was designed to remove any personal information (such as your computer's name and serial numbers) but if you see anything that looks like an email address or any other personal information that should not be divulged to others, please delete or obscure that information when you post the reply.

When you are finished with EtreCheck, quit the program. It occupies very little space, and you can keep it or drag it to the Trash as you wish.

Nov 18, 2013 9:25 AM

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Answer 9

quatrieme

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Nov 18, 2013 11:40 AM in response to John Galt In response to John Galt

thanks, John. i ran repair disk twice under recovery mode and both times it came back with green "the volume macintosh hd appears to ok". there is nothing in red

i will try to install & run etrecheck and post results

Nov 18, 2013 11:40 AM

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Answer 10

quatrieme

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Nov 18, 2013 11:47 AM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

Hi John, here is the etrecheck output:

Hardware Information:

MacBook Pro (13-inch, Early 2011)

MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro8,1

1 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU: 2 cores

4 GB RAM

Video Information:

Intel HD Graphics 3000 - VRAM: 384 MB

Audio Plug-ins:

BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0

AirPlay: Version: 1.9

AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0

iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3

System Software:

OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 0:7:8

Disk Information:

TOSHIBA MK3265GSXF disk0 : (320.07 GB)

EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB

Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 319.21 GB (8.63 GB free)

Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

MATSHITADVD-R UJ-8A8

USB Information:

Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

Apple Inc. BRCM2070 Hub

Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

Apple Inc. FaceTime HD Camera (Built-in)

Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus

Kernel Extensions:

com.rim.driver.BlackBerryUSBDriverInt (0.0.74)

com.Cycling74.driver.Soundflower (1.5.2)

Problem System Launch Daemons:

Problem System Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

[loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

[loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

[loaded] com.leapfrog.connect.shell.plist

[loaded] com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

[loaded] com.oracle.java.JavaUpdateHelper.plist

[loaded] com.rim.BBDaemon.plist

Launch Agents:

[loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

[loaded] com.rim.BBAlbumArtCacher.plist

[loaded] com.rim.BBLaunchAgent.plist

[loaded] jp.co.canon.ScanGearMF.appl.Canon-MF-Scan-Agent.plist

User Launch Agents:

[loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist

[failed] com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-[redacted]@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist

User Login Items:

Monitor

VMware Fusion Helper

iTunesHelper

Android File Transfer Agent

OpenVPN Connect

SpeechSynthesisServer

BlackBerry Device Manager

3rd Party Preference Panes:

Flash Player

Java

Paragon NTFS for Mac ® OS X

Internet Plug-ins:

AdobePDFViewer.plugin

AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin

Default Browser.plugin

Flash Player.plugin

FlashPlayer-10.6.plugin

googletalkbrowserplugin.plugin

JavaAppletPlugin.plugin

MeetingJoinPlugin.plugin

npgtpo3dautoplugin.plugin

o1dbrowserplugin.plugin

QuickTime Plugin.plugin

SharePointBrowserPlugin.plugin

User Internet Plug-ins:

Picasa.plugin

RealPlayer Plugin.plugin

Bad Fonts:

None

Time Machine:

Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

3% WindowServer

1% EtreCheck

1% BBLaunchAgent

0% fontd

0% VMware Fusion Helper

0% loginwindow

0% aosnotifyd

Top Processes by Memory:

90 MB Google Chrome

78 MB Finder

70 MB Dock

57 MB SystemUIServer

57 MB mds_stores

57 MB WindowServer

53 MB VMware Fusion Helper

53 MB com.apple.internetaccounts

49 MB com.apple.dock.extra

49 MB CalendarAgent

Virtual Memory Statistics:

982 MB Free RAM

1.86 GB Active RAM

210 MB Inactive RAM

995 MB Wired RAM

302 MB Page-ins

0 B Page-outs

Nov 18, 2013 11:47 AM

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Answer 11

Solved

John Galt

Level 10

(107,446 points)

macOS

Nov 18, 2013 8:38 PM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

Uninstall Soundflower. It has not been updated in years and its support forum is moribund. Their web site has a short video that shows how to uninstall it.

Unless you are still using a BlackBerry, uninstall their software. If you still use one, determine if their software has been updated for compatibility with Mavericks.

Check VMWare's website for Mavericks compatibility. You need VMWare 6 since earlier versions are not 100% compatible, and even VMWare 6 has had problems. Try their support forum.

Verify they are uninstalled or updated as required, then test your Mac for operation again.

Nov 18, 2013 8:38 PM

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Answer 12

quatrieme

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Nov 19, 2013 6:35 AM in response to John Galt In response to John Galt

Thanks, John. I can definitely delete the blackberry stuff. I'll see if I can update vmware fusion. Neither of these I'm using but would like to keep the latter. So these plug-ins/etc will affect performance even when I don't run those apps?

I won't have time to do any of this until tonight but will definitely do them and get back to you. Thanks.

Nov 19, 2013 6:35 AM

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Answer 13

John Galt

Level 10

(107,446 points)

macOS

Nov 19, 2013 6:59 AM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

They are affecting performance, that much is certain, but whether they are the cause of the Mac's failure to wake properly is unknown and can't be determined until you observe its performance without them installed.

Upgrading OS X generally reveals incompatibility with various programs or modifications that predate it, and those few are merely suspicious due to their apparent age. You can always reinstall them if they are not the cause. There may be others.

Nov 19, 2013 6:59 AM

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Answer 14

quatrieme

Level 1

(24 points)

macOS

Nov 20, 2013 3:43 AM in response to John Galt In response to John Galt

Thanks, John. I'm looking into uninstalling the soundflower kernel extension. However I can't find the app in the app folder and the script for uninstalling mentioned on the soundflower website. I have a feeling some other app installed this extension so I'm trying to acertain which one that is.

The closest I can think of is audacity but I need audacity.

Is there a way to set up some kind of alert to see when a certain kernel extension gets invoked? Then I can try to run various apps to see when that soundflower extension is used. thanks.

Nov 20, 2013 3:43 AM

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Answer 15

John Galt

Level 10

(107,446 points)

macOS

Nov 20, 2013 7:29 AM in response to quatrieme In response to quatrieme

Here is the page with the short video:

http://cycling74.com/products/soundflower/

It explains that there is a folder within /Applications containing an uninstaller script. If you no longer have that folder, then there are manual uninstallation instructions contained on the following page:

http://cycling74.com/forums/topic/soundflower-support/

If that does not prove successful, here is a screenshot of the video referenced above, with the AppleScript enlarged so that you can read it and duplicate what it does:

Notice it is not exactly the same as the Terminal instructions - the manual uninstallation instructions unload the kernel extension while the AppleScript does not, and the AppleScript removes the application receipt and the application itself, whereas the Terminal instructions do not. Either one should effectively remove it, but whichever instructions you follow, verify all its components are actually removed. If Soundflower is not the problem you can always install it again.

Is there a way to set up some kind of alert to see when a certain kernel extension gets invoked?

I do not know of Soundflower's relationship to Audacity but since both of them modify OS X's native audio functions, either one may be the problem any time system audio is used for any reason. Obviously that's very often. My suspicion that Soundflower is the culprit is due to the fact that there is no overt indication that it has been updated since "Mac OS 10.5", its support website contains inaccurate and conflicting information, and that there has not been any activity on its discussions forum for quite some time. It may or may not be related to the problems you described.

Nov 20, 2013 7:29 AM

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Question: Q: mavericks does not wake up some times

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Question: mavericks does not wake up some times