trouble waking from sleep

I have a brand new fall 2015 27 inch retina imac with fusion drive, running OS 10.11.2

After a month or so of use, a problem developed. If I put the computer to sleep, and it stays asleep for a long time, it has difficulty waking up from a keyboard or mouse button press. The screen turns on, but items are missing from the desktop, and then the screen flashes gray with a graphical glitch in the upper left hand corner and the computer goes back to sleep.


Usually if this happens the computer will wake normally the next attempt. Sometimes I have to try several times. I've tried resetting the SMC and the NVRAM and trashing the power management plist. None of this worked.

iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11.2)

Posted on Dec 24, 2015 5:34 AM

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15 replies

Dec 25, 2015 3:19 PM in response to Johnny Boo Goes Like This!

Hi Johnny,


Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities! I'm sorry to hear you are having these issues with your new iMac. It sounds like you have been on the right track in your troubleshooting. If you continue to have these intermittent sleep/wake issues, you may find the additional steps (beyond the ones you have already taken) outlined in the following article helpful:


If your Mac doesn't sleep or wake when expected - Apple Support


Regards

Jan 14, 2016 9:52 AM in response to Manveru1986

I haven't solved it. Instead I've just set the computer to never fall asleep and if I'm going to be away from the computer for a few hours I turn it off instead of putting it to sleep. (With the fusion drive it can start up from off just as fast as it can wake from a deep sleep anyway.)


I'm hoping an OS update fixes the problem.

Jan 14, 2016 9:58 AM in response to Johnny Boo Goes Like This!

Hi again,


This is indeed related to deep sleep. I have installed this app (http://www.axoniclabs.com/DeepSleep/), thanks to it you can directly put your iMac in deep sleep and perform troubleshooting. I tried to do so, I erased NVRAM, and SMC, checked permissions and stuff, but nothing helped. Created additional account. And nothing. I also hope system update will help.

Jan 14, 2016 11:23 AM in response to Manveru1986

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's deep sleep or "safe sleep" that is causing our problems. It's a feature that acts more like a bug, in my opinion. I hope they fix it.


http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1757


"With the release of the OS X Mountain Lion v10.8.2 supplemental update 2.0, a new feature was introduced to enter safe sleep after four hours of the computer being connected to AC power. This is an effort to comply with the European Energy Standards (ErP Lot6). This will only occur if there is no wireless or Ethernet activity and no activity from external devices such as USB storage devices."

Although, If it was introduced in 10.8.2 I don't know why it's causing these problems in 10.11.2 You'd think it would be all ironed out by now.

Jan 21, 2016 1:24 PM in response to Johnny Boo Goes Like This!

The update to osX 10.11.3 seems to have fixed the problem.


If it doesn't fix it for you, and you're brave enough to enter commands in the Terminal, you could try setting autopoweroffdelay to 86400 (so it won't enter safe sleep until 24 hours have gone by) and/or setting autopoweroff to 0 (so it doesn't enter safe sleep at all) as I understand it.


suda pmset -a autopoweroffdelay 86400


suda pmset -a autopoweroff 0

Jan 21, 2016 5:07 PM in response to saholz

Yup, what you're describing is the same problem I've been having. If it's asleep for a short time, there's no problem, but if it's asleep for a long time it goes into something called "safe sleep" which is apparently harder for the computer to wake from.


You could just turn off the computer at night. The new ones with fusion drives can turn on just as fast as they can wake from safe sleep anyway. Or try the simple Terminal commands I described above.

Jan 29, 2016 9:22 AM in response to Manveru1986

I'm sorry it didn't work for you. Here's what I did exactly step by step


First I entered these into the Terminal

suda pmset -a autopoweroffdelay 86400


suda pmset -a autopoweroff 0

Then, before I had a chance to test to see if it worked, an OS update was released, so I updated to 10.11.3

Then I reset my Energy Saver settings to their default by clicking restore defaults on that section of System Preferences.

I haven't had the problem of the computer having trouble waking up since then.

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trouble waking from sleep

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