Monterey awakens randomly from sleep. Other issues fixed - Any new solutions?

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Monterey awakens randomly from sleep. Other issues fixed - Any new solutions?

To whom it concerns:

Ever since upgrading to Monterey, and then with macOS 12.1, my iMac (Retina 5k, 27 inch 2017, iMac18,3, 4.2 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7) has constantly awakened from sleep, even though all notifications have been turned off, network access has been turned off in the energy saver settings, and in the firewall options, the checkbox to block all incoming connections has been checked. I have reviewed people's complaints on the issue both here at the Apple forums and on the Internet and do not see any solution that solves this. One person also indicated they did a clean install of Monterey and still had this problem.

I started the computer as an administrator in safe mode, and that did nothing. When I reset the SMC and PRAM, that did not solve the issue of random awakening, but it fixed a very slow computer operating under macOS Monterey.

From what I have read, Apple Bluetooth devices should not randomly awaken the computer. I have an Apple extended wireless Magic Keyboard as well as an Apple trackpad, and there are no other Bluetooth devices connected to the iMac. After macOS Monterey was installed, there was a problem of very slow response of the computer to the Bluetooth devices , which I also fixed. I did this by first deleting the trackpad and keyboard from the Bluetooth menu, then deleted the Bluetooth preferences, restarted the computer, and then reassociated the trackpad and the keyboard with the iMac. Now the computer responds instantly to these devices.

I am tempted to throw away some caches or preferences, but do not know which of these to delete. Does anyone have an updated solution for preventing Monterey from awakening randomly on its own?

Any help that you have is much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Wilson

Posted on Jan 21, 2022 1:05 PM

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Answer 1

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over-repairs computers Author

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21 points

Jan 22, 2022 10:54 AM in response to lllaass

Thank you for your help. I may have solved the problem of the constant awakening that may have been caused by the trackpad, but I followed a different solution than you suggested. If the problem recurs, I will do what you suggest and turn off the trackpad from the Bluetooth menu. I have no other way to turn it off.

After receiving your comment that an older Apple trackpad is constantly able to awaken macOS Monterey, I decided to test if throwing away the trackpad preferences would solve the issue. Therefore I searched the Internet to find out what were the preference files for the trackpad in macOS Monterey, and although the article mentioned below was addressing a total failure of a built-in trackpad to respond after upgrading to macOS Monterey, it told me what are the preference files.

Please see:

https://www.howtoisolve.com/mac-trackpad-not-working-issues-and-solutions/

In the above article "Solution 3: Delete Trackpad PList File from Mac Library" tells the user to throw away these preferences and then to reboot.

- com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.trackpad.plist (Magic Trackpad)

- com.apple.driver.AppleBluetoothMultitouch.mouse.plist (Magic Mouse)

- com.apple.driver.AppleHIDMouse.plist (wired USB mouse)

- com.apple.AppleMultitouchTrackpad.plist

- com.apple.preference.trackpad.plist

What I did was the following:

First I deleted my trackpad from the Bluetooth menu. Then I deleted as many of the the trackpad and mouse preferences that I could find in my preference folder as listed by the article. Then I rebooted, reconnected the trackpad to the computer, and reselected my trackpad preferences. So far since then, all of the constant awakening of my computer seems to have stopped.

I hope this may help others who might have the same problem that I have had, and I do appreciate also knowing the other tactic to be able to turn off the trackpad from the Bluetooth menu to stop the constant awakening.

Thank you again for your help, and have a good day.

Sincerely,

Wilson

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Answer 2

Jan 21, 2022 1:16 PM in response to lllaass

This never happened before in Catalina and in Big Sur. Do you know why it does this in Monterey? Is there some way to stop this from happening other than turning off Bluetooth or something crazy like that?

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