Since installing 10.13.2 I have a sleep wake failure on iMac. Was working perfectly before installed latest update on Dec 8.
This is not an uncommon problem but the "fixes/solutions" one reads on the internet are all over the place.
Is there a fix or is this simply something only Apple can solve for all those now plagued by the problem? It is irritating in the extreme.
iMac, macOS High Sierra (10.13.2)
I had the same problem on a macbook air (13-inch, Mid 2012, macBookAir5,2) since OSX 10.13.2.
I tried everything proposed on this and on other forums.
Recently, I did 2 things:
1) I downloaded 10.13.4 FULL installer (no combo, the full installer) and reinstalled High Sierra, over the previous installation.
2) I replaced the SSD disk few years ago, I have a OWC Aura Pro 2012 480GB SSD disk. I became aware of a conflict between high sierra and old OWC aura disks. I updated the firmware version to 603ABBF0 (got it from here: OWC Mercury SSD Firmware Updater via USB Drive or CD/DVD Disc). The problem also affects other OWC Aura models (http://macosuninstaller.com/one-click-removal-tutorial/unfortunately-time-owcs-a ura-ssds-not-support-macos-high-sierra/).
Since 1 and 2, the black screen/freeze after sleep, as well as a blinking folder with question mark at boot issue, stopped. I keep my finger crossed. Hope this helps.
You have to make a bootable USB and then wipe your hard drive and re install Sierra with the USB stick - only takes 20 minutes
I think the best thing for most people with this problem is to downgrade, keep watching this thread, wait until they fix it, then dive back in.
That's why I use Carbon Copy Cloner - I've had the same issues and am now reverting to Sierra. Highly recommend this programme - it's particularly useful when Apple introduce new operating systems and means you can just roll back - not a lot of use to you this time, but for the future...
In connection with comments by jtonn and DD208. Curiously, I had the Power Nap (PN) enabled over the past couple of days without a suspicious reboot. However, I am yet unconvinced about the 'cure' for several reasons. One, of course, it is not a cure if a malfunction needs to be 'corrected' with a particular setting. Moreover PN enable may only obscure the Sleep Wake Failure (SWF), because this setting appears likely to keep the computer awake, therefore SWF not occurring.
This in itself is a whole new can of wrigglies. As I already mentioned in an earlier post, there seems to be a significant ambiguity and probably a serious omission in the correspondence between 'system sleep', 'disc sleep' and 'computer sleep'.
On top of that there is even less clarity about 'whatever sleep', 'standby' and 'hibernate' modes. This is where the situation with enable PN becomes uncertain. Before my enabling PN the iMac would go to 'sleep' mode from which it would 'wake' in two different ways:
- one, an almost instantaneous resume of where it was before 'sleeping', i.e. something akin to 'standby';
- the other, resuming from a state closer to what I'd call hibernation, where 'waking' involves the grayed screen with the 'running' bars before it allows back access.
It is my suspicion that SWF is somehow related to going into the standby or hibernate kind of state, which may be causing the failure, while remaining in a 'light' sleep, which is probably just suspension of disc and/or other activities would not cause SWF. Apparently, when PN is enabled there seem to be processes, which keep the system awake enough, not to get to where SWF occurs.
Something like that.
(Apologies for being overly verbose.)
An update on the situation with 'Power Nap' (PN) settings.
With PN enabled, as I commented earlier, the computer never goes to sleep (remains unclear what exactly 'sleep' means, i.e. standby, hibernate or ...?), as, most likely, there are always processes that keep it busy, especially with an internet connection active. The situation with PN unchecked and no other Energy Saver option selected is not clear as the computer still did not go into 'sleep', strangely enough.
As soon as the 'Put hard disc to sleep when possible' option was selected, it took a few hours only before the 'sleep' went to a unwanted, double chime reboot, from whatever that 'sleep' state was!
An obviously faulty behaviour, so closely related to a setting, is an overwhelming evidence that the malfunction is with system. Since I have used the computer from new, for over four years, with several different OS updates and it worked flawlessly until updating to High Sierra, Apple gives me no choice but to conclude that the High Sierra OS update is the culprit.
I have experienced a great reduction in the number of spontaneous restarts since turning Power Nap back on, however, it has not stopped them completely.
One thing I've noticed that may actually be hiding the problem for the casual user is that upon restart, the error dialogue is the rear-most pane, hidden by every other window that was open when the machine restarted. There is no indication (e.g., bouncing Dock icon) to tell the user that something happened that needs their attention. Unless one minimized all front-most windows, the error pane would likely never be noticed. I'm not sure when this behavior was introduced because I've rarely had a hard restart prior to upgrading to 10.13.x.
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.
I updated to 10.13.6 once it came out last week. I still have Power Nap turned on but I notice that my iMac (late 2013) actually seems to be asleep in the morning before I wake it. Under 10.13.5, I could hear it running although the screen was off while on PN. So, something has changed with this latest update.
Next step will be trying to turn PN off to see if that restores the old behavior that existed under 10.12.x
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.13.5 (Build 17F77)
Architecture: x86_64
Report Version: 26
Data Source: Stackshots
Event: Sleep Wake Failure
Duration: 0.09s
Steps: 9
Hardware model: iMac13,1
Active cpus: 4
Time Awake Since Boot: 130000s
Only a few days back I thought of writing an update, just to mention that the current OS ‘sleep’ mode is somewhat strange, with the computer every now and then apparently not going to the state of system sleep (where the current work space image is saved to persistent memory). Every time this happened, a note would appear next to the power management setting, looking like this:
I would have speculated that rather than resolving the SWF problem, the issue has been somehow suppressed by various restrictions on the ‘system sleep’ mode, effectively preventing sleep, when a situation arises that could potentially lead to SWF. This, suspiciously, is NOT a solution to the problem, just a workaround, which was bound to fail sooner or later and, in my case, apparently it just did.
If Apple have decided that compromising the power management settings would somehow sweep the SWF problem under the carpet, then many unsuspecting users are probably unaware that while believing they no longer have the SWF events, their work is less protected, because their computer would not be ‘sleeping’ as specifications would require.
I have the same issue with the new I9 MacBook pro. This issue is still present after the upgrade to Mojave. Once the screensaver starts, roughly 25 mins later a reboot takes place and you to provide my password to log in (touchId will not work)
This happens you set a corner to be a hot corner that triggers the screen saver and you are required to log in to get back into the MacBook.
If you close the lid you do not have the issue. Once you reopen the lid you can use touchId to get into the MacBook and all applications are in the same state as you left them.
I will try lock screen from the apple in the upper right corner next to see if that makes any difference after roughly 25 mins?
10.13.2 additional upgrade (and later 10.13.3) solved my problem on macbook 12 2015 :-) (after months....thats the negative side...
Hello, TJBHK? The latest Mac Operating System is v10.13.3, not v10.3.2. Try to install v10.13.3: this might fix your problem?
Just an Idea. Good Luck. :-)
Apple replaced my SSD and it issue doesn't come up anymore. I am glad my issue is fixed but I highly doubt few hundred users all the sudden has hardware issue since HS install.
The only solution which I believe to work is to install Sierra.
Sleep Wake Failure with High Sierra 10.13.2
