I'm still completely in love with my MacBook and the prospect of Snow Leopard being only $30 for Leopard users in September has not only single handedly crushed the enthusiasm I had in Windows 7 but has also left me hopeful that a problem I've been having might be solved.
This problem is that when waking up the MacBook after it has been asleep it will make the sound of waking up but the display doesn't come back and none of the buttons or mouse will work. The only option is to perform a hard shut down and start up again. I sought advice from the internet and had nothing useful come up for all my searches; I did find people who have had the same problem but they never had any idea what caused it. Almost all the forum threads had two posts, the first detailing the problem and the second saying nothing had fixed it and they sent the computer back to Apple.
After reading some of these otherwise unhelpful forums and through my own observations the problem is simply this: after shutting the lid the snooze light remains solid. After waiting for a short amount of time the computer makes the sound of waking again and the Apple light on the lid comes on. When you try to wake the computer by opening the lid the sound of waking will be made but the display and controls do not return and a hard restart is required. If however you open the lid again as soon as the Apple light returns then the computer will wake up unsteadily and the problem is averted and you can put it back to sleep with no problems.
The problem I am willing to conclude is that the loss of a bluetooth connection after the computer is put to sleep causes it to try and wake, and something goes wrong and puts the machine into a coma. Since figuring this I've made sure that my mouse (wireless Apple Might Mouse paired via bluetooth) is not only off but also that the connection is lost before shutting the lid, or that the mouse is left on after the computer is asleep (though that chews through the batteries- although I love my mouse it is extraordinarily power inefficient).
This may not be the ultimate solution for the problem but I've been working on solving the problem for about 9 months and that is the best I've come up with, beating all my previous hyposthesise which included programs, time of day and other bluetooth concerns.
It is also possible that other machines have a problem that has the same symptoms but other causes. (I've heard of an iMac that has this problem which suggests it is possibly not a hardware problem so much as a driver problem.)
If you are having this problem then I hope this information has been of some use to you.
I've never seen anything from Apple to acknowledge this problem and I don't know how common it is, but Snow Leopard is supposed to maintain network connections while asleep so if I am correct in my theory that it is a bluetooth connectivity conflict then it is plausible the new operation system will fix the problem.
If you have information on the problem contrary to mine then please comment with your observations. I'll correct this information if I discover I am wrong at some time in the future.
(Cailie is a white MacBook running 10.5.4 at the time of the problem emerging and currently running 10.5.5 with the same problem. All attempts to install OS updates 10.5.6 and 10.5.7 have failed.)
Thursday, June 18, 2009
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16 comments:
I'm having this problem and eagerly await a solution as well.
As am I. It is sleep related. If I put it to sleep, and try to awaken it later, the screen is black, but you can vaguely see the desktop or application on the top layer.
I had the same problem when I went from 10.4 to 10.5, then again when I updated to the latest 10.5.7.
In my case, the problem was directly related to the firewire ports. As a clue, the firewire ports were not detected in the system infos.
What I did was to return to 10.5.0, and to trash all the IOFireWire stuf (5 extensions) found in the System/Library/Extension folder. Results : lightspeed boot (< 1 min), no sleep/wake issues, no temperature/fan problems, better battery autonomy...
Of course, I can't use my firewire ports, but anyway, they weren't detected by Leopard.
Next step will be to re-install Tiger on an external USB disk, boot under 10.4, and see if the FW ports reappear magically ! This will tell if the problem is soft or hardware. In the later case, I'm stuck since the garantee period is over. In the former case, I wonder what Apple will do ? ;-)
Yeah, I've been having the same problem lately too, which is REALLY annoying! And I don't know if others are also having the issue where not only won't the MacBook wake up from sleep, but the fan is running and the machine is REALLY hot. This sucks!!
I did not have this problem before running various versions of OS 10.5.x, but since I've upgraded to Snow Leopard my MacBook Pro (13") won't wake from sleep with the same symptoms as described above...
I have the same waking up problem on my 13" Macbook since upgraded to Snow Leopard. Is there a way for us to let Apple knows?
Having the same problem with 17" Macbook Pro (2007) model.
I deleted all of the IOFirewire kexts in the System/Library/Extensions folder (backed them up first), rebooted, and everything is now working (except the firewire ports).
Before you try this, please verify that your firewire ports work/do not work, how your LED is flashing/not flashing when you try to sleep, etc, and report back to this post so we can gain more knowledge on why this problem is occurring. If anyone has rolled back to an earlier version of OSX and still has the problem, that would be good to know as well. I'd love to get my ports working again.
Please note that if your machine is 'sleeping' with its fans on and is getting hot, its probably because its not actually sleeping, and the problem isn't waking from sleep, but getting to sleep. I really overheated my machine by closing the lid and putting it in my bag where it continued to bake itself until the battery was dead. Bad....
Some background information to help with troubleshooting until it is really fixed:
I have a MacBook Pro 15 v2.2. Installed 10.6, worked fine for a short while, then simultaneously lost the ability to sleep and gained an extra 3 minutes or so of boot time (ridiculously long). If the machine was told to sleep via closing the lid or menu command, it would start to sleep -- light turns white with no pulse -- stuck. It cannot return from this state and I had to do a hard reset. I also could not get the machine to be recognized as a disk when in target disk mode. Looking back on it, this is probably because the firewire kexts were having problems.
I downgraded to 10.4 since that is what came with the machine, and had the same problems, including boot time. Also reset PRAM, did the reset with power off, no battery, holding power button for 5 seconds and all the other Mac rain dances I could think of to no avail.
10.6 includes a new sleep feature, apparently. I don't know the details, but perhaps this has caused the problem. I don't know what the relation to the firewire ports is, however.
Since I upgraded my iMac 24" version 7,1 to snow leopard I have the same issue. A black screen and nothing happens i try to wake him up. The ventilators are running. I have to power down and restart.
APPLE, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT
i love this thread! this problem has been driving me insane.
I have a Late macbook 15". I can't identify when the problem started:(. But symptoms very similar to everyone else. Started with 10.5.4
Either by closing the lid or by using the sleep command, the computer sleeps with the light identicating it as such. However, for me anyways, the FIRST time i wake from sleep (open lid), the computer turns on. But when I put the computer to sleep a second time, boom, black screen of death. Closing the lid tells me the system is definitely "on" but stuck on the black screen (light is solid) Only hope is a hard reset. Done this with and without battery. No Wireless is on. No Bluetooth is on. Clean Snow Leopard install. PMU and PRAM reset x gazillion.
Same here. No problem with Leopard but after upgrading to Snow Leopard the SECOND time after sleep: black screen. Should I revert to Leopard?
I had this problem in leopard, and it's still here in Snow Leopard. It has no pattern like '2nd time only' etc, but happens when the laptop goes to sleep after a period of inactivity, NOT when closing the lid - this always successfully sleeps the computer. Strange...
Just black screen. Fans on. Lid catch light solid.
MacBook Pro 15" (aluminium)
HERE IS THE SOLUTION!!!
I'm going to quote Xeffer from the Apple support board:
"I found a solution for myself, since I have the same problem as you, maybe this will help.
Go to Mac HD > Library > Preferences > System Configuration. Toss the preferences.plist file, restart. Your machine will create a new preferences.plist upon boot up. Mine would go to sleep and wake up just like when I was using Lepperd, hope it works for you too. "
Source: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=10067995�
* I've tried this solution and it works!!
First off all make a backup!
same probs, my iMac randomly won't wake from sleep after upgrading to snow leopard. never had this issue under leopard. tried resetting the NVRAM/PRAM etc but no change. VERY frustrating to have to do a hard reset, because it's only sometimes - so if I have some tabs etc open in my browser and leave and it goes to sleep, it's usually ok but then I never know because occasionally it isn't so I lose all the stuff I had open and my place in the work I was doing. of course, I save anything before I walk away from the iMac but it's still a pain to do hard resets!! HELP US APPLE!!!!!!
removing the preferences.plist works for me too.
the problem with a solution is that they always require you to doing something to the computer when it's on...well mine WON'T turn on....
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