MacBook Pro, mid 2010 with 10.10.2, fails to wake from sleep. Must do a power off and restart.

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MacBook Pro, mid 2010 with 10.10.2, fails to wake from sleep. Must do a power off and restart.

MacBook Pro, a 13" mid 2010 model, 2.4 Ghz, running on 10.10.2 Yosemite, has started to fail to wake from sleep about 75% of the time. No pattern established. Sometimes from sleep entered by closing the lid; sometimes from sleep entered by using the Apple button or just inactivity. Has happened on both battery and AC. Not running any peripherals. Programs open at most times include Chrome or Safari and Messages. Forced off with the power button and restart will bring it back. Any suggestions?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Mar 16, 2015 8:28 AM

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Answer 1

John Galt

Level 10

141,060 points

Mar 16, 2015 8:51 AM in response to bscharff

Power or other problems related to unexpected system sleep, shutdown, lights or fans call for anSMC reset. Read all the steps.

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.
Then reconnect the battery.

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 may 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.

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Answer 2

bscharff Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 16, 2015 5:24 PM in response to John Galt

Seemed to work for through about 6 various sleep events but had to do a forced off and restart after the last sleep state entered by closing the lid. Will try again.

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

141,060 points

Mar 16, 2015 6:07 PM in response to bscharff

You might be able to identify the process or processes preventing sleep with the following Bash script. To do that open Terminal - it's in your Mac's Utilities folder.

Copy the following line (triple-click to select the entire line), wait until you believe the Mac should be sleeping, and then paste it in the Terminal window:

clear; printf '\e[3J'; P='pmset' Q=(Thermal Load Events Assertions Preemptions) R=(therm sysload 2 assertions 4) S='\n####' T=$(pmset -g | grep -o "sleep prevented.*[^)]") ; printf $S\ ${Q[2]}'\n' ; egrep -i 'eep\ cau|ake\ rea' /private/var/log/system.log | tail -n 12 ; printf $S\ ${Q[3]}'\n' ; $P -g ${R[3]} | tail -n +14 | grep id | awk '{print $1, $2, $NF}' ; printf $S\ ${Q[4]}'\n' ; if [ -z "$T" ]; then echo None; else echo $T; fi 2>&1

Then, copy (select all) and paste that window's contents in a reply. If any information appears that you consider personal, edit or obscure that information before clicking the Reply button.

Quit Terminal when you're finished with it.

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Answer 4

bscharff Author

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9 points

Mar 17, 2015 5:58 AM in response to John Galt

I'm confused John. The issue is not sleeping, it's waking from sleep that fails. When I return to continue using the computer I'm faced with a black screen that will not respond. Even a one second push of the start button will not revive it or turn it on. I have to do a long hold of the start button to force shutdown followed by a restart.

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Answer 5

John Galt

Level 10

141,060 points

Mar 17, 2015 6:09 AM in response to John Galt

.

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Answer 6

John Galt

Level 10

141,060 points

Mar 17, 2015 6:18 AM in response to bscharff

That is a different problem indeed. If the SMC failed to fix it, all I have to suggest is what's described in this Apple Support document: OS X: When your Mac doesn't sleep or wake - Apple Support.

Scroll down to Your computer cannot wake from sleep. Continue with the steps under Additional troubleshooting, one of which you already did.

If Safe Mode or using a different User Account solves the problem and you need additional help isolating the culprit, write back.

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Answer 7

bscharff Author

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9 points

Mar 29, 2015 1:56 PM in response to John Galt

The problem still lives. I'm going to do a reinstall and see if that solves the problem.

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Answer 8

bscharff Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 31, 2015 10:44 AM in response to bscharff

Closing the Messages app seems to have cured this. It's been 3 days since last occurrence.

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Answer 9

bscharff Author

Level 1

9 points

Mar 31, 2015 4:45 PM in response to bscharff

Spoke too soon. Just had two more failure to wake events with no open programs.

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Answer 10

John Galt

Level 10

141,060 points

Mar 31, 2015 5:28 PM in response to bscharff

Did you try Safe Mode and another User account, respectively? if so, what was the outcome of each test?

The SMC Reset is the only hardware-specific remedy available to the user, though I suppose resetting NVRAM wouldn't hurt: NVRAM reset

Failure to wake is difficult to troubleshoot because nothing is logged in sleep mode. Use that Terminal command anyway, because it will provide the reason for the previous system sleep and wake events. It probably will reveal nothing abnormal.

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Answer 11

bscharff Author

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9 points

Apr 2, 2015 2:22 PM in response to John Galt

Have done safe mode and another user account without success. New user account worked for two days but today had to do two hard restarts. No common event noticed. It has happened when sleep was entered by inactivity, closing with programs open, closing with no active programs or apps, selecting sleep from the apple menu and while on AC or battery power. I started to do a reinstall from my original disk, but since I have installed Yosemite (10.10.2) the systems says the original system cannot be reinstalled. May need to stop by yhe local Apple store and seek one-on-one help. Will try a NVRAM reset now.

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Answer 12

John Galt

Level 10

141,060 points

Apr 2, 2015 2:49 PM in response to bscharff

I apologize if I was not clear: "Safe Mode" is intended for troubleshooting purposes, and there is no success / fail outcome. Read about it in the Apple Support document I linked earlier, under the heading "Try Safe Mode".

The intent is for you to observe its behavior in that mode, and describe it. For example, determining if it wakes reliably or not while operating in that mode will be instructive, in the same manner as trying a different User account.

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Answer 13

Apr 2, 2015 3:17 PM in response to bscharff

I had that problem on my early 2011 MBP, but what helped fix it was disabling the "immediate" login feature under the security and privacy menu in system preferences when I lift up the display from sleep. If you don't have that password option set for when you sleep your mac then not sure what you should do.

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