MacBook – Thunderbolt 3 dock disconnects when MacBook sleeps

dockmacbook prosleep-wakethunderbolt

I'm using a CalDigit TS3 Thunder Station 3 dock. When my MacBook sleeps, and I try to wake it using the attached USB keyboard, the DisplayPort connected screen comes on, but the dock looses connection to the USB keyboard, all other USB peripherals. Also, I have a Sonnet Echo Express III-D connected to the Thunderbolt through port on the dock and it also gets disconnected.

The ports won't come back unless I disconnect the dock and reconnect it or restart the computer.

I have contacted CalDigit support and they said:

The “put hard disks to sleep when possible” energy saver option
basically sends a “dead” signal to the TS3 when it sleeps as a poor
attempt to save battery (despite the TS3’s charging abilities). Since
the computer has manually initiated a shutoff, the TS3 is unable to
reconnect without a manual reboot- namely, your unplugging and
re-plugging of the cord.

At the present, we do not know of any plans on Apple’s part to update
their Energy Saver preferences to reflect the fact that our dock is an
approved charging source.

This did not solve the problem. Anytime the MacBook sleeps, the TB3 dock stops working and I have to reboot.

Assuming CalDigit is correct in stating there is nothing they can do to cure this behavior, has anyone else been able to find a work-around for this or other TB3 docks?

At present, I assume my only "fix" is to never allow my MacBook to sleep. However, there doesn't appear to be a way to prevent macOS High Sierra from sleeping. Even with utilities like Amphetamine, the computer still sleeps but is woken immediately by the utility, causing the dock to disconnect.

Best Answer

Given that the computer sleep seems to be the problem, I turned off the "Power Nap", and it seems to be working for me now.

System Preferences > Energy Saver
Power Adapter tab
Uncheck "Enable Power Nap while plugged into a power adapter

This seems to be preventing the computer from sleeping and my external monitor has been fine. Note that I still turn off the display after 10 minutes, so I don't think this is harmful to the computer.

Of course, this setup is only when plugged in, which is the only time I care about the external monitor.

Related Solutions

MacBook – Why won’t the MacBook Pro automatically sleep

To help debug sleeping issues, try the pmset command in the terminal:

$ pmset -g assertions

Assertion status system-wide:
   ChargeInhibit                           0
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep             0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep              1
   NoRealPowerSources_debug                0
   CPUBoundAssertion                       0
   EnableIdleSleep                         1
   PreventSystemSleep                      0
   DisableInflow                           0
   DisableLowPowerBatteryWarnings          0
   ExternalMedia                           0

Listed by owning process:
  pid 2520: [0x0000012c000009d8] PreventUserIdleSystemSleep named: "com.apple.audio.'AppleHDAEngineOutput:1B,0,1,2:0'.noidlesleep"

In this case, it's the process 2520 messing up. Check it out in activity monitor and kill it (/usr/sbin/coreaudiod started by iTunes).

After that, run the command again:

Assertion status system-wide:
   ChargeInhibit                           0
   PreventUserIdleDisplaySleep             0
   PreventUserIdleSystemSleep              0
   NoRealPowerSources_debug                0
   CPUBoundAssertion                       0
   EnableIdleSleep                         1
   PreventSystemSleep                      0
   DisableInflow                           0
   DisableLowPowerBatteryWarnings          0
   ExternalMedia                           0

No flags for PreventUserIdleSystemSleep.

MacOS – How to stop the 2013 Macbook Air from putting the computer to sleep

knodi was close, but pmset sleep 180 does not mean "180 x display sleep time" it simply means 180 minutes.

Before you change any of your pmset settings, I would take note of your current settings. If you enter this line in Terminal.app:

sudo pmset -g live | tee -a ~/Desktop/original-pmset.txt

it will show you the current pmset settings and it will also save a copy to ~/Desktop/original-pmset.txt so you can keep it as a reference.

Manipulating computer sleep time with `pmset`

If I want my MacBook Air to go to skeep after 60 minutes of idle time when it is plugged into wall/AC power, I can set that using:

sudo pmset -c sleep 60

Similarly,

sudo pmset -c sleep 0

tells my MacBook Air not to put the computer to sleep, even if the display goes to sleep.

If I wanted that same setting for when the MacBook is on battery power (not AC/wall power), then I would use

sudo pmset -b sleep 0

I can also set different sleep times for disksleep and displaysleep

(You can read more about pmset at https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/pmset.1.html or man pmset in Terminal.)

I would be very interested to know if sudo pmset -c sleep 60 (or whatever value you choose) actually works for a Haswell-based MacBook Air.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MacBook – Why won’t the MacBook Pro automatically sleep

MacOS – How to stop the 2013 Macbook Air from putting the computer to sleep

Manipulating computer sleep time with pmset

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Manipulating computer sleep time with `pmset`