Sleep Wake Failure with High Sierra 10.13.2

After having installed the latest developer beta 4 of 10.13.4 (17E170c), I have not experienced any sleep/wake failures within the last 3 days since the update was installed. I also restored the default Energy Saver settings with the Power Nap setting disabled. This problem has also been occurring for me since the original High Sierra install version 10.13.1 and I have a Late 2012 iMac. Has anyone had the problem still occur after installing the latest developer beta 4 update of 10.13.4? Hoping that is the version with the code-fix we've all been waiting for. Fingers crossed!

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.

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.

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!

I did try the above steps and I'm still having this issues. Apple support were of now help at all. I know it's only a small thing but has everybody who is having this issues reported it to Apple on the feedback form? It may help them take notice Product Feedback - Apple

It's been 4 days now since turning Power Nap back on and I've not had any further problems.

You can downgrade to normal Sierra here:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208202

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.

This issue was the biggest Apple Mac nightmare I've ever had. I literally spent a week installing, uninstalling, reverting, because the sleep issue was so bad. The final recommendation by Apple support was just to revert to Sierra. Which I'eve now done. But I get repeated notifications to upgrade to High Sierra. I figured if I waited a bit, an update would remove the issue. I like to keep my operating system up to date. Do you think now is a safe time to try again, or would I just be dooming myself to repeat my mistakes of the past?

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.