Start by disabling hibernation — it's behind most wake failures on these machines: sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0 then sudo pmset -a standby 0.
If the Mac wakes to a black screen but is otherwise running (keyboard backlight on, responds to Caps Lock), that's the display pipeline failing to reinitialise — a known non-Metal weakness with workarounds but no complete fix.
Try the power settings first
Hibernation writes memory to disk and restores it on wake. That path is fragile on patched Macs, and turning it off resolves a good share of cases. In Terminal:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0— sleep to RAM only, never to disksudo pmset -a standby 0— stop the later transition into standbysudo pmset -a autopoweroff 0— stop the deepest sleep state
The trade-off is honest: a sleeping laptop now drains battery slowly instead of near-zero, and a battery that goes flat while asleep loses open work. On a desktop there's essentially no downside.
Also turn off Power Nap and Wake for network access in System Settings → Battery / Energy Saver. Both wake the Mac in the background, which on a patched machine often means waking into a broken state inside a closed bag.
Black screen on wake
First establish whether the Mac is actually awake. Press Caps Lock and watch for the light, or type your password blind and press Return — if the login sound plays or the fans change, macOS is running and only the display isn't coming back.
Things that help, in order of how often they work:
- Close and reopen the lid, or unplug and replug an external display. Sometimes forces a re-detect.
- Confirm root patches are applied. Display reinitialisation depends on the patched graphics stack; if an update removed the patches, this is one of the first symptoms. See root patches explained.
- On dual-GPU Macs, stop automatic graphics switching. System Settings → Battery → uncheck Automatic graphics switching. Switching GPUs across a sleep cycle is a frequent trigger.
- Reset the SMC. The procedure differs by model and it governs power and display behaviour — worth doing once when nothing else helps.
On non-Metal Macs, wake-from-sleep display handling is a known rough edge that OCLP cannot fully solve — the drivers being reconstructed were removed by Apple, not merely disabled. If it's making the machine unusable, setting the display to never sleep while keeping the system awake is an unglamorous but effective answer.
The Mac won't stay asleep, or wakes on its own
Find out what's waking it. In Terminal:
pmset -g log | grep -i wake
The log names the wake source. Common culprits and their fixes:
| Wake source | What it means | Fix |
|---|---|---|
USB or a device name | A peripheral is signalling wake — mice and hubs are the usual offenders | Unplug it and retest; disable wake for Bluetooth devices |
RTC | A scheduled wake — Power Nap, Time Machine or a maintenance task | Disable Power Nap; check for scheduled startup in Energy Saver |
Network or EC.WakeOnLAN | Network traffic is waking it | Turn off Wake for network access |
On laptops there's also the mundane explanation: a worn lid sensor. If sleep is unreliable only when closing the lid but perfect from the Apple menu, suspect the magnet or sensor rather than software.
What to do when none of it works
Some combinations of old hardware and new macOS simply don't sleep reliably, and no configuration change alters that. Reasonable positions to land on:
- Set the display to sleep but not the system. You get a dark, quiet machine that wakes instantly and never fails, at the cost of idle power.
- Shut down instead of sleeping. With an SSD, a cold boot on these Macs is quick enough that the difference barely registers.
- Drop back a macOS version. Sleep behaviour on non-Metal hardware is markedly better on Monterey than on Ventura and later, and this is one of the areas where the gap is largest.
Common questions
Is it safe to leave hibernation disabled?
Yes. It changes where sleep state is stored, not whether the Mac sleeps. The only real consequence is that a laptop whose battery dies while asleep loses unsaved work, so save before closing the lid on a low battery.
Sleep worked before I upgraded macOS.
Check root patches first — an upgrade removes them and the graphics stack they restore is directly involved in wake. If patches are applied and sleep is still broken, the newer macOS is simply harder on your hardware, which is a genuine reason to consider staying on the older version.
Should I use clamshell mode with an external display?
It works on many patched Macs but is more fragile than on stock hardware, particularly on non-Metal GPUs. Test it deliberately before relying on it for anything that matters.