Mac won't wake up ....

Rhisiart

Rhisiart

Registered
If I put my Mac mini to sleep or select restart, it will not wake up or restart. I then have to shut it down by holding the power button and then restart it by holding the power button again. This can't be doing the computer any good in the long term.

So now if I leave the Mac mini for any time I have to completely shut it down and then restart it when I return to it.

Any ideas as to what the problem is?
 
DeltaMac

DeltaMac

Tech
I just posted to another forum about something similar.
You may have a type of shutdown stall that some others report.

It doesn't affect me too much, but I keep caches folders cleaned out, and (because I do varied support, installing a variety of apps that I try out, then often immediately remove from my main system.) often do a full macOS reinstall/reload - probably a couple of times per month.
I don't recommend that others do what I do with reinstalling the system quite often - but, if you have some minor issue, such as odd restart behavior, and you haven't tried a reinstall from a full installer in a few months, it might do the trick of pruning out some issues that you have.
I JUST had a customer's iMac that had a power failure during a storm. Wouldn't boot again, lost one memory stick from that, and the disk directory took multiple runs of Disk Warrior to sort out. It was also an old hard drive (2008 iMac) that had never had any utility of any kind run on it since new. But, the power failure took it over the edge.
There was a lot of time involved for minor problems to accumulate, and the old Mac was working without issues until the storm last week.

Sorry, long story, but I suggest a macOS reinstall (not an erase/reinstall/replace everything, just a boot to an installer, and reinstall as it exists now.), particularly if you haven't done that for a year or two.
 
Rhisiart

Rhisiart

Registered
Cheryl - nothin is running when I restart the Mac.

DeltaMac - thanks for this advice. I shall do a reinstall.
 
DeltaMac

DeltaMac

Tech
Something else to try, if you don't really want to reinstall your system yet ---
When you get ready to restart, first bring up the force-quit screen (Press Option-Command-Esc).
Force Quit each item that might be listed, including FInder. The Finder will restart on its own after a few seconds. Anything else should quit as you choose each one.
Can you successfully restart after clearing out that Force-Quit window?
 
Rhisiart

Rhisiart

Registered
Thanks again DeltaMac. I shall try this.

The story behind the Mac mini problem was that the screen froze one day and I could not get it back to normal. I couldn't use Disk Utility or Diskwarrier to repair it. So I took it to a local repair store and they reinstalled Mojave for me (which cost about the equivalent of $50).

The restart problem has been occurring ever since I got the Mac mini back from them and foolishly I did not return it for them to repair.

I have tried downloading Mojave from the App store to do my own reinstall, but the download keeps timing out which brings me to another problem in that the wi-fi isn't working consistently. Every ten minutes the wi-fi stops for about a minute and any download subsequently times out.

interestingly, the MacBook Pro used to sit right next to the Mac mini and whilst the wi-fi on the Mac mini would intermittently go off, the wi-fi on the Macbook would remain normal. So the problem isn't anything to do with the distance from the router which is in a different room.

I may have to send the Mac mini off to Liverpool to get another company to look at it.
 
DeltaMac

DeltaMac

Tech
If you have wifi connection problems, can you connect to the router (with an ethernet cable)?
It might be worth moving your mini closer to the router, if you don't have a cable to reach, while you continue to download that full macOS installer.
The ethernet (wired) connection should be more reliable.

I notice that your signature shows that you have a 500GB drive. Is that still the original spinning hard drive? It is really worth the time to upgrade that to an SSD, and takes your mini from "sorta, kinda working" to seldom waiting for anything you do, particularly if you are running a current version of macOS.
 
DeltaMac

DeltaMac

Tech
hmm...
If Rhisiart has the 2.53 GHz listed in the signature, then that can't download Mojave, at least not using the normal method. (it would be limited to the latest macOS that it can run)

@Rhysiart - Are you saying that Ethernet (even with the Wifi card turned off) ALSO drops off?
Is there any improvement if you restart your router?
Is the dropout always at the same point in the download?
Can you restart your mini, then (with ethernet only connected) start the Mojave download? Do not use any other apps, just let the download continue without doing any other task. (and, also, don't use the internet through your router on another device, until you can see that the mini isn't going to be successful)
 
Rhisiart

Rhisiart

Registered
DeltaMac said:
hmm...
If Rhisiart has the 2.53 GHz listed in the signature, then that can't download Mojave, at least not using the normal method. (it would be limited to the latest macOS that it can run)

@Rhisiart - Are you saying that Ethernet (even with the Wifi card turned off) ALSO drops off?

Yes.

Is there any improvement if you restart your router?

No.

Is the dropout always at the same point in the download?

Not sure. Possibly. As far as surfing the web is concerned these intermittent connection losses are tolerable, but it's real pain when trying to do a large download as you can well imagine.

Can you restart your mini, then (with ethernet only connected) start the Mojave download? Do not use any other apps, just let the download continue without doing any other task. (and, also, don't use the internet through your router on another device, until you can see that the mini isn't going to be successful)

As it happens, I managed to get a window of Internet connectivity normality yesterday. Lo and behold I was able to download Mojave and have a done a reinstall. Sadly the Mini will still not restart although it does now wake up from sleep mode.

I don't know what else to do. Perhaps I'll run Diskwarror again.
Click to expand...
 
DeltaMac

DeltaMac

Tech
Are you now on latest Mojave update?
You should be on 10.4.6, build 18G87
Go to About This Mac, then click on the system verion number. You should then see the build number (again, should be 18G87)
The last update has a specific fix listed for sleep issues.
 
Rhisiart

Rhisiart

Registered
DeltaMac said:
Are you now on latest Mojave update?
You should be on 10.4.6, build 18G87
Go to About This Mac, then click on the system verion number. You should then see the build number (again, should be 18G87)
The last update has a specific fix listed for sleep issues.
Click to expand...
Yes, I am. Many thanks.
 
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