Restarting automatically while closed!

Question

Level 1

18 points

Restarting automatically while closed!

My MacBook Air turned off and on while it was closed!
I noticed because I heard the turning on sound twice. when I entered my Pass a window popped up that due to an issue my mac restarted.
Is it ok that it restarted while it was in sleep mode and closed?

MacBook Air, macOS High Sierra (10.13.1), null

Posted on Nov 16, 2017 11:36 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

AppleJoe

Community Manager

Nov 19, 2017 12:35 AM in response to ryhn

Hello ryhn,

Thanks for asking the Apple Support Communities for help with your Mac. There are two things being described here. To answer your question, yes, the Mac can wake up (or at least try) when sleeping. While it is closed, it will try to wake up, but then try to go back to sleep. There are a few settings such as "Wake for Network Access" that will wake the Mac up. These are usually used with a desktop computer, or when the Mac sleeps, but the lid remains open. Here are a couple articles about this:

About Wake on Demand and Bonjour Sleep Proxy - Apple Support

Use the Energy Saver settings on your Mac - Apple Support

If you aren't using any such setting, I recommend trying the troubleshooting provided in this help article: If your Mac doesn't sleep or wake when expected - Apple Support

The second part of your question describes the alert that popped up saying there was an issue and the Mac restarted. This is known as a kernel panic. The can happen for various reasons including both software and hardware issues. Not just the Mac hardware either, sometimes these are cause by third party hardware connected to the Mac. This article covers a lot of the troubleshooting to help isolate or resolve the issue: OS X: When your computer spontaneously restarts or displays "Your computer restarted because of a problem."

Thanks and have a wonderful evening.

Reply