Carbon Copy Cloner Booting OS from Shutdown?

[choreo]

I just noticed a new behavior on my 7,1 with CCC in Ventura. I shutdown my Mac last night completely. At 6am this morning I noticed the monitor lit up and the Login screen appeared asking for my password. How can CCC startup my computer if the computer is shutdown? I have always had CCC scheduled to auto backup at 6am, but I usually just have the computer in sleep mode - I did not think it was possible for software to boot a computer if shutdown?

I am attaching a screenshot of the CCC scheduling options (ignore what it shows now selected in blue) - I had the second option selected somehow which I guess can somehow startup the computer even if shutdown?

If that is the case would that not mean that something is running even during sleep or shutdown?

 

[chown33]

I would start with this command in a Terminal window: uptime

This should reliably tell you how long ago the OS was last booted.

After that, maybe look in the system logs for when the last shutdown occurred, then after that, when the next startup occurred.

It's conceivable that the last shutdown didn't complete for some reason, so the system was still running at 6 am. That is, you thought it was shut down but it wasn't.

Another thing to check is whether there's a scheduled power-on time. There's a setting for this in the Energy or Power pane in System Settings. Exactly where it is will depend on which OS version it is.