osx lion 10.7 Wake on lan not working

[Mentalraye]

I did revert my Airport Extreme firmware to 7.6, without success.

I think my only hope right now is Mountain Lion.

 

[EmpyreanUK]

Ah, well I'm sorry to hear that. It would seem that, as you've said, we have to sit, wait and hope for Apple to bother fixing it, either in the next Lion update or in Mountain Lion. It's amazingly frustrating, especially considering that, just this week, they finally got around to issuing a firmware update to fix a bug on a computer that is over three years old.

 

[kylemc]

Reverting Airport Extreme to firmware 7.6.0 solved the issue with my setup. Don't give up too quickly as it seemed to take almost a day after reverting the firmware and restarting both the Airport and computer before I noticed WOL was working properly again.

 

[bluerfoot]

I just bought the macbook air, I am very dissapointed, I planned on keeping it off at home, then waking, sshing, and using parallels to learn linux remotely on my lunch hour at work. wol not working, after reading how wonderful the mac hardware/software integration is I must admit I did not even google this before my purchase as I thought it would "just work".

 

[cau]

I found this thread about Wake-on-LAN problems, but came from a different direction.

Last June, we bought a new iMac to replace our aging PowerPC iMac. I use Timbuktu Pro to remotely control the iMac from my MacBook Pro. Timbuktu Pro is configured to tunnel using SSH, so I can safely and securely access the iMac while traveling. At home, I use an old application called "WakeUp" to send a Wake-on-LAN (WoL) magic packet when needed, which wakes the iMac before connecting with Timbuktu Pro. This worked on the old PowerPC iMac and the new iMac (running Snow Leopard). It stopped working when we upgraded the new iMac to Lion two weeks ago.

Here is a link to WakeUp (http://www.coriolis.ch/en/wakeup/) but there are several other applications and build-your-own source code in different programming languages that do the same thing.

WakeUp and Timbuktu Pro no longer work with the Lion iMac as before. After I run WakeUp and try to connect, Timbuktu Pro reports an error, "SSH connected, but Timbuktu is not responding ...". After some investigation, I discovered what you already know - the Lion iMac was in "deadwake" state. The iMac responds to various Bonjour services and SSH, but nothing that requires the display or user interface, including Timbuktu Pro.

WORKAROUND: Restart your Lion Mac to wake it up. Yuck!

1. Use WakeUp or another tool to put your Lion Mac into the deadwake state.
2. Connect to the Lion Mac using SSH.
3. Use "who" or "w" to check whether other users are logged in; they may have left unsaved work.
4. Use "sudo reboot" or "sudo shutdown -r now" to reboot the Lion Mac.
5. After the Lion Mac has rebooted, it is now in the fully awake state.

Obviously, this is a ghastly kluge, but it works.


DESIRED HELP AND RESEARCH:

The reason I have taken the time to post this message is because I hope to find a better solution. PLEASE HELP!

SOLUTION 1 (BEST): Signal the Lion Mac which type of wakeup is desired.

Is it possible to modify the WoL magic packet payload to signal a Lion Mac to wake fully instead of deadwake? This solution assumes that Apple had the prescience to design their systems to detect two different types of WoL payloads. It also assumes that the packet payloads can be varied without violating the WoL spec, which I have not (yet) read.

SOLUTION 2 (NOT AS GOOD): Connect with SSH, then use a tool to escalate the Lion Mac from deadwake to fully awake.

Is there a Unix command or other tool that can invoke a Mac to change from deadwake to fully awake state? If not, could it be written by a skilled programmer? I assume that Apple must have a software interface (API) somewhere in the OS to do it, because it happens when you press a key on the keyboard. Whether Apple has documented it is another question. Perhaps it is as simple as injecting key down/up events into the event queue? This solution isn't pretty, but it is certainly better than rebooting the computer.

SOLUTION 3 (MAYBE THE BEST OF ALL): You suggest something better!

 

[etsi]

darkwake=0 solved my problem, mac mini 2011.

Now using wake on lan it turns on monitor too and remote vnc or whatever works just fine.

 

[GarrettL1979]

apple really needs to fix this... very annoying

 

[daviesgreg]

What really worked for me:

Edit File
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

to

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Kernel</key>
        <string>mach_kernel</string>
        <key>Kernel Flags</key>
        <string>darkwake=0</string>
</dict>
</plist>

This disables the dark wakeup setting! I can now wakeup the Mac (with screen wakeup) with WOL and with the remote

Hi - I want to try this solution but I don't have a "SystemConfiguration" folder under Library\Preferences. Have tried Finder's "Go to Folder" option but it says the folder can't be found. Have also tried searching for com.apple.boot.plist but no joy there either.

Did the location of this file move with the 10.7.3 upgrade, or is it just really well hidden?

Greg

 

[tonysg]

The Darkwake setting worked for me, once I added that field my iMac wakes when I use me ATV2 to access my iTunes folder

 

[GarrettL1979]

Is there any negative consequence to setting darkwake to 0?

 

[EmpyreanUK]

Is there any negative consequence to setting darkwake to 0?

When your Mac is woken by network access, the entire system will wake up fully (as if you were sat at the keyboard and pressed a button to wake it). The consequence of this is that the screen will turn on, and any attached discs will be fired-up, resulting in almost imperceptibly higher electricity usage.

 

[pj-uk]

Can anyone confirm this works using TeamViewer? I have changed the .plist file and added darkwake=0 and upon putting my Mac Mini (2011 connected via ethernet) to sleep it will not WOL when using TeamViewer. The only way I can WOL is by accessing via screenshare (which can be a pain since I don't always want to access via my macbook).

 

[Taz Mangus]

I am also having the WOL issue with my 2011 iMac. After the iMac has been asleep for more then 2.5 hours, it can't be woken via file or screen sharing. I have opened a case with Apple. I sent them a great deal of information about the issue. Funny thing is I had this exact same issue with my 2009 Mac-Mini with 10.7.2. 10.7.3 resolved that issue.

 

[GarrettL1979]

I am also having the WOL issue with my 2011 iMac. After the iMac has been asleep for more then 2.5 hours, it can't be woken via file or screen sharing. I have opened a case with Apple. I sent them a great deal of information about the issue. Funny thing is I had this exact same issue with my 2009 Mac-Mini with 10.7.2. 10.7.3 resolved that issue.

let us know how Apple responds

 

[dills84]

This is the most infuriating issue coming from a PC user. I bought a 15" Macbook Pro i7 2.2 last week and gave up my PC for more mobile computing power.

However, Now I've been trying to SSH the MBP from work and its not responding. I've tried wake commands from my router, SSH, other computers on the network, logmein, splashtop, various android WOL apps... NOTHING WORKS! How can such a simple function be overlooked.

will buying an airport extreme fix this issue? I'm currently using 2 cisco routers in bridged mode with DDWRT.

 

[Taz Mangus]

This is the most infuriating issue coming from a PC user. I bought a 15" Macbook Pro i7 2.2 last week and gave up my PC for more mobile computing power.

However, Now I've been trying to SSH the MBP from work and its not responding. I've tried wake commands from my router, SSH, other computers on the network, logmein, splashtop, various android WOL apps... NOTHING WORKS! How can such a simple function be overlooked.

will buying an airport extreme fix this issue? I'm currently using 2 cisco routers in bridged mode with DDWRT.

WOL only works with a Airport Extreme base station.

 

[dills84]

WOL only works with a Airport Extreme base station.

Apparently not... I just bought one... still not working.

The only thing I can do is SSH my sleeping macbook and do a "sudo reboot"

Not a great solution but atleast i can access it in a pinch.

 

[etsi]

What really worked for me:

Edit File
/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.Boot.plist

to

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple Computer//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Kernel</key>
        <string>mach_kernel</string>
        <key>Kernel Flags</key>
        <string>darkwake=0</string>
</dict>
</plist>

This disables the dark wakeup setting! I can now wakeup the Mac (with screen wakeup) with WOL and with the remote

This is the only solution for me.

 

[GarrettL1979]

Apparently not... I just bought one... still not working.

Same here.

 

[dills84]

I have darkwake=0 set and the computer still won't wake. The only way I can get it to wake is if I trigger a terminal command to it via SSH. then the computer wakes.

But no magic packets seem to wake it. I have port 9 UDP forwarded through my airport extreme... still nothing.

bah!

 

[etsi]

Which terminal command ?

 

[GarrettL1979]

I have darkwake=0 set and the computer still won't wake. The only way I can get it to wake is if I trigger a terminal command to it via SSH. then the computer wakes.

But no magic packets seem to wake it. I have port 9 UDP forwarded through my airport extreme... still nothing.

bah!

I tried darkwake=0 as well, and it didn't work for me either. Hope they fix this soon.

 

[dills84]

Which terminal command ?

with darkwake=0 set you can wake the computer simply by SSH'ing it. for example just typing ssh username@192.168.1.X will wake the computer regardless of a password being submitted.

 

[EmpyreanUK]

OS X 10.7.4 does not fix the problem

 

[Taz Mangus]

It appears that 10.7.4 fixed the WOL issue for me. The first two times I tried it I was successful in waking my iMac after it had been asleep for more then 2 hours. The interesting thing now is when I click on the iMac from SHARED devices, the iMac seems to disappear from the SHARED devices list and after a few seconds reappears. Only happens when the iMac has not be woken for more then 2 hours. I am going to send a Quick Time screen capture movie to advisor at Apple that I am in contact regarding the WOL issue I have open.

Not sure if there was truely a fix in 10.7.4 or something else.