Mac OS X 10.4.1: Problems with sleep; Solutions

CNET staff

Sept. 2, 2009 11:34 a.m. PT

6 min read

A number of sleep issues can appear after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.1. These include an inability to properly go to sleep, problems waking from sleep, and the display going to sleep without the Mac going to sleep.

MacFixIt reader Scott Richardson writes:

"I am also having random sleep problems on a newly purchased PowerMac G5 2.5 GHz, after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.1 from Mac OS X 10.4. The system just goes to sleep randomly without warning 2 - 3 times a day, and there does not seem to be anything that is causing this or any one program that is running. I have tried trashing the PowerManagement and AutoWake plists, and resetting the nvram and PMU, but this does not fix it for very long. One thing I am trying is setting the Energy Saver Processor Performance to Highest or Reduced, but not Automatic, which is the default, and leaving Sleep disabled. This might fix it. I am also having problems restarting (about 50% of my restarts just sit there with a black screen) which require a power off/on, which suggests hardware failure to me, not system related. I have also reloaded Mac OS X 10.4 and Mac OS X 10.4.1 twice now as per Apple's suggestions."

Brian Shepard adds "I have the same problem. I have quit all running programs except Dashboard (I closed all the widgets) and even rebooted after deleting the suggested plist files in the article. I still can't get the computer to go to sleep. When I choose sleep from the Apple menu the screen goes dark and the fan winds down for a second then comes right back up and the monitors wake up."

External devices (especially Bluetooth) may be at fault In many cases, these issues are caused by errant external devices, including USB and FireWire-connected peripherals, and most commonly, Bluetooth devices.

One MacFixIt reader reports that, in his case, a Bluetooth mouse was causing repeatable sleep issues:

"I was able to nail down the cause of my G4's inability to sleep since applying the Mac OS X 10.4.1 update. My MacAlly BTmouse Jr apparently prevents my Mac from going to sleep. I can manually select Sleep, but the G4 will instantly wake back up when the MacAlly Bluetooth mouse is connected. This was not a problem under Mac OS X 10.4. It is reported that Apple's Bluetooth mouse doesn't have this problem under Mac OS X 10.4.1. This is a real inconvenience since I must use a Bluetooth mouse for my particular set-up."

In some cases, the problem can be worked around by turning off the option "Allow Bluetooth Devices to Wake this Computer in the Bluetooth pane of System Preferences.

Meanwhile, MacFixIt reader Alan Klein offers some detail, gleaned from a third-party Bluetooth mouse manufacturer, on what exactly is causing the issue, and another workaround:

"(After determining that my third-party Bluetooth mouse was to blame for sleep issues under Mac OS X 10.4.1) I placed a call to RadTech. Their Tech Support rep explained that the mouse was in fine shape but, unlike Apple's BlueTooth mouse, when the BT500 enters energy saving mode it looses connection with the Mac, which in turn triggers a mouse event each time the "Connection Lost" message appears on the screen that keeps the Mac awake. He said that the mouse must be turned off in order for Sleep to function correctly. This behavior also awakens the Mac immediately after choosing Sleep manually which was the cause of my manual Sleep issues (though he'd never heard of that crashing the SystemUIServer). He walked me through some other steps as well:

Un-check "Discoverable" in the Bluetooth System Preferences if you're not using it.
Remove potentially corrupted Bluetooth preference file if Bluetooth usability issues persist: Turn Bluetooth off - go to /Users/YourUserName/Library/Preferences - trash file named: "com.apple.Bluetooth.plist" Restart and turn Bluetooth on, then re-pair all devices - please check #4 above.
Unexplained BT issues / erratic device behavior can often be resolved by simply removing the offending device's pairing, then pairing again.
Sleep: Switch non-Apple BT devices off and wait for "Connect Lost" message to appear onscreen before putting computer to sleep.

"After trashing to BlueTooth prefs as recommended above, I had to turn off 'Discoverable' on the Bluetooth menu again (as in step 1 above) [...] I have had no additional sleep issues since. The computer has been sleeping and waking with no problems since first performing these steps. (I have also been using the Apple Bluetooth mouse almost exclusively because I am too lazy to remember to turn off the mouse and thus allow my computer to sleep and that is not a concern with Apple's Bluetooth mouse.)"

More workarounds

Now readers are reporting a few additional workarounds.

Brian Sheppard says that, in his case, running Mac OS X's cron tasks -- an automatic process if you leave your Mac on 24 hours a day which can also be accomplished with a variety of shareware and freeware tools like MacJanitor, noted below -- resolved virtually all sleep problems.

Brian writes:

"I'm not sure why, but after using MacJanitor to run the cron tasks, my computer now sleeps just fine. I had tried all the other suggestions (I don't have Bluetooth on this computer so I knew that wasn't an issue) and none of them had worked. However, I ran MacJanitor and left the room for awhile to let it do it's thing. When I came back, my computer was asleep and has worked fine ever since."

Meanwhile, MacFixIt reader another workaround, which involves deleting specific .plist files, only remains effective (in his case) if Energy Saver settings are not modified afterward.

Paul writes:

"In your report of the Tiger sleep problem (#6) it was suggested that the fallback might be to delete the various .plist files associated with sleep. I would like to report that this appears to be the proper answer, as long as the user does not customize the power settings. After going through this routine twice it became apparent that the power management system is unable to function properly with non-default settings."

Deleting the following .plist files and restarting has proved a successful workaround for some readers:

/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.PowerManagement.plist
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.systemuiserver.plist
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist

Smetimes an errant application can cause problems with sleep. Try quitting a handful of applications at a time and check for persistence of the sleep problem while they are inactive.

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