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The USB idea is very plausible because Apple keeps the USB hub fully powered in S3 (sleep), S4 (hybrid sleep) & S5 (off) so folks can charge their iPods off of the USB bus while the machine is down. Any supply side issue to the power would likely cause the USB bus to be the first to suffer and likely cycle into and out of the USB low power state as a means of self preservation. That would cause the various attached peripherals to respond in kind fooling the system into thinking that input from the peripherals was received. Just a guess though based on what the submitter wrote.
For whatever that's worth, I have a USB LaCie Drive which keep my computer from sleeping :(
At least, as long as I don't
a) eject the drive,
b) turn the drive off (or hot swapping it) or
c) shuting down my computer!
But that's because my drive doesn't automatically go to sleep.. Dargn LaCie!
I also struggled with tracking down the cause of a self-waking Mac....for years. I scoured every website and forum I could find, and finally tracked it down to the software used to drive some MacAlly keyboards.
I loved my iMediakey keyboard, but the problem—caused by the MacAlly software—has never been fully addressed or fixed, as far as I know.
I tried tech support, and as careful as I was in explaining what I had done in trying to troubleshoot, including making pointed reference to linkes on their own website, they only sent me copy/pasted info—the exact same directions I told them I had already read and performed. It was clear that they didn't read my emails at all.
I got so pissed off at MacAlly's lack of any kind of personal help I yanked the keyboard, their software, and will NEVER recommend it to anyone.
Which software was causing the problem? I've got a MacAlly keyboard, and wonder if that's my issue, too.
I've had the same trouble with my PowerBook. But it occurs only rarely, maybe a couple times a month. I don't have a USB hub plugged in, just a USB mouse, ethernet, and phone line. I wonder if power flickers in the phone line could do it?
Very sometimes the ethernet can be a cause of it actually, try it without the ethernet plugged in?
If you're using a PowerBook/iBook/MacBook(Pro), the easiest way to stop this happening is to simply unplug your power lead.
Oddly, the USB-device-waking-up-your-Mac 'feature' only occurs when running on mains power.
I use a USB KVM switch for my MBP and another computer and used to get frustrated by the switch waking the Mac for no reason...
Very interesting that Macs supply power to the USB hub even when switched off! I didn't know that, but I could easily make use of it!
I've actually had several instances w/ my MacBook Pro of either not going to sleep, or waking up, or not waking up. I seem to have minimized these by unchecking two items.
1. From Bluetooth preferences uncheck 'Allow Bluetooth devices to wake this computer' -- of course this means your won't be able to wake your computer w/ your bt kbd or bt mouse.
2. From Energy Saver prefs, under options, uncheck 'Wake for Ethernet network administrator access'.
My wife and I have identical 17' MacBok Pros. About twice a month, hers wakes up after its lid is closed and it goes to sleep. When it does this it gets very hot by the next morning and cannot be awoken - we have to crash it by holding in the power button.
I know we have turned off the 'Bluetooth will wake' but it keeps turning itself back on after several days. we'll have to check the 'Wake on LAN' setting.
There is nothing plugged into our MBPs when they are asleep except power and gigabit ethernet.
I have exactly the same problem with my G4. I found that only shutting down the light of the room causes the computer to wake from sleep...
Same problem at my mother's house, in another city, with another G4.
I tried to use different surge protected plugs, with no result :/
I take it you're *not* UK based... That's what the ground pin is for :-)
That and preventing major electrical shocks.
Actually, you might want to reverse that. Opening the light to make to wake up the computer makes more sense... ;)
You know, you come to your office, you turn on the lights, your computer wakes up and starts rsync, get mails and stuff... ;) :)
robindwilliams : I'm in France, and the electric installation is old, ok, but not that old !! We have the ground pin ^____^
Yes. But the next question. What was the cat looking at on the internet or was it just chasing the mouse.
I've got 3 devices that do this:Some USB devices, especially hubs and not only cheap ones cause the sleep problems. With my G5 Quad I either disconnect the hub or have to make it sleep two, three, five or more times. Once it gets sleepy enough, it sleeps well though. The solution is to disconnect the hub. But I've got this problem with some hubs, regardless of their price. And I don't get it with some, regardless of the price too. Workaround to this if I don't want to diconnect the hub was to require password to wake from sleep (System Preferences) and whenever the machine gets awake it goes back to sleep by itself in a minute when no password is entered.
I tried this on a Mirrored Drive Doors G4 dual 1.25 GHz running OS 10.5.2, which has had this undesired automatic wake from sleep problem under OS 10.4 and now 10.5. I put it to sleep, then woke it, and didn't enter a password when asked. After about 30 seconds, the screen saver activated, but the Mac stayed powered up. I knew it was too good to be true. If it had really worked, this would have been one of the most elegant solutions for those Macs for which unplugging and replacing hardware just to get it to stay asleep, and all the other fixes (turning off useful options, etc.), aren't a practical solution. Maybe someone has written a utility that will keep putting the Mac to sleep every time it sees that it's woken up, until you really want it to wake up--often, Macs that won't stay asleep, will sleep a lot longer after they've been put back to sleep several times in a row.
Oops--don't save that script using Script Editor's 'Stay Open' option, or else the app will stay running even after you click its 'Cancel' button, but it won't do anything after that until you quit from it and re-launch it. Without the 'Stay Open' option, it will quit if you click its 'Cancel' button, and then you just have to re-launch it to activate it again, which is the desired behavior.
Where can I get one of those talking cats?
i too have suspected the usb infrastructure (i've a belkin hub that i don't entirely trust). but what really annoys me is after whatever awakens my imac (core 2 duo), it stays awake, even though it's configured to put itself to sleep after 30 minutes idle.
I once had a problem with my macbook pro where one night it suddenly stopped sleeping. It had been fine for months before that, but after that night it wouldn't sleep for more than a couple of minutes. Finally I figured out that my built in iSight camera had gone bad. As a result, the USB subsystem was constantly trying to identify the half working camera, but could only tell the it was an unknown USB device. I had to send the computer to Apple and get the camera replaced.
I have a completely different one. I have a MacBook Pro and a Dell 30' monitor. If I sleep the MBP with the monitor plugged in, it seems to go to sleep but wakes immediately. If I unplug the monitor before sleeping everything works fine. I don't use the monitor's built-in hub since it gets powered down when the monitor is turned off (nice going Dell! :( ). Quite annoying.
I have a Canon 4400F scanner attached to a Belkin USB 2.0 hub (iMac G5 rev C). If I put the computer to sleep while the scanner is plugged-in to the hub, the system wakes up immediately. Only 2 remedies - plug the scanner directly into the iMac (not practical as the USB cable (6ft) is not long enough (I don't want to buy a 10 ft cable), or unplug the scanner from the Hub. I chose the latter, in fact I keep it unplugged until I need to use it. Doing this allows the computer to sleep as intended.
A few people have mentioned turning off the Wake-on-LAN feature, also referred to in the Energy Saver control panel as 'Wake for Ethernet network administrator access.' This feature is unlikely to cause the problem, however. When this is on, the Ethernet interface listens for a specially formatted packet instructing it to wake up. Among other things, this packet must contain your ethernet card's MAC address repeated 16 times consecutively. There is effectively zero chance of a random packet on the network triggering this accidentally, so unless somebody is intentionally waking your computer remotely, this shouldn't cause it.
Having said that, turning that feature on tells your computer to keep the ethernet interface powered while the computer is asleep, so I guess there's a chance that a power fluctuation could temporarily unpower the ethernet interface, which might confuse and wake the computer, though I doubt it.
Wireless keyboards and mice (both USB and Bluetooth) can wake a Mac too. Also, self-refreshing Web pages can do this, like CNN's home page.
this is still plaguing me with two insomniac episodes this week. i filed a bug report at apple (#5815010 iMac randomly awakes from system sleep - won't go back to sleep afterwards 23-Mar-2008 10:24 AM Open). dunno that it'll help, but it can't hurt.
i removed all the usb devices that were plugged into my machine, other than the mouse & keyboard. the wakeup is the same each time: a bluetooth/usb event. i first noticed the wake-up/insomnia problem after i enabled bluetooth for a wireless mighty mouse. that died a cruel & unusual death so i disabled bluetooth again. the problem remains ...
been a while but the answer is no. i've since upgraded to 10.5 & cs3 (& declined to even install version cue on that install). i still have occasional insomnia bouts with my machine.