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Wake-on-lan wireless: what am I missing?

L

lexvo

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Nov 11, 2009
1,492
594
The Netherlands
I'm having a hard time figuring out why wireless wake-on-lan won't work.

I'm playing music wireless from iTunes to my stereo through an Airport Express.

1) Should wake-on-lan work from the iPhone Remote app?
If my iMac is not in sleep-mode, I can select music to play with Remote. However, if I have played music for say an hour the iMac is in sleep mode. The music still plays, but I can't use Remote anymore. I have to go upstairs to unsleep my iMac before everything works again.

I have a late 2009 iMac. And I purchased the Airport Express last week, it has firmware 7.5.2 on it.

I have followed the instructions from Apple from this page:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3774
I have selected (checked) "Wake for network access" in System Preferences
In system profiler I see "Wake On Wireless: Supported"


2) The strange thing is, when I use an utility like NetAwake, I can get my iMac out of sleep mode if it is only a few minutes or so in sleep mode. But if my iMac is sleeping longer, it does not work anymore.
 
maflynn said:
AFAIK wake on lan is for wired only not wireless
Click to expand...

No, the Apple web page explicitly states that it is of wireless networks also.

And this is logical: if you want to play music or a movie wireless to your AppleTV2, the computer where is streamed from must be enabled.
 
rtrt said:
Iirc wake on WLAN works using a function implemented in apple routers only. Can't remember what it's called.
Click to expand...

Do you mean Bonjour? That's what Apple is calling it on their webpage.


I don't understand how your iMac is playing music when it's sleeping. That's not possible.
Click to expand...

OK, maybe sleeping isn't the right term. My problem is that after a longer time, my iPhone won't connect anymore to my iTunes library on the iMac, and then I can't operate the iMac by the Remote app on my iPhone. But the music is still playing.

When I go upstairs I see my iMac has a black screen (like sleep mode). When I touch a key on the keyboard, the iMac 'awakens' and I can use the Remote app on my iPhone again.
 
rtrt said:
No it's not bonjour - it's a more specific function. In any case as your iMac hasn't gone to sleep you don't need wake on WLAN.

From what you describe it sounds like you have the screen set to switch off in energy saving on sys preferences.

Thing is the iMac should be operating normally when the screen is switched off - at least that's how I understand it. I don't have an iPhone so can't try it.

If it were me I'd try some things like

Sit by the iMac and see if the problem occurs exactly when the screen turns off
Set the screen to stay on permanently
Look at the console to see if you can see anything happening at the same time as your problem
Have a look in the iPhone forum to see if anyone else has your problem
Click to expand...

Thanks for your suggestions.

I have set the power save prefs so that screen turn off and sleep is at the same time. There is a difference however. When the screen turns off, the iMac isn't sleeping, at least not within a few minutes. In this situation (screen off), I can still use Remote to operate iTunes. I'm going to try out what happens if I wait longer.

I can't see anything specific in console.

After searching with Google, I see that this problem is quite common. There are quite a few solutions mentioned (port forwarding for example), so I going to spend some time trying these out.


If wireless wake on lan is a function of Apple routers only, wouldn't everyone with an AppleTV2 have to buy an Apple router if they want to use wireless WOL?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_2_1 like Mac OS X; nl-nl) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8C148 Safari/6533.18.5)

I did some port forwarding in my router and it looks like the Remote app keeps working. This is as long as the iMac is playing music. Have to do some more testing to be absolutely sure. You were right that the iMac isn't sleeping in this situation.

So I think this part is solved. Now figuring out something to do a wireless wake on lan.
 
rtrt said:
seems my memory and a couple of late night glasses of wine have let me down - sorry about that :eek:
Click to expand...

:D

Well, if I read the Apple web page you could still be right.

Today I decided to solve my problems by ordering an Airport Extreme. Wireless wake on lan is possible with an Airport as router. Also an advantage is that I can upgrade my wireless network to 802.11N.
 
My Airport Extreme arrived today. I installed it and everything works perfect. I now have wireless wake on lan and a fast N network.

Lesson for myself: stick with Apple solutions and don't go fiddling yourself :)
 
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