10.12.4 display sleep bug

Blizzke,

I know this is similar but not the same, but as I have mentioned on this thread a few times I have had the same issue you all appear to be going through on my Mac mini (late 2012). My 2 external displays were: HDMI > HDMI & Thunderbolt > DisplayPort. If my machine slept for more than 15 minutes the ThunderBolt > DisplayPort monitor failed to wake up and my mouse juddered on screen when moved.

I did the clean install, SMC, NVRAM etc etc like everyone else here. The fix for me (and as I said this is a Mac mini so slightly different but worth a try if you have the option), was to change the ThunderBolt > DisplayPort to ThunderBolt > DVI. Since I swapped that over I have had no issues for easily 2+ weeks. For the record I also tried ThunderBolt > ThunderBolt / miniDisplayPort and these had the same sleep wake issue. Both of my monitors are Dell Ultrasharp 24" - 2013 & 2010. So I very much doubt this is a hardware issue as my Mac mini is fine now (monitors are working on the relevant ports with other devices).

Thank you for the suggestions. Unfortunately both monitors only have HDMI and DisplayPort. So using DVI wouldn't be an option for me. If it really is a thunderbolt issue - which a lot of the discussions seem to support - perhaps it would be enough to break the data connection by using the HDMI functionality.

I might just try to purchase a couple DP to HDMI cables and see if that resolves anything (but it still annoys me beyond measure as it worked before in this configuration). For me, the monitors don't have to be on DP. I've resorted to disabling sleep and going with a black screensaver for now to avoid having to restart the mac every morning.

It's really a shame that you have to resort to patchwork and workaround for hardware of that price class. For me this is not the first time, had other issues on my macbooks as well. I've been a loyal Apple customer for many years, but my absolute faith in the quality of the brand has been wavering more and more. Not going to turn this into some kind of rant but I find myself growing more certain that my next purchase will probably not be an Apple device anymore.

The bug report folks asked me to add this to my bug report so you may want to answer the same questions when you file yours...

- Is there a reliable recipe for reproducing the issue?

Yes.

1. Configure a Sierra iMac system with at least one external displayPort / Thunderbolt monitor (my configuration is iMac 5K with Acer 2160x3840 external monitors on Thunderbolt to displayPort cables)

2. Set Energy Saver to "turn off" displays at x minutes, and allow the system to sleep

3. Wait for system to (a) turn monitors off and (b) go to sleep (which also means that you don't have any processes running that keep the system awake)

4. Wake system up with mouse or keyboard

5. External monitor(s) wake up and show desktop. Internal iMac monitor does not turn on. Otherwise system is running.

6. Only reboot restores the internal iMac monitor

- With that recipe how often do you hit it (ie if you try the recipe X times, it happens Y/X times)?

100%

- Have you noticed any specific things that seem to prevent the issue from happening?

Only if you prevent the system from sleeping and/or prevent the displays from turning off.

Wow, it's affecting you 100% of the time? It's not 100% here, it is incredibly random. Sometimes both displays fail to come up (then I have to remote in to reboot). Most days it happens at least once. I had a good run though last week for 3-4 days without it happening. Each time I wake the machine up, it's a gamble. I'm considering disabling the sleep, but I really hate to do that.

I did put the steps to re-create the issue in the report.

Perhaps you can reference my report on yours as well: 32825183

Yes, it is 100% fixed for me. I also noticed different colour of login screen background. It is gray-ish now which is different from what I remember prior that update.

And one maybe unrelated note:

Also when messing around with my system and investigating the issue I recall that I noticed that I had duet display kernel extension still active because it was presenting some logs in syslog. I have reinstalled duet display with the latest (1.6.4.3). But I cannot confirm if this change fixed the issue. I did this around same time when updating to 10.12.6-16G18a.

I'm curious how many of affected users here also installed duet display in their system before...

I still have this issue with 10.12.6 beta (16G24b) on my two 5k iMacs with Dell 4k external monitors. I have no confidence Apple can fix this issue. The 'Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when display is off' is unchecked and this change did make the problem better with some of the developer builds but it has never completely gone away. Now the behaviour is more likely to occur when the computer has been asleep for long periods or overnight. Having spent many thousands on these computers and Apple Extended Care I consider that I have paid for Apple to fix this issues, not for me to do their troubleshooting for them ...

Has anyone tried this with today's 10.12.6 update?

I moved my second monitor over to a PC a while ago and have been doing my work on that. I'd hate to move it back only to find that I had to move it yet again.

So far so good :-)

The release notes contained 2 elements I'd been looking out for:

Intel Graphics Driver

Available for: macOS Sierra 10.12.5

Impact: An application may be able to execute arbitrary code with system privileges

Description: A memory corruption issue was addressed with improved memory handling.

and

Intel Graphics Driver

Available for: macOS Sierra 10.12.5

Impact: An application may be able to read restricted memory

Description: A validation issue was addressed with improved input sanitization.

Fingers crossed the fix is pervasive!

Downloaded and installed this morning - not looking good I'm afraid on my Acer K242HQK.

About the only thing I haven't changed is the cable.

Before I caught this thread I ended up changing my ageing WD My Book Thunderbolt Duo for 2 x LaCie drives - so I'm down about $500 so far in messing about with this issue.

I'm also setting up to downgrade to 10.12.3

Upgraded to 10.12.6 yesterday with 2 external Acer monitors on iMac 5K and so far so good - but we've been there before. Seems like it takes a few days for the disease to set in.

Did have an usual screen scramble on the iMac when the system woke up this morning so things are different.

I have been working directly with Apple field support on the problem and they did seem to be making progress so let's hope for the best.

Likewise... have had it happen twice today so far on 10.12.6... seems like it takes a few hours and sleep/wake cycles for the disease to set in.

I've notified the Apple field support guy assigned to my case and submitted a new sysdiagnose file.

Would recommend those of you who have not submitted a Bug Report to bugreport.apple.com to do so referencing your experience with 10.12.6. You only need to have an Apple developer account (not a developer subscription) so its free. Just sign up with your Apple ID.

My latest saga, Updated to 10.12.6 and still have the sleep bug. Since I am jumping in new here I run a 5K 27" iMac (Late 2015), 4GHz i7, 32GB memory, AMD Radeon R9 M395X 4096 MB, 2 flanking 4K Samsung 28" monitors off the thunderbolt and started getting this problem with the update of 10.12.4. I have an active case open with Apple but starting to think they are just guessing and have no idea what the problem is. I have sent them multiple diag files and they have me deleting some apps and extensions that have not helped at all.

It's Russian roulette every time I have to wake my system from a sleep mode as to which monitor will be black. Sometimes it's the iMac display and the two 4K displays come up, sometimes its the center and right, or just the left/right or maybe all. The only fix is to reboot and they all come up fine. NEVER had the issue until 10.12.4.

So, as it stands: 10.12.6 STILL has the bug, Apple STILL has no clue, my frustration is building and it may affect my future purchases if they cannot get this fixed soon. I don't want my system hacked all up with deleting apps, files, and other BS because I have FCPX projects that are critical and affecting them in any way would be bad.

When I was at WWDC and in my discussions with field support, I pointed out that this disproportionately effected high-value customers with high-end iMac configurations with multiple expensive monitors. These are the thought-leaders that Apple should be cultivating and coddling.

I would advise EVERYONE who has this bug to hold their ground - I agree 100% that it is a waste of our time to delete apps, reinstall operating systems, etc, on our Valuable Production Systems to solve a bug that didn't exist in 10.12.3 - and many people are talking about going back to 10.12.3 now.

In addition, as even the NY Times reported, power users are turning to building Hackintoshes because the Mac Pro went obsolete and what you could get with a high-end iMac, although nice, was a generation behind the state-of-the-art at 2-3x the price.

Apple just announced a new VP of People (don't ya just love that) and she said that Apple gets the best out of 120,000 people - it is hard to believe that an organization with that many people can't solve this one problem. It's not self-driving cars guys - if you can't solve this, would I trust an Apple self-driving car?

So voting with our pocketbooks is unfortunately all we've got left!

I agree with you 100%. It's very concerning to me that Apple is either unwilling to fix the problem or cannot fix the problem. Regardless, it is an issue that will affect the "Power Users" as you have referred to and these are the people that spend the money on high-end systems. The techs are trying to do their job but it's obvious that they are just guessing and trying to provide the customers that have this issue with some level of service even though they have no clue!

If Apple is reading this, I would have to say: Please take this serious and throw some resources at it to fix the problem because it's only going to cost you more time and money in the long run with support and lost revenue from customers that have to find other Non-Apple solutions to get around this issue. I would also tell you it's not an app, nor is it a re-install of the OS, extension or anything else silly like that. It was NOT present in 10.12.3 and appeared within a day or so of updating to 10.12.4. This all you need to know. Just look at what was changed that could affect the video displays in power save/sleep mode.

Eric

Trying to see if there are alternatives to downgrading to 10.12.3, I've got as far as an install of 10.12.1 and an upgrade to 10.12.3. Using TimeMachine to look at the delta's and given that all major corporates, particularly Apple, think we all have super fast internet connections, I have to wonder if they just throw the kitchen sink along with everything else when they provide an update. So fishing through the update files when I upgrade to 10.12.4 may not be as useful as I'd be hoping. None the less, if I can narrow down the offending file and see if 10.12.6 can use its 10.12.3 version to work round this, I'll be happier.

I'd be even happier to hear that macOS High Sierra doesn't have the problem.