iMac waking up by itself. Why?

[ReclaimedMdT]

I have my iMac set to sleep after 30 minutes of inactivity. I have the display set for sleep at 30 minutes also. This morning it woke up on it's own at 6:03 am. I checked all the system settings I could and there's absolutely nothing set for it to come back on automatically. The only way to wake it up is by touching the keyboard or moving the mouse. I couldn't do that sitting in the other room 20 feet away.

[Soon2BFit]

Maybe you have a mysterious guest you don't know about

[oscar8771]

Does it stay running? I have a Macbook Pro and it's wakes momentarily when in sleep mode. I think it some internal cycling? But it goes back the sleep within seconds.

In the past I've had problems with it waking and staying on. It turned out being a third-party app I had running. Also, any alarms, reminders, or auto updates checks you have set-up might be the issue.

[ReclaimedMdT]

Originally Posted by oscar8771

Does it stay running? I have a Macbook Pro and it's wakes momentarily when in sleep mode. I think it some internal cycling? But it goes back the sleep within seconds.

In the past I've had problems with it waking and staying on. It turned out being a third-party app I had running. Also, any alarms, reminders, or auto updates checks you have set-up might be the issue.

Yep. It woke up at 6:03 and went back to sleep a half hr later. I've had it for over a year and it's the first time anything like that has happened. Like I said I went into the system preferences and checked everything I could. I didn't find anything in the energy saver pane or anywhere else that would cause it.

[Armanoïd]

"http://obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html"
All mac should have this, if you don't, then get it
It's shareware but the demo last forever, I use the demo

It's a tool that lets you restrict permissions on ports for each application
It also tells you when there's an attempt to open a port to communicate with the network
Many applications do that in your back, it's called phoning home
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoning_home"

A must have definitely

There's also Activity Monitor (Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder)


I've put it in my dock, in case of casual paranoïd trip
I use it to track memory behaviour when I create some programs, to make sure I'm not flooding the memory with dynamic objects created on the fly and not entirely suppressed for example, or just to make sure what I'm coding is not too CPU intensive

[ReclaimedMdT]

Originally Posted by Armanoïd

"http://obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html"
All mac should have this, if you don't, then get it
It's shareware but the demo last forever, I use the demo

It's a tool that lets you restrict permissions on ports for each application
It also tells you when there's an attempt to open a port to communicate with the network
Many applications do that in your back, it's called phoning home
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoning_home"

A must have definitely

There's also Activity Monitor (Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities folder)


I've put it in my dock, in case of casual paranoïd trip
I use it to track memory behaviour when I create some programs, to make sure I'm not flooding the memory with dynamic objects created on the fly and not entirely suppressed for example, or just to make sure what I'm coding is not too CPU intensive

I've got it installed on mine. It's one of the first things I checked. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. So I don't know.

[oni9b]

Your should look at the Console (/Programs/Utilities/Console.app) - if you are sure about the time, then there should be an entry for an event in the console. Please post the Events from the Console about that time and we go from there.

[Hard Nard]

Here's a long shot - have you checked to see if "Wake for network access" is checked in the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences? That kept waling my iMac up at all sorts of odd-ball times.

[zandro]

Definitely see what's up with your schedule on SysPref panel. And I use LittleSnitch as well since some programs I have like to phone home to check for "updates" and rat me out to Adobe. It's completely free but after three hours it needs to be turned on again. If you purchase it, it remains active until you deactivate it.

[ReclaimedMdT]

Originally Posted by Hard Nard

Here's a long shot - have you checked to see if "Wake for network access" is checked in the Energy Saver pane of System Preferences? That kept waling my iMac up at all sorts of odd-ball times.

Yeah.it wasn't checked. I've been watching it carefully since and it hasn't happened again.