Issues with my mac going to sleep

By aaron ramirez, 14 August, 2022

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi all.
I'm having a really strange issue with my M1 Macbook pro.
When I leave it off power and let it sleep for an extended period of time (3+ hours) when I open it back up, I can't get VO to speak or any other sound to come out of it for that matter.
The first time this happened, I assumed it died, but plugging it in did not fix it and after restarting it with the power button, the battery was over 50%.
It just happened again about 5 minutes ago and I'm getting sick of using the power button to restart it.
another interesting thing I've noticed is when I press down on the trackpad after this happens, it only clicks once. Normally, it will click twice (first the normal click, then after you apply more pressure, the force touch click) which makes me think something weird is actually going on.
Has anyone had this issue and ideas on how to fix it?
Next time this happens I'll find sighted help to look at the display but it has just happened when there wasn't anyone available.
Thanks!

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Comments

By Paul Martin on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 23:45

I've not seen this one specifically, but I can give some ideas on what it might be. The fact that your trackpad isn't clicking twice suggests to me the system isn't waking fully from hibernation. The way to control this behavior and other related things is with the "pmset" command in the terminal. Some of these settings available there can really jack things up. Don't change certain integers lightly! See the man page with "info pmset" before considering crucial changes.
There also might be something found in the console about a hang in the sleep/wake process that would be causing the problem.
Sorry I can't be of more help, but without much more info I can't suggest much more, and it's a little beyond the scope of this form as I'm about 90 percent sure this is not a Voiceover issue.

By CuriousNetEntity on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 23:45

Just for testing purposes. Have you tried hitting f8 to see if music plays? This would tell you if the keyboard is working, and whether all sound is off, not just VoiceOver.

I have an entirely different problem with only VoiceOver not reading after my M1 MacBook Air pretends to go to sleep after 2.5 minutes. It isn't set to sleep or even turn off the screen after that amount of time, but VO won't read the contents of almost anything until VO is restarted. Apple seems baffled by it. I have to plug it in if I don't want to be extremely aware of the passage of inactive time.

By aaron ramirez on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 23:45

Thanks for the responses!
I've tried forcing it to happen again but I guess now that I've asked about it the problem has disappeared.
I am running the Ventura beta so that could be part of the problem, but I'm almost sure this happened before I upgraded.

By PaulMartz on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 - 23:45

I have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse connected through a switch box to access multiple computers, one of them is my main desktop, a Mac Mini. Because I'm blind, the monitor is turned off. I keep it around anyway in case I need sighted assistance for something. I'm sure many other AppleVis users do the same.

If my Mac Mini goes to sleep while the monitor is turned off, it will not wake. It must be rebooted with a power cycle, similar to what the OP described.

To work around the issue, I've gone into Settings and disabled sleep. Obviously this isn't a fix if you have a laptop. But I thought you'd appreciate the input that Mac OS has issues with sleep under multiple conditions.