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Sleep Wake Failure: Reboots only after upgrading to High Sierra

I have spent the last month dealing with the sleep wake failure ordeal.


When High Sierra was released I took the upgrade like I always do. When my iMac goes to sleep I will be in the other room and can hear my system rebooting. The startup sound plays twice. Then the apple logo appears on the screen with and progress bar (as if something were installing) Once High Sierra starts it displays a message "Your computer was restarted because of a problem. "Sleep Wake Failure"


I have contacted Apple support on several occasions with no luck.

I have unplugged the cord - removed it from the computer for 15 seconds to reset the smc

I have reset the NVRAM

I have backed up my system using time machine and used disk utility on internet recovery to erase my iMac

I have done a fresh install of Mac OS (High Sierra) with Time Machine backup and a separate time without a backup

I have started in safe mode

Mac OS High Sierra 11.0.3

Even after doing all these tasks my iMac still reboots when in sleep mode.


I have had my iMac for several years and this has never happened before. Now it cant stop happening.


Any help would be greatly appreciated.

iMac, iOS 11.0.3

Posted on Oct 27, 2017 9:43 AM

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Posted on Oct 31, 2017 6:46 AM

Same thing going on here. In my case, I have a MacBook Pro late-2013 15" with Retina. Recently upgraded the SSD to the OWC NVMe Aura Pro X, which is unbelievably fast ... And, everything works beautifully.


EXCEPT when I put the laptop to sleep. At some point during the sleep, something "happens" and then when I go to open the lid to the MBP, it immediately does the startup sound, black screen for about 10 seconds ... Then a second startup sound, black screen for about 10 seconds, then the Apple logo and the bar. After that, everything works perfectly.


Someone had mentioned on another forum that this issue is potentially due to the NVMe drive not being 100% powered up in time for the SMC to find it, and so it then just does a hard reset until the storage device is available.


For me though, I don't get any error message. Nothing in any of the system logs, either. It's as if nothing "bad" even happened. So, it is very baffling. Would imagine Apple knows about this, hopefully they come up with a fix ASAP.

198 replies

Feb 12, 2018 3:46 AM in response to McBeave

After yesterday's unwanted reboot (umptieth in a row over the past few weeks) I report new and worrying state, which denied control over two of the three open applications. I had to force shut down the computer.


As some fellow sufferers of the Sleep Wake Failure epidemic in High Sierra, I can only update on related events with my iMac, in the hope that this and possibly other threads will reach critical mass for apple to do something about it.


Also I did agree with comments suggesting possible ways of soliciting apple's action towards resolving this obviously significant problem, but my response was removed by apple. Hopefully, this one survives.


In the meantime, could someone, please help with an explanation why the 'AC power' list in the 'System Power Settings' of System Information shows the following entries:


System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15

Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0

Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 5


presumably timers that can be set, while in the 'Energy Saver' section of System Preferences there are only two controls:


Computer sleep

Display sleep


which do not even match those above.


Thank you in advance for any response.

Feb 13, 2018 12:55 AM in response to McBeave

У меня точно такая же проблема( никакие виды переустановки не помогли.. Я даже полностью переустановил систему, форматировал и установил как новый, все осталось как было, это все началось после обновления на high sierra, до этого никаких проблем не было! В apple ни какая консультация не помогла! Осталось попробовать установить более раннюю macos,..Очень странно(, в работе mac абсолютно никаких проблем нет!

Может кто-то решил эту проблему..?

Feb 13, 2018 2:01 AM in response to vladimir2270

translation of vladimir2270 (not ideal - mostly the gist of it):


I have exactly the same problem (no resettings? helped). I even completely reset the system, formatted and set as new, everything remained as it was, it all started after an upgrade to high sierra, until then there had been no problems! No consultation with apple helped! Remained to try reverse to an earlier macOS, ... Very strange, at work mac has no problems at all! Perhaps someone solved this problem?

Feb 19, 2018 10:35 AM in response to ghogoh

No I’m afraid this certainly is not the solution to the sleep/reboot issue. Wasted another 4 hours of my life installing High Sierra and then had to go back to Sierra. It’s very sad I’ve spent a large amount of money on Apple products iMac, iPad, Apple TV, iPhones and until recently have been happy with things, but it seems that with their change of leadership things are not the same anymore. iPhone battery problems, iPad that runs like a snail due to software updates, and now this sleep/reboot issue. Please Apple look after the people that pay your wages and don’t ignore problems that won’t go away. 🙁

Feb 25, 2018 10:48 AM in response to McBeave

I am not convinced that this issue is to do with High Sierra. I am also experiencing this problem and my computer is on El Capitan. I mentioned this in my post from a couple weeks ago. I have a 2015 MacBook Pro. It is not now nor has it ever been on High Sierra. It didn't have this problem when I originally got it, but started having it after a certain point in time, though I can't remember exactly when that was. I believe something else might be at issue.


If possible, it would be nice to see if anyone could downgrade from High Sierra to Sierra or to Yosemite and observe if the problem remains. (Some people mentioned downgrading to Sierra, but I didn't see them mention if that fixed the problem or not, but then again, I did skim most of the posts here, so maybe it did.) If so, we could then conclude it's not an issue with High Sierra at all, but rather something else and then see if there is any other pattern that might point us in the right direction such as it happens on computers from 2012 and later while 2011 and earlier models (even those on High Sierra) are not having the issue (that I have seen reported anyway).


Now, here's why I say if there is a pattern of 2012 and later models having this issue, this would be useful information. 2012 and later models of Macs had a change made to the type of graphics API that they use. If on any Mac from 2012 and later, you will be able to make use of the Metal graphics API. However, if you have a 2011 or earlier Mac, you will be stuck with the OpenGL API no matter what OS version you upgrade to. 2012 Macs did not originally use the Metal API either (nor did 2013 and maybe 2014, iirc, but don't quote me on that), but these Macs could still obtain and use it by upgrading to El Capitan (or anything after it). It's possible that if you had a 2012 or 2013 or so on Mac that you had, say, Yosemite and then upgraded from it directly to Sierra or High Sierra, skipping El Capitan, but nonetheless going from using the OpenGL API in Yosemite to Metal and there your problems began. (I did see a person or two mention they were on Sierra and never had this problem until High Sierra, but they might be anomalies. Others mentioned doing things that fixed their problem that nonetheless didn't help other people, i.e. turning off WiFi (I tried this and it didn't work) or changing power nap settings. They might also be anomalies. Or they might have actually started seeing the problem again. Who knows. They haven't reported back.)


Given that my 2015 MacBook Pro on El Capitan is having this problem and given that I have seen no mention in this thread of any Macs older than 2012 having this issue (though I admittedly skimmed through the many pages of this thread, so speak up if you have a 2011 model that is having this problem and I missed it) I think it's not unreasonable to conclude that the problem might actually be related to the graphics API rather than anything in the OS version. Also, many people have said they upgraded to High Sierra but didn't mention what they upgraded from nor the model of Mac they have, which leaves the possibility open that they're on an older Mac (like 2012 that didn't ship using Metal) and upgraded directly from, say, Yosemite, to High Sierra where their issues began to happen (though I suspect it might have started happening if they upgraded to anything from 10.11 onwards as well if my suspicions about the graphics API are correct).


My knowledge of graphics APIs and how they function is rather limited, so I am not sure how they could or whether it's even possible that they could cause problems with sleep/wake, but on the other hand, I have encountered problems that were caused by things that didn't seem at all related, so I wouldn't necessarily eliminate it as a possibility.


If not the graphics API, then I suspect it might be something else that was introduced in some OS upgrade at some point that 2011 models and earlier cannot make any use of and so do not have it. It has to be something that was introduced with El Capitan since, as I've mentioned, my 2015 MacBook Pro is on El Capitan and is having this problem as well. I point out the graphics API, though, because it is the one thing that I know separates 2011 and earlier Macs from 2012 and later ones. Again, no 2011 Macs are mentioned in this thread, so it seems to coincide.


My 2011 MacBook Pro, it should be noted, which is using the same OS as my 2015 one, is not having this problem. I don't want to upgrade that one for specific reasons, but for testing purposes, perhaps I could upgrade it and report back on whether it starts having problems. I am fairly confident, if I am right about Metal, that it won't. If anyone in this thread has a 2011 Mac on 10.13 or later and is having this problem, let us know. That will debunk my theory but at least help eliminate it as a possibility.


As a parting statement, I will say that I make no absolute conclusions about Metal being the problem. There were, as I mentioned, some posts that seem to already contradict my theory, but I also don't think I have enough details regardless to throw it out. Since not all Metal Macs have this issue (or we'd be seeing many, many more posts about this, I'd surmise), I'm not certain it's the cause at all, but I do think it could still be related. I think, for example, it could be something to do with it plus something else that these computers all have in common, that that combination is what causes it. Maybe it's the type of graphics cards all these computers are using plus Metal. Maybe it's a program or something else all these computers have in common plus Metal. Maybe there was a change made to Metal that happened to coincide with the release of 10.13 that nonetheless affected other versions of macOS (which would explain my El Capitan Mac having this problem and only seeming to have it after a certain point in time, though I can't say when that was exactly, and why people didn't see this issue on Sierra but did on upgrading to High Sierra (when did you upgrade? As soon as 10.13 was released or not until many months later?). Who knows? I just find it suspicious that 2011 Macs don't seem to be having this problem, but anything after 2012 is regardless of being on High Sierra or not (like my 2015 MacBook Pro on El Capitan). The only thing that is different between 2011 and earlier Macs and 2012 and later is their ability to make use of Metal, though I think there was also a change with Airdrop that affected 2012 and later models that 2011 and earlier can't make use of that might also coincide here as well (someone's mention of messing with WiFi fixing the problem for them seems to support that, but others' mentions of it NOT fixing the problem contradicts it).


Sorry for rambling, just trying to see if I can pinpoint the problem since it's become so prevalent and disruptive for a lot of people (including myself).

Feb 25, 2018 11:43 PM in response to sry2000

Yes I can also confirm

I have a late 2012 27" iMac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 66M 512 MB graphics and I have over the years installed every update available, including Beta software. It is only with High Sierra that I have experienced any sleep/reboot issue, to be honest I've never experienced any issue at all until High Sierra.

I must have tried at least 6 times to install High Sierra with suggestions on this forum but nothing has worked. I'm very disappointed that Apple won't even admit there is a problem, even if they don't know how to fix it at the present time we wouldn't be waisting lots of time trying to fix it ourselves, after all they are the experts! I suppose the only consolation is that Apple don't charge for the new operating system unlike Windows so we are not obliged to update.

Mar 1, 2018 4:00 AM in response to sry2000

The only solution to this is to disable your system settings so that your computer does not sleep. With each release of the Mac os, my system has become slower over time (I install only a few non apple apps so I know the os is the culprit) so the constant reboots and slow first time logins are painful to wait for every day. The trade off is energy consumption, but for me I would rather have that then deal with the then reboots.

Mar 1, 2018 4:46 AM in response to McBeave

My first action was : Changing the setting for 'sleep mode', 'energy' , 'screen saver' , all of them to OFF & Never


And the issue was not solved.


Remove ' automatic backup for time machine' has no effect.


Reduce the size of the 'download folder' has no effect 🙂 That was the solution, for 'freezing'...


So, I'm waiting for a patch from Apples's support !

Mar 1, 2018 6:56 AM in response to McBeave

I had never had any issues like this until I upgraded to High Sierra and then it was persistent.


Somewhere, I saw a reference to the possibility that it could be related to VPN software, which struck a chord because I had just recently installed Cisco's AnyConnect Secure Mobility Client. So I uninstalled that app, and the issue went away. Then I reinstalled the app, expecting the issue to return, but it has not returned and it's been 2 or 3 weeks.


I suspect that won't help the majority of users, but I thought I'd share it in case it helps a few.

Sleep Wake Failure: Reboots only after upgrading to High Sierra

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