Macbook sleep/wake problem

[mustgroove]

My Macbook is displaying an annoying problem with sleeping... When you put the lid down, the little white light on the bottom right hand corner of the machine starts pulsing like normal, but if you leave it and come back in roughly half an hour to an hour, the light is no longer pulsing, it's just on solid... And when you open the lid, the whole OS has stalled - the mouse button doesn't work, and after about 10 seconds the little coloured beachball cursor appears and the only way to recover is to hold the power button down till it shuts off..

What's going on? Anybody have any ideas or any possible solutions? Any help would be much appreciated.... :)

[mad jew]

Weird. So it's waking itself up and then freezing...

What apps are running when you sleep it? Do you have any hacks installed and what sort of third party hardware is attached? IS it plugged into the adaptor?

As a start, I'd attempt a PMU reset (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319) and then maybe try running fsck (http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214). Also, I'd shut it down and re-seat the battery. :)

[mustgroove]

First couple times it was running Firefox and Word 2004... the last time, it was just running Firefox...

Yes it's plugged into the mains adaptor... No hacks, lots of third-party software... It also has 2GB of third-party RAM (Kingston Macbook System select sticks) which have tested perfectly under MemtestOSX...

I should also say that when it "wakes up" from this kind of dodgy sleep where the light is on solid, the Superdrive does not make that ejecting sound it does when it wakes up from a "proper" sleep... maybe that means something, I'm not sure...

[mad jew]

So you're there when it wakes up? FWIW, those memory testers aren't perfect and, to be honest, don't really mean anything. It could be a memory issue but I'd try the PMU reset, fsck and battery re-seat first. I think this is more likely a power issue (PMU). :)

[mustgroove]

Hmmm the thing's less than a week old, very frustrating...

I'm there when it wakes up because I'm the one who opens the lid... Each time it's happened I've closed the lid (and I also tried hitting the power button and selecting Sleep from the popup window) and been there to verify that the sleep light starts pulsing... then I walk away...

Then when I come back after more than half an hour or so, the lid is still closed but the light is on solid rather than pulsing... So I open the lid and bam, no mouse clicks and the whole thing goes beachbally in no time...

Will try the PMU thing, that seems the most likely thing to me... I did try repairing permissions today to try & see if that fixed it, but no love...


/edit I should also mention that I have a Logitech Bluetooth mouse which I always forget to turn off when the machine sleeps, maybe that has something to do with it?

[mustgroove]

OK so I decided to close the lid and sit here & watch what it did - after all, it seemed to go from OK to weird in about half an hour... Slept like a baby at first...

So right the half-hour mark or thereabouts, the CD drive makes that eject sound 3 times in a row, during which time the light is on solid...

Then the light starts to pulse again... But then the eject noise happens again, but this time is goes straight back to pulsing...

About 30 seconds later, no more CD drive eject noises, but the light is no longer pulsing...

This is ****ED UP!!! It seems pretty random & weird... I have a theory that it's related to the bluetooth mouse, which I've noticed spontaneously disconnects itself from the host machine after about half an hour's worth of inactivity... I'll reboot & sleep it overnight with the mouse off & see what's what tomororrow morning...

[mad jew]

I think you're onto something with that mouse. Pull the power from the mouse and leave it overnight to see if it still happens. Are you running the latest drivers? :)

[mustgroove]

The mouse has no OS X drivers, it just works basically... :)

The machine's been asleep for about 20 minutes now, with the mouse off the whole time... let's see if it screws up again...

[mad jew]

Okay, but maybe check the Logitech site all the same. This could be a problem that a driver update fixes. Of course, wait to see whether you have any problems with the mouse disconnected first though. :)

[mustgroove]

Logitech site says:

"No Logitech software is required to use the V270 Cordless Optical Notebook Mouse for Bluetooth with a Macintosh computer."

It then gives details about how to connect the device through the Bluetooth menu...

It's been roughly half an hour now - no noises and the light is still pulsing, so maybe the mouse was it after all...

[mad jew]

True. Okay well if it's definitely the mouse causing you these troubles then maybe write Logitech an email. :)

[findpankaj]

Similar issue with my iBook. The OS stalls while the laptop is in sleep mode.
I have additional issue of kernel panics and it seems that both these issues are related to RAM. I have been advised by APPLE to get my RAM checked.

Good luck with yours'. Looks like a faulty memmory.

[mustgroove]

I love it when my gut intuition says something and it ends up being proved right.... :)

The machine slept like a baby overnight with the mouse off... no dramas whatsoever...

So the lesson here kiddies is to turn off your bluetooth mice when you send your Macbook to sleep, because if you don't, they'll crash your machine when they try and disconnect after idle time to save their own power...

:D

[Speedracer04]

Has anyone with a mighty mouse had this problem as well?

[mad jew]

Ata guess, I reckon this'll be a problem pretty unique to the Logitech mouse. Hopefully it'll either get fixed by Apple in a Bluetooth update or by Logitech in the form of a post-purchase driver upgrade.


I have additional issue of kernel panics and it seems that both these issues are related to RAM. I have been advised by APPLE to get my RAM checked.


The best way to check RAM is to take it out and see if the problems persist. Software-based memory checkers are a waste of time. :)

[Romulus]

Huray... my macbook was doing the same thing... I was asleep on the couch and the cd drive was going crazy while the notebook was supposed to be asleep.

I have a v270 bluetooth mouse. I guess it is the mouse then. But lacky me, the system did not hang. Will turn off the mouse next time. Usually do, just forgot this time. Thank you...

[clicq]

There is a checkbox somewhere in the Bluetooth preferences pane that should prevent the mouse from waking the machine from sleep. That should solve your problem. See the article below about mice waking up machines from sleep:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301302

[hansning]

i have the most basic macbook, had it since last july, had the logicboard changed due to random shutdown, and just recently, it started having problems waking up.

i never have bluetooth on, so it's not that, and there's no additional peripherals on.

when i wake it from an especially long sleep (1 hour +), whether the lid is closed or from timed sleep, it doesn't complete the wake up. the screen brightness controls still work, the volume buttons, the num and cam lock lights respond, and so does the eject key (you can hear it trying to eject something).

the only thing i can think of that of with the system is that i changed the it so it required the password to turn on. it was fine in the beginning, but after a few times, it would prompt the password, then stall. then i turned the password off, and it would stall anyway.

help?

[lawclerk]

I am having the same problem! I close the lid, and the superdrive starts looking for something, you can hear it doing it's search, although there is nothing in there. The bluetooth icon (although BT is off) gives me a squiggly line through the BT icon. I can't seem to get into the BT preferences even though I know I have it installed. It just says it's unavailable.


I reset the pram. I also did a reinstall/archive of Tiger w/ all new updates. Repaired permissions and verified drive.

The only thing i haven't ran is an fsck.

I have no bluetooth mice, or anything plugged into it at all! I did install "missingSync" for my blackjack. Does anyone think this could cause it? Any similar problems?

LC

[lawclerk]

I just ran an fsck -fy and it did nothing. When I rebooted, my BT icon still has the squiggly line through it and claims it's unavailable. Going to uninstall MissingSync.

lc

[lawclerk]

Ok, uninstalled missingSync and restarted.

Looks like BT is up again.... I'll check and post later if i still have the wake/sleep problems.

lc

[Deslock]

The squiggly line through the bluetooth icon has been coming and going on my MacBook for a few weeks (it's there about 80% of the time).

It won't sleep when the squiggly line is there. It tries to but the light in front of the right side of the keyboard never pulses (it instead stays on when the laptop lid is closed) and the the laptop cycles through spinning up the optical drive every few minutes (I haven't timed it, but that's the approx frequency).

When BT is working, I keep it disabled, undiscoverable, un-wakeable, and have the setup assistant (for input devices) disabled. I have no USB/firewire/BT/audio devices connected and nothing in the optical drive. Wake on LAN is also disabled. I'm not connected to a LAN, though I'm usually (but not always) connected via wifi. I don't have Missing Sync installed (or any other applications that would cause this that I'm aware of).

In fact when I started typing this post, the squiggle line was there. Now it's gone and BT is available to me again. It's been unavailable for a few days and based on past behavior, I expect the squiggly line to return later today or tomorrow.

Not sure if this is relevant, but each time BT becomes available again, it comes back enabled even though I'd disabled it before the squiggly line appeared.

Stuff I've tried:
reboot
verified/repaired permissions
repaired the disk
reset the PRAM
wiped BT plist files
logged out out of my usual user account and tried a different account
rebooted fresh and logged in as a different user

None of that has fixed the problem. Any thoughts?

[mad jew]

Try the SMC reset, which I incorrectly named the PMU reset earlier in this thread. There are links in previous posts as to how this is done. :)

[Deslock]

Try the SMC reset, which I incorrectly named the PMU reset earlier in this thread. There are links in previous posts as to how this is done. :)
Appreciate the suggestion; I followed these steps:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=303319

Unfortunately, it didn't work.

[mad jew]

Sorry mate, but there's not much more you can do. Might be time to take it back to Apple. :o

[luckyjack7]

I have this exact problem among others.
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=310858
You guys are a step above me. I do know my way around a Mac, loyal since I was six. But not into programmer stuff. Any way to dumb it down a bit?? Is re-instillation of OSX an option? Plus I've been unable to update to 10.4.10 yet my modem problems as well confound. My battery problems are quite worriesome as well. Over all........... Plus FedEx botched delivery by two days the first time when I paid for expedited shipping I hate the idea of sending it back. Its my baby!! Any consensus? Back to Apple?

No mice or peripheral devices other than my Samsung. Problem is the same connected or not. I agree it is random, sometimes apps open sometimes not. I've yet to see a pattern.

UPDATE: I did an SMC reset. Closed the lid waited 10mins ... opened it and it awoke fine. Closed it again had dinner tried it again an hour later .. still fine. Closed it and went to bed opened fine this morning. One problem down. I will keep trying sleep/awake through the day see if I can get it to freeze again.

[NORTH39MAC]

There is a checkbox somewhere in the Bluetooth preferences pane that should prevent the mouse from waking the machine from sleep. That should solve your problem. See the article below about mice waking up machines from sleep:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=301302

I was having this issue and under Bluetooth settings I turned off the "allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer" and it worked like a charm.

Thanks for the suggestion. It was starting to piss me off.

[mike5732]

I have tried the smc reset, and am still having the issue. Has anybody tried reinstalling OS X? If so did this work?

[tuc]

Hmmm the thing's less than a week old, very frustrating...

I'm there when it wakes up because I'm the one who opens the lid... Each time it's happened I've closed the lid (and I also tried hitting the power button and selecting Sleep from the popup window) and been there to verify that the sleep light starts pulsing... then I walk away...

Then when I come back after more than half an hour or so, the lid is still closed but the light is on solid rather than pulsing... So I open the lid and bam, no mouse clicks and the whole thing goes beachbally in no time...

My new SR macbook does the same thing, or at least mostly the same thing. I haven't been there when the LED switches from throbbing (== good sleep) to solid white (== frozen).

But I get back, open the lid, no mouse cursor, no beach ball, clicks do nothing, keyboard does nothing, screen shows a static image (which may contain what should be momentary visual thingies such as tooltips or mouseovers), the LED is solid white. I have to hold down the power button for an unprepared shutdown.

Most or all of the times this has happened, a corded Microsoft USB mouse has been plugged in. That could be a factor.

[Loudwater]

Similar situation happened to me last night, for the first time. I'm running the latest upgraded MB. I've nothing attached (printer was off) except internet and power. I put it in sleeping mode and went to bed, then in the mid of the night, the machine started waking up automatically and going back to sleep and waking up... loop... It woke me up damn! The only thing I could do is to turn it off. I don't think it froze tho, but I could be wrong coz I was SLEEPING! LOL I'll see if this problem persist...