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Newly discovered MacBook shutdown problem

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forumBuddy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 6, 2005
68
17
Try this,
From running Tiger push MacBook's power button. Press Shutdown, right after screen turns blue, close the lid. The white light in front will stay on without flashing. Flip the screen open, screen is black - yet your MacBook did not shut down, upon closing the lid - the light turn on again and MacBook is actually draining battery.

My theory that during shut down process, closing the lid confused Tiger into going to sleep and that exposes the bug that prevents MacBook from waking up or shutting down.

The only way to boot MacBook again, other than removing the battery, is to hold power button for 4 seconds and by that doing hard shut down.

Any comments on this?
 
C

chairguru22

macrumors 6502a
May 31, 2006
668
159
PA
mine does it too.

IMO though, this is a fault of apple. the supposed 'greatest' OS makes you wait until the computer completely shutsdown before you can close the lid. What if i just got out of a meeting and am in a hurry. sure its 10 seconds but its the lack of attention to detail that has me wondering...:rolleyes:
 
mkrishnan

mkrishnan

Moderator emeritus
Jan 9, 2004
29,776
15
Grand Rapids, MI, USA
chairguru22 said:
What if i just got out of a meeting and am in a hurry. sure its 10 seconds but its the lack of attention to detail that has me wondering...:rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Well, transporting it while the drive is running isn't a great idea... but yes, I do see your point.
 
B

brkirch

macrumors regular
Oct 18, 2001
191
1
Well, from my experience if you close the lid on the MacBook too soon after the screen turns off one of two things will happen:

- The MacBook will remain partially turned on, the sleep/power light will remain on continuously when the lid is closed
- The MacBook will finish powering down, but when you next try to turn it on it will only partially power on; there won't be a startup chime and the screen doesn't even turn on

In both cases the power button should be held down for a few seconds to force the computer to power down. The next time you try to turn it on it should start normally, but you will get a dialog that says Mac OS X quit unexpectedly.

There are two ways that I know of to address this issue:

- Turn off hibernation. This can be done by opening Applications > Utilities > Terminal in an administrator account and typing "sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0", then return, your account password, and return again.
- Wait a few seconds after the screen turns off before closing the lid.
 
F

forumBuddy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 6, 2005
68
17
So than it settles it - it's a bug across all MacBooks. Do MacBook Pro's have the same issues? All of the non-Apple laptops I've used in the past, including my g/f $500 Toshiba have no problem with me closing the lid as soon as I hit shut down. As to waiting until OS shuts down to avoid the problem on MacBook - this is merelly a work around the bug that should've been fixed before Apple released the product.

A shame really, whenever my friends ask me about my Mac switching experience, I'm telling them all the good things, but always have to mention that Apple products are not as picture perfect as their Ads make them out to be.
 
A

aristobrat

macrumors G5
Oct 14, 2005
12,292
1,403
forumBuddy said:
So than it settles it - it's a bug across all MacBooks.
Click to expand...
Probably across all Apple notebooks. I've seen this topic come up a few times over the year-and-a-half I've been reading Apple forums -- way before the Intel Macs were out.
 
grockk

grockk

macrumors 6502
Mar 16, 2006
365
5
sounds to me that you've learned a bad habbit and expect macs to let you continue that habbit.

you should wait for the notebook to be completely shutdown before moving it. this is true of all portable PCs. they are not designed to be used while moving them so the greatest OS doesn't expect someone to close the lid and start packing it up before it's shutdown.
 
B

brkirch

macrumors regular
Oct 18, 2001
191
1
JRM PowerPod said:
All Mac Notebooks do, my PowerBook does and now so does my MacBook.
Simple: don't close the lid until it has shut down
Click to expand...

That is the problem; the computer appears to be shut down but is actually still about a second away from being fully powered down.

There is a feature in all new Apple notebooks called "safe sleep" which is enabled by default. When safe sleep is enabled the contents of the memory on the computer are copied to the hard disk every time the computer is put to sleep. If the computer runs out of battery while it is asleep no data is lost because it automatically restores the memory from the hard disk backup.

If the lid on the MacBook is closed immediately after the screen turns off the computer is still powered on enough to detect that the lid has been closed and it attempts to copy the memory to disk. This results in the problems I mentioned in my above post. If safe sleep is turned off by setting hibernatemode to 0 then there is no problem, and you should be able to close the lid immediately after the screen turns off.

forumBuddy said:
So than it settles it - it's a bug across all MacBooks. Do MacBook Pro's have the same issues? All of the non-Apple laptops I've used in the past, including my g/f $500 Toshiba have no problem with me closing the lid as soon as I hit shut down. As to waiting until OS shuts down to avoid the problem on MacBook - this is merelly a work around the bug that should've been fixed before Apple released the product.

A shame really, whenever my friends ask me about my Mac switching experience, I'm telling them all the good things, but always have to mention that Apple products are not as picture perfect as their Ads make them out to be.
Click to expand...

No, this is a problem specific to MacBooks. I have used a number of mac laptops over the years, including a MacBook Pro which I now usually use, and never had this problem with any of them except the MacBook. It is a bit annoying but will probably be fixed soon in a OS or firmware update.
 
Electro Funk

Electro Funk

macrumors 65816
Dec 8, 2005
1,073
0
The Opium Garden
amholl said:
My iBook and PowerBook G3 do this also....
Click to expand...

so did my TI PB G4... if you close the lid the PB/MB/MBP goes to sleep...

wait the extra few seconds until is shuts down....


Now that i think about it, my Dell Latitude D600 (supplied by work) does the same thing.... this is not apple specific....:rolleyes:
 
C

chairguru22

macrumors 6502a
May 31, 2006
668
159
PA
grockk said:
sounds to me that you've learned a bad habbit and expect macs to let you continue that habbit.

you should wait for the notebook to be completely shutdown before moving it. this is true of all portable PCs. they are not designed to be used while moving them so the greatest OS doesn't expect someone to close the lid and start packing it up before it's shutdown.
Click to expand...

as a careful computer user i would always wait for a complete shutdown/sleep before moving the computer.

but on the off chance that i or someone were to forget, the poor apple notebook will be continuously running in my bag creating a lot of heat and possibly damaging data or components. (ive heard a lot of stories of people opening up their bags only to find their notebook 'mysteriously' on and that it was burning hot.)
 
Killyp

Killyp

macrumors 68040
Jun 14, 2006
3,859
7
I sleep my MBP all the time. Like your MacBook, it stops the shutdown sequence from completing if I close the lid, which seemed like a complete pain at first (I didn't like the idea of a laptop being on standby in the bag, and Windows which is what I was used to is notoriuosly glitchy when it comes to standby) but after a few days I got used to the idea, and it's BRILLIANT now! I just open the lid and BOOMPH there I am, all my apps still open, no need to wait for OS X to load, no BAAAAAM sound which always makes a few people laugh during classes (please get rid of this sound, the only sound you need at startup is the breaking glass sound to tell you something's wrong). Sleep is the saviour of mankind and Mr MacSleep should be made supreme overlord of the earth...
 
F

forumBuddy

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 6, 2005
68
17
I think some of you guys misunderstanding the problem. I'm not talking about MacBook going to sleep when closing the lid - that's expected behavior.

I'm complaining that if you happen to close the lid in the last moments of OS shutting down (specifically, after screen turn blue) MacBook gets stuck in the hibernation mode and no amount of key tapping can wake it up. This drains the battery and forces user to hold power button in order to force shutdown the computer.

It's a bug in the firmware/OS design, in fact, upon following boot up Tiger gives an error message that OS unexpectedly quit.
 
Mitthrawnuruodo

Mitthrawnuruodo

Moderator emeritus
Mar 10, 2004
14,674
1,493
Bergen, Norway
forumBuddy said:
I think some of you guys misunderstanding the problem. [...]
Click to expand...
Nope, we understand...

Don't close the lid until the notebook is completely shut down.

If you disturb the shut down process you may actually damage the system beyond repair: This is because any *nix system has a lot of files open when running that needs to be closed properly, if not they may become corrupted and ultimately bring the whole system down...
 
thejadedmonkey

thejadedmonkey

macrumors G3
May 28, 2005
9,240
3,499
Pennsylvania
puckhead193 said:
you cann't wait the extra what 3 seconds till it completely shuts down :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
Because I don't have to do that on XP, so I shouldn't have to do it for the world's most advanced OS either.

grockk said:
sounds to me that you've learned a bad habbit and expect macs to let you continue that habbit.

you should wait for the notebook to be completely shutdown before moving it. this is true of all portable PCs. they are not designed to be used while moving them so the greatest OS doesn't expect someone to close the lid and start packing it up before it's shutdown.
Click to expand...
Sounds to me that you've become part of the Steve Jobs' RDF. ;)
 
Killyp

Killyp

macrumors 68040
Jun 14, 2006
3,859
7
Just try not shutting it down. I only every restart my MBP once in a few days, as I know you begin to fill up the RAM if you leave it on for a long period. Leaving it on (or on sleep) for more than 3 or 4 days begins to show in the performance department, but as long as you restart once in a few days, sleeping is perfect. It's VERY battery efficient as well. I have left my MBP on sleep in the bag for an entire day and it only lost around 10 % battery...
 
M

milo

macrumors 604
Sep 23, 2003
6,891
523
Apple should really fix this bug.

If the shutdown process is started, the machine should be start enough to complete that process whether the lid is open or closed.
 
B

brkirch

macrumors regular
Oct 18, 2001
191
1
Mitthrawnuruodo said:
Nope, we understand...

Don't close the lid until the notebook is completely shut down. If you do you disturb the shut down process, and this is actually harmful, specially to a *nix system which typically has a lot of files oen when running, that needs t be closed properly. If you disrupt that process you may actually corrupt the system beyond repair (though rare)...
Click to expand...

Here's a video of the problem. I used the iSight on my MacBook Pro to record this and I hope it illustrates the problem a little better. The problem isn't just about closing the lid too early, but that it is possible to interrupt the shut down process even after the screen turns off. Not only will the MacBook not simply turn on afterwards, but when it does it displays an error dialog that says that Mac OS X quit unexpectedly.

Edit: This is not a problem when hibernation is turned off.
 
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