Prevent computer from sleeping automatically?

Question

Prevent computer from sleeping automatically?

This may be a bug in MacOS System Preferences, or I may be doing something wrong. I have "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when display is off" checked in System Preferences > Energy Saver. The screen is set to sleep after about 15 minutes. However, when the screen sleeps, downloading in my downloading app clearly stops. No sound from the external HD and no progress made in the app. When I wake the screen up, downloading resumes. I once again hear the external HD and activity resumes in the app. Do I have something set wrong? Thanks.

Mac mini, macOS 10.15

Posted on Dec 26, 2021 12:50 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

MartinR

Level 7

21,466 points

Dec 26, 2021 1:47 PM in response to Timothy Arends1

Set Turn Display Off After to a longer time. Power Nap mode only applies to Apple Mail, Calendar, iCloud events and Time Machine operations.

For more info see this article.

It may also help to reset the SMC and/or NVRAM.

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Answer 2

milos114

Level 1

13 points

Jan 14, 2022 1:20 AM in response to MartinR

I have the same problem with 16" Macbook Pro, with M1 processor (2021 model). The problems seems to be a bug in setting the power savings mode as even though "Prevent computer from sleeping when display is off" is checked, the moment displays are off the power settings are somehow restored to default and computer goes to sleep.

After waking up, entering power settings shows no check on "Prevent computer from sleeping when display is off".

I tried setting larger timeout for diplay off, same thing - the defaults always kick in.

This is probably a bug that someone from Apple should address.

Milos

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Prevent computer from sleeping automatically?

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