In the past, when my Mac Pro (2008) fell asleep, I could look on my laptop under the "Shared" header in a Finder window and the Mac Pro would be there. I could click on it and the Mac would wake up.
Now, I no longer see the Mac listed under the Shared section in Finder when its asleep, so I have to go push the power button. Back To My Mac is enabled, as is "Wake For Ethernet Network Access" in Energy Settings.
What am I missing?
It is possible the Mac Pro does not appear because its File Sharing settings have been changed (on the Mac Pro).
You need to have a Bonjour Sleep Proxy on your network, such as an Airport Base station or an Apple-TV device.
About Wake on Demand and Bonjour Sleep Proxy - Apple Support
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Thanks for the suggestion. File Sharing is (and has been) enabled, and the Mac Prop is connected directly to an AirPort Extreme AC. Do you have any other suggestions?
It is clear from the article that Macs that shipped with 10.6 on board support Wi-Fi sleep proxy. It is less clear if your 2008 model supports Wi-Fi sleep proxy, and the Tech Specs do not appear to specify.
Use About This Mac to get to the System report, and look closely under the Network major heading, then examine each interface in detail, looking for the Sleep Proxy line item.
You may have to add an Ethernet cable to your Router to get this feature to work on your model Mac Pro.
Thanks!
I looked where you said and the Ethernet interface *does* say Sleep Proxy, and it *does* list my AirPort router underneath it. So it appears the Mac is registered successfully to the sleep proxy.
Is there some reason why other Macs on the network wouldn't show the Mac Pro under Finder? It has been working fine for months and suddenly stopped.
Do you still have all the boxes checked in Finder > Preferences?
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Is ElCapitan involved? there have been some changes in the default protocols for File Sharing that may make this more difficult.
Grant, sorry for the delay.
El Capitan is installed on all machines in question and has been for several months when El Capitan was first released.
If I manually put the Mac Pro to sleep, it still shows on the other Macs just fine. I reboot my Macbook Air and the sleeping Pro still shows up as expected. It works! However, it seems after a certain period of time (which I have yet to determine) something is “dropping” the sleeping Mac.
I do hear the Mac Pro wake up every half hour or so for a few seconds, before falling asleep again. I assume when it wakes up momentarily, it is re-registering itself with the Sleep Proxy (in this case, the AirPort).
So, it seems I have everything configured properly and waking via Finder does work, just that the Mac Pro is “timing out” after a certain amount of time passes.
Sorry to resurrect this thread after so long. It turns out I was using the AirPort in Bridge mode, and my ISP router/modem was handling all the routing and IP addressing. After switching the AirPort to run in Router mode, the wake issues have nearly vanished.
Every once in a while I still have trouble waking the Mac, but nothing like before. If anyone comes across this make sure your AirPort is actually the device in charge of routing on your network.
How to wake 2008 Mac Pro when its sleeping?
