Sleep Wake Failure with High Sierra 10.13.2

Hi, Bluetooth made no difference to either of my iMacs in previous tests, whether it was on or off had no effect. However I'm running 10.13.5 beta1 since 5th April, and I've not had any sleep wake issues since. I'm not drawing any conclusions - just making and reporting observations!

I've come across same problem too.

Temporarily we can prevent that bug by disabling sleep option.

System Preferences > Energy Saver > Select "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off".

It is heartbreaking to watch the number of people suffering this scourge keep growing daily. The absence of recognition and help from Apple is beyond cruel.

In an effort to identify any dependencies I have been trying various combinations of settings and work patterns to no avail. One strange effects seems to be presenting more persistently than random, so here is a brief description.

Every morning after a period of work for about 1-2 hours, on leaving the iMac briefly, for about 10 -15 min, the dreaded double chime of the SWF restart occurs. This seems to be related to settings of display sleep to 5 min and computer sleep to 10 min. The strangest thing is that later in the day, under similar circumstances and patterns of leaving the computer, the SWF does not occur (except for a few possible occasions when I cannot recall, what has happened before that). Moreover, almost always (again unsure due to having more important things to do than collect statistics) the iMac does not go through a SWF when sleeping overnight.

It is probably a wild guess, but perhaps a remote possibility would be some process(es) running after an initial wake up, that do not complete before the first 'computer sleep trigger' event - causing the SWF, after which later into a working day such process(es) are complete or less likely to be still running.

There are other considerations, related to power management settings, including 'Energy Saver' in 'System Preferences' in conjunction with 'pmset', which I shall leave to another post.

10.13.4 did not fix the problem on my 21.5 late 2012 either. When I called the advisor that has been assigned to my case he said he had no idea if Apple was working on the SWF issue. He said Apple didn't share that info, even with the advisors. I told him that the SWF error does not occur on my computer when I have Powernap enabled and asked him if that info had been forwarded to the engineering department his only comment was that they do get the error reports we forward when our computers crash but he didn't really have a way to get that info directly to the engineers. So in other word the SWF is not a priority with Apple and they may fix it or they may not. I can't remember if you have tried enabling power nap but when I have it enabled on my machine it does not do the dreaded double chime restart. But if I uncheck it (which was the way I had the setting before installing High Sierra) I will get the SWF error the first time my computer goes to sleep. Good luck to us all but I get the feeling we are not going to get a fix.

Unfortunately, there is no sign of resolution for this dreadful SWF problem. The saga goes on at the expense of so many users. Looks like it has other manifestations, too:

Apple's magical quality engineering strikes again: You may want to hold off that macOS High Sierra update... • The Regis…

With no disrespect to the enormity of the issues associated with such unimaginably complex things like modern computers, it is the disregard of the difficulties experienced by so many people over such a long time that adds insult to the injury.

In case this comment goes through, just as an update on my experience - while some situations with the iMac crashing on the dreaded Sleep Wake Failure appear similar, there is no clearly identifiable pattern of running applications or connected devices.

I have found that by resetting the NVRAM will work for a while. I only have to do a hard restart about once a week.

I found I never had the File Vault enabled in the first place.

I wondered whether to go back to Sierra as I have other problems with High Sierra Safari 11.1.

I’m old enough to remember when Apple’s proud boast was: “It just works”. We shouldn’t need to second-guess the variables that might - or might not - be contributing to this issue on individual user configurations.

No it doesn't - well, it might for a few, but I like many others have never had File Vault enabled. Now this next comment is just another observation - it's not a fix, on my two iMacs with very similar setups, the late 2015 has never had a problem, but the late 2013 has been plagued with SWF issues. Since installing 10.13.5 beta 2 neither machine has had a problem, so something in 5 Beta 2 must be interacting differently.

"It is the disregard of the difficulties experienced by so many people over such a long time that adds insult to the injury"...

THIS is exactly how I feel... I understand if there is no current fix to this annoying problem. It's a huge nuisance, but for the most part, that is all it is, a nuisance. With the exception of the SXF, my computer works well, and I like Apple products. What I do not like is the absolute silence on the part of Apple. I think people understand that sometimes there is no fix available and that it takes time to determine what the fix might be if one exists. I'm so frustrated with the silence. Acknowledge the problem, say 'we are working on it' and I think consumers will appreciate the candor. I know I would.

I totally agree with you. The latest Apple rep that I have worked with on the SWF problem says that Apple won't even say if they are working on the problem. High Sierra has been causing the SWF error on my computer since the day I downloaded in November. I am more fortunate than many users since some member in this forum told me that enabling PowerNap stopped their computer from stalling and restarting daily. It has worked for me but HS still screwed my machine up because every time I turn PN off I get the dreaded SWF. Candor and honesty on Apple's part would help. Of course not releasing faulty operating systems would be nice too. Good luck to all of us whose computers are having sleeping problems.

I spend hours talking to Apple Customer Support over this issue, and they are totally clueless. They will always try to get you to reinstall your OS, which I have done twice now, and although the problem disappears for one to two weeks, the problem always comes back. I took it to a Genious Bar, and the "genius" representative suggested the same. My advice is to live with it until Apple catches up to the issue, is less frustrating than dealing with their customer support.

Just an update on my post last week. Since installing 10.13.5 beta 2 the problem has stopped, so something in 5 Beta 2 must be interacting differently. I've had no swfs since installing it. I appreciate not everyone wants to try beta releases, but has anyone on here had problems with 2? it would be interesting to know. I could just be lucky!

Thank you, Procladius. I have never installed beta versions (mainly due to lack of confidence, as I am not a computer expert), but the SWF is so intrusive and has been a daily pain for many months now, that I consider giving it a try shortly. Will post updates, eventually.

This issuing has been affecting my early 2015 MacBook Pro 13" Retina for quite some time. I am on the beta program (currently on 10.13.5 17F45c) so I expect some problems. I turned of the "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" option and it appears to have corrected the problem. This setting seems unnecessary on SSD machines.

I've recently being having issues with my late 2012 iMac and this sleep wake failure issues. My iMac is on macOS 10.13.4 and this issues has only been occurring over the last month.

My iMac has also been going into Safe Sleep mode as well when in sleep for over 4hrs which from reading an Apple support document this is normal with all Macs made before 2013 and it should have always been going in to Safe Sleep mode since day one but it has never done this, as I say it only started have these issues with sleep/wake in the last month.

I have been in touch with Apple but they were not much help, all they advised me to do is carry out all the basic stuff like resetting, refreshing and starting my iMac in safe mode and then to wipe and install my macOS again. All this has been carried out, twice, with no change.

I keep finding my iMac has had to restart itself and when I look at the fault report it shows me it just says a sleep wake failure.

I'm currently trying the tips in the last post, hoping this may have an effect.