10.5.7 Breaks Sleep, Hopes and Dreams
Also known as the 10.5.7 sleep problem.
There are a bunch of reports of Mac OS X 10.5.7 update breaking sleep on a variety of machines ranging from PowerMac G5s to MacBooks. I can personally vouch for having issues with my MacBook Pro and MacPro*.
The recommended fixes range from resetting the SMC on MacBook Pros to pulling all external USB and Firewire devices from the machines. As usual, a number of people are running the Repair Disk Permissions voodoo with little effect other than the feeling of well-being you get from taking a strong, well-documented placebo. Other suggestions include resetting the PRAM and NVRAM.
None of these suggestions have worked for my MacBook Pro. It’s incredibly frustrating and is going to make my laptop essentially useless if I can’t put it to sleep and wake it back up. Note that I get one free sleep by closing the lid. Subsequent attempts to sleep the machine cause it to freeze in a kind of blacked-out state. It seems to be running, but the display stays dark. I’ve heard reports of people being able to put their machines to sleep manually, but I haven’t tried this yet.
Worse, I tried running a system restore from Time Machine with an install disc. When the installer finally loads, the backlight turns off. Using a flashlight(!) to see the contents of the screen, I’m not given an option to select a restore point from my Time Capsule backup. I might be able to do a full install and restore up to my last safe point, but this scares me.
I strongly urge people to avoid 10.5.7 like the swine flu and stick with 10.5.6 until this is fixed.
* the MacPro issue is separate and involves it waking up sporadically from sleep
Update: this Apple Discussion thread describes the problem and a fix. The problem appears to be related to wireless network locations with disabled ethernet ports. Re-enabling the port seems to fix the issue.
Update 2: The fix worked. Re-enabling the Ethernet port seems to have fixed the sleep problem. Weird, but glad to have an answer. Thanks to the intrepid and persistent people in that apple discussion thread. I’ll keep looking for a fix for the issue with my Mac Pro.
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