Wake from Sleep fails frequently since upgrade

[Hevelius]

It seems like quite a few people are having trouble with the screen waking up since upgrading to Sierra (see the links below).

I have a relatively new iMac (2015 5K) which was rock solid on El Capitan but since upgrading to Sierra I find that almost every day I have to power cycle due to the screen failing to wake up from sleep. I hit the keys but nothing happens. I know the machine is still on because I can feel the air being pushed through the vents by the fan and the log file entries show that processes are still active while the machine remains unresponsive.

Sometimes it wakes up but takes much longer to respond than it ever did on El Capitan (e.g. 5-10 secs). I never had any issues on 10.11 and this has really spoilt my experience. I was getting a lot of joy out of this new iMac until Sierra messed things up!

I have very little 3rd party s/w installed on the machine so far, apart from Office, Spotify, the various cloud sync tools and some small-footprint third party helper tools and diagnostics (Hazel, Alfred, EtreCheck) which have always been rock solid on any Mac I've owned.

As quite a few others seem to be getting hit by this issue using various H/W i've collated some links to other people's posts about it. Maybe it's time to make a sticky? :-0

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...rty-nvram-or-smc-issue.2003314/#post-23649178

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...rom-sleep-after-macos-sierra-upgrade.2002216/

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...from-sleep-external-monitor-is-green.2002427/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sierra-mac-book-air-mid-2011-waking-up-slower.2001431/

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/os-sierra-hard-to-wake-up.2003308/
[doublepost=1475433964][/doublepost]One other thing I've noticed - the trackpad (1st gen) always loses connection after a restart. Again, this seems to something that only started since Sierra. I also have the Magic Keyboard and Mouse and they don't have issues.

I've just done an SMC reset so I'll report back later as to whether that has helped.

 

[RiderX]

I have none of these problems. Did a "dirty" install from El Capitan.

The only thing I hate is the new logging system and Console.app
This wouldn't have passed under Steve Jobs.

 

[kagharaht]

Happened twice now. Finder unresponsive, iTunes unresponsive. Unable to restart or reboot also. Had to hold the power button to make it turn off. I guess I'll have to reinstall Sierra from Scratch and bring the stuff back from Time Machine. Then set everything back to what it was all over again. I don't know what else could be causing it. Perhaps since I turned on wake with the Apple Watch was turned on that it started happening. Maybe I'll turn that off for now.

 

[Hevelius]

Happened twice now. Finder unresponsive, iTunes unresponsive. Unable to restart or reboot also. Had to hold the power button to make it turn off. I guess I'll have to reinstall Sierra from Scratch and bring the stuff back from Time Machine. Then set everything back to what it was all over again. I don't know what else could be causing it. Perhaps since I turned on wake with the Apple Watch was turned on that it started happening. Maybe I'll turn that off for now.

Try an SMC reset before you do anything drastic. I've just done one on my iMac and I'm going to monitor it for a few days.

Another thing to try is to set up a dummy user account. Log in as that and you'll only be running plain Sierra with the default software loaded. If that user works okay it could point to a software issue (this will be the next step I try if the SMC doesn't help).

 

[kagharaht]

Try an SMC reset before you do anything drastic. I've just done one on my iMac and I'm going to monitor it for a few days.

Another thing to try is to set up a dummy user account. Log in as that and you'll only be running plain Sierra with the default software loaded. If that user works okay it could point to a software issue (this will be the next step I try if the SMC doesn't help).

Okay. If it happens again after what I changed a bit, I'll give the SMC reset a try. EtreCheck came out zero issues or alerts. Said Good after the test.

 

[Hevelius]

The first proper test since the SMC reset - leaving it overnight - and the screen just woke up instantly to the lock screen. None of the churning I was getting before (i.e. those times when the screen did eventually came back), just instantaneous, so it looks promising so far.

 

[Hevelius]

UPDATE: Since doing the SMC reset 6 days ago I haven't had any more Wake From Sleep issues. Hopefully this isn't a case of famous last words!