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Crashes/reboots/restarts while on sleep

This thread is exclusive to people who have spontaneous crashes/reboots/restarts while their Mac is in sleep. (this is usually connected to having a USB external hard drive plugged in the computer while on sleep)


In simple words, you are experiencing this problem:

1) You put your Mac to sleep

2) You return to it after some time and you find it on.

3) On screen you find this error message "Your computer restarted because of a problem." or similar, and in the report of the error message the Event is "Sleep Wake Failure" or similar.


If your Mac does not wake from sleep this is NOT the thread for you, please don’t write here.

If your Mac is experiencing black screens and freezes while waking up from sleep this is NOT the thread for you, please don’t write here.


This thread is a continuation to the “New rMBP sleep/wake failure crashes” thread.


I’m trying to better understand this problem. Allow me to ask you some questions. After you answer the first 5 question, feel free to write freely in this thread. (as longs as you are pertinent to this issue)


Please answer this questions carefully. If we get enough people to answer, I will personally slap this thread on the face of every Apple employee I can find, so they will have to stop saying "we never heard of this issue" and we can get a quick fix or a quick replacement if this is indeed an hardware issue.



PLEASE ANWSER THIS QUESTIONS BEFORE WRITING IN THIS THREAD FOR THE FIRST TIME

I suggest you copy and paste the questions below in your reply, and replace the text ANSWER with your answer.




1. Which Mac do you have? (If you have this issue with multiple machines, list them here)

ANSWER


2. When did the problem start? If you had Mountain Lion installed on this machine, did the problem start when you updated to Mavericks?

ANSWER


3. Did you have your Mac replaced from Apple because of this issue? If yes, does the new machine still have the problem?

ANSWER


4. Does your machine crash/reboot while on sleep only if you have an external hard drive connected?

ANSWER


5. Does your machine crash/reboot even if you uncheck "Enable Power Nap" in Preferences, Energy Saver? (before answering this, check that you have updated OS X to 10.9.1 and that you have unchecked Power Nap in both the Battery and Power Adapter tabs in Energy Saver)

ANSWER


OPTIONAL QUESTIONS


6. Do you have an external hard drive connected via USB? If yes, write the manufacturer name and model name of the drive. (example: Western Digital My Book)

ANSWER


7. Do you have a network connected drive? (like Time Capsule or an external hard drive connected to an AirPort Extreme, or a NAS)

ANSWER


8. Do you have Time Machine Enabled?

ANSWER


9. Do you have Crashplan installed?

ANSWER


10. How much time does it usually take for the first crash/reboot to happen, after you put the computer on sleep?

ANSWER


11. If you have a late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina, do you have discrete graphics in it? (In other words: do you have an NVIDIA GPU? If you don't know this, go into the menu bar, click the apple icon, click About This Mac, Click More Info, in Graphics you should find written “NVIDIA GeForce”.)

ANSWER




PS

Please forgive any mistakes in this text, unfortunately english is not my native language.



<Email Edited by Host>

MacBook Pro with Retina display

Posted on Dec 21, 2013 7:05 AM

Reply
211 replies

Feb 26, 2014 5:42 PM in response to Corin See

Corin See: How did the geniuses diagnosis a bad power supply? Did it show up when they were running basic diagnostics with your client or did they take the machine and keep it for more intensive testing? Curious because my power supply and other hardware came up as being good when the genius tested with diagnostics. Wondering if that test is enough to determine if power supply or other hardware is indeed bad and should be replaced. I am out of warranty period so obviusly do not want to throw money at parts if they are not guaranteed to be the problem.

Feb 26, 2014 10:35 PM in response to hailalistair

1. Which Mac do you have? (If you have this issue with multiple machines, list them here)

Late 2013 15" MacBook Pro Retina


2. When did the problem start? If you had Mountain Lion installed on this machine, did the problem start when you updated to Mavericks?

Started once I started using a new WD MyBook Studio USB 3.0 3TB external HD


3. Did you have your Mac replaced from Apple because of this issue? If yes, does the new machine still have the problem?

No.


4. Does your machine crash/reboot while on sleep only if you have an external hard drive connected?

Yes.


5. Does your machine crash/reboot even if you uncheck "Enable Power Nap" in Preferences, Energy Saver? (before answering this, check that you have updated OS X to 10.9.1 and that you have unchecked Power Nap in both the Battery and Power Adapter tabs in Energy Saver)

Untested. Just disabled it now.



OPTIONAL QUESTIONS


6. Do you have an external hard drive connected via USB? If yes, write the manufacturer name and model name of the drive. (example: Western Digital My Book)

Yes. See above.


7. Do you have a network connected drive? (like Time Capsule or an external hard drive connected to an AirPort Extreme, or a NAS)

No.


8. Do you have Time Machine Enabled?

Yes.


9. Do you have Crashplan installed?

No.


10. How much time does it usually take for the first crash/reboot to happen, after you put the computer on sleep?

Uncertain. It happens while I'm asleep or at work when my MacBook Pro "goes to sleep." I return to find a restart error.


11. If you have a late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina, do you have discrete graphics in it? (In other words: do you have an NVIDIA GPU? If you don't know this, go into the menu bar, click the apple icon, click About This Mac, Click More Info, in Graphics you should find written “NVIDIA GeForce”.)

Yes.

Feb 27, 2014 4:58 AM in response to hailalistair

Well, it's been over 24 hours since I've updated to 10.9.2 (Power Nap and Wake for Wi-Fi both checked) and I haven't had an issue yet.


Granted, I also purchased Jettison ($1.99) a while back which automatically disconnects my drives on sleep, and that could also be helping, but previously I had to still have Power Nap and Wake for Wi-Fi disabled, so this does seem like an improvement to me. Fingers crossed.

Feb 27, 2014 5:15 AM in response to budkin

Now it has been more than 2 days without crashes and Power Nap enabled. I will keep you updated if there are any changes.


At this point I can almost confidently say that:


If you are having crashes only with external hard drives or networked hard drives connected, then 10.9.2 should solve your problem.


If you are having crashes without external peripherals of any sort, and you are still having crashes with 10.9.2, then I would take an appoinment with an Apple Genius and bring the Mac in for an hardware check.


That said, I must also note that I have not enabled Power Nap on battery, I have it enabled only on Power Adapter. (I don't want the Mac wasting power on battery) I did, however, keep my Mac always connected to the Power Adapter in the last few days. These are my Energy Saver settings:


Energy Saver - Power Adapter settings

User uploaded file


Energy Saver - Battery settings

User uploaded file



User uploaded file


User uploaded file

Feb 27, 2014 5:35 AM in response to hailalistair

I updated to 10.9.2 last night (download from Apple site not App store). I checked my iMAC this morning and had the same failure to wake issue issue/restart error. It is now happening daily, with or without external hard drives plugged in, with or without applications running. I had the machine into the Apple store last Saturday and they ran diagnostics that determined all hardware and power supply were running fine.


Question, is the "Power Nap" and "Wake fior WiFi" options only on laptops? I can't seem to locate it in the Energy Saver preferences on my iMAC. I'd like to try unchecking those options to see if it helps.

Mar 4, 2014 8:26 PM in response to hailalistair

Thanks for this post! I have read enough of it and I ended up going to the WD website and downloaded a PC version of the formatter ( their Mac version is buggy ), formatted the drive in a PC, and then re-formatted it ( using disk utility ) on a Mac again. Problem went away. What a detour for me.


I have also turned off the powernap option.


So I guess I the combination of both worked for me.

Mar 5, 2014 12:27 AM in response to hailalistair

Update 10.9.2 has solved the "Sleep/Wake Failure" in combination with "Power Nap" for me.

(15" rMBP 2013)


For those still experiencing the problem:

I have done the following steps back in november on suggestion of an apple engineer. I'm not sure if it also added to solving the problem:

  1. Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC): http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964
  2. OS X Mavericks: Start up in safe mode:http://support.apple.com/kb/PH14204
  3. I have also updated the firmware of my external WD HDD which may have helped

Crashes/reboots/restarts while on sleep

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