Turning Off Power Strip AFTER Proper Shut Down

[s8thMPkar98]

Hello.

I always turn off my power strip (to save money on electricity bills [idiotic, iKnow, but I have OCD lol) that my iMac is connected to after properly shutting down my iMac. After my iMac's screen turns black, I walk towards the back of my work desk and bend down to turn off the switch of the power strip. Which takes about 10~20 seconds.


Recently, I checked the "shutdown cause" by typing "log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 240h" just to see if there weren't any problems with that and to my shock, it showed that ALL the causes were 0, which means Power disconnected. I thought I was turning it off properly!! I was expecting it to be "5" which means proper shut down but now I'm worried that I might've damaged my year-old iMac.

I've read different things online saying that what I've been doing is:

-performing an SMC reset every night
-running down the PRAM battery
-perfectly fine

WHICH ONE IS TRUE!?!!?!?!?!?


Does anyone know WHY this happens? And if there were any damages done to my iMac?
My mac seems perfectly fine now (no corrupted files or anything) but should I have waited longer AFTER the screen goes black?
Should I not do what I've been doing in the future?



Thank you very much in advance.

 

[coso]

I do the same every night and I think 10/20 sec after black screen (totally black, not just black with backlight on) is enough for a proper total shutdown. Will check the logs tomorrow

 

[CWallace]

Do you have "Power Nap" or "Wake for network access" enabled under Energy Saver?

 

[s8thMPkar98]

Do you have "Power Nap" or "Wake for network access" enabled under Energy Saver?

No, in Energy Saver, I only have "put hard disk to sleep when possible" checked.

 

[s8thMPkar98]

I do the same every night and I think 10/20 sec after black screen (totally black, not just black with backlight on) is enough for a proper total shutdown. Will check the logs tomorrow

Thank you, it would be great to know whether your "previous shutdown cause" shows a 5 or a 0 in the logs.

 

[Big Bad D]

I think you’re overthinking it. Turning off power strip 10-20 seconds after correctly shutting down a computer off is fine. Clearly shutting down is not an absolute switching off, and some activity may continue in background. SMC reset each night is not necessary. Enjoy using you iMac rather than worrying about this. What you are doing is normal.

 

[coso]

log show --predicate 'eventMessage contains "Previous shutdown cause"' --last 24h Filtering the log data using "composedMessage CONTAINS "Previous shutdown cause"" Skipping info and debug messages, pass --info and/or --debug to include. Timestamp Thread Type Activity PID TTL -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Log - Default: 0, Info: 0, Debug: 0, Error: 0, Fault: 0 Activity - Create: 0, Transition: 0, Actions: 0

I don't know, I get all 0..

 

[Fishrrman]

For more than 30 years, I've kept my Macs connected to power strips which I power off after shutting down at night (sometimes during the day as well if I'm not going to be using it for an extended period of time).

My Macs have always run great, giving me next-to-no problems at all. Almost never.

I'll continue to do this for as long as I can keep goin'...

 

[CWallace]

Many, if not most, modern electronics do continue to draw some wattage from the mains for various reasons and I would not be surprised if an iMac does, as well. But totally killing power after a proper shutdown should have no negative impacts on the machine or its longevity, as others who have done the same have noted.

 

[JonaM]

Can you confirm what the actual output you got from terminal was?
If it was like Coso posted ":Log - Default: 0, Info: 0, Debug: 0, Error: 0, Fault: 0 Activity - Create: 0, Transition: 0, Actions: 0" then it's not a shutdown code of "0", but there were 0 records found in the logs.

You should be seeing something like this though for a fully completed shutdown:
Timestamp Thread Type Activity PID TTL
2021-09-14 18:15:07.641854+0100 0xa8 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: 5

It may be that you have some long running background threads that are taking longer to terminate after the screen has gone dark and you need to give a couple more moments before you shut off the power.

There is a small risk around corrupting file writes or filesystem if you have been consistently switching off mid-activity, but you wouldn't have been resetting NVRAM or running down PRAM battery

 

[coso]

Mine is an M1 iMac though, maybe it shuts down faster. I would wait a couple minutes before turning off the power strip and see if it happens again

 

[s8thMPkar98]

Can you confirm what the actual output you got from terminal was?
If it was like Coso posted ":Log - Default: 0, Info: 0, Debug: 0, Error: 0, Fault: 0 Activity - Create: 0, Transition: 0, Actions: 0" then it's not a shutdown code of "0", but there were 0 records found in the logs.

You should be seeing something like this though for a fully completed shutdown:
Timestamp Thread Type Activity PID TTL
2021-09-14 18:15:07.641854+0100 0xa8 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: 5

It may be that you have some long running background threads that are taking longer to terminate after the screen has gone dark and you need to give a couple more moments before you shut off the power.

There is a small risk around corrupting file writes or filesystem if you have been consistently switching off mid-activity, but you wouldn't have been resetting NVRAM or running down PRAM battery

I just started leaving the power strip on JUST IN CASE


This is what I got AFTER I STARTED LEAVING THE POWER STRIP ON:

2021-09-22 15:12:10.104176+0900 0xd0 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: 5

This is what I got when I used to turn off the power strip:

2021-09-19 01:59:11.014093+0900 0xd0 Default 0x0 0 0 kernel: (AppleSMC) Previous shutdown cause: 0