Solved Auto Return to Sleep after wake up

[roiiploe]

Can't say I really dislike much about Win 7 - EXCEPT:

It will not honor the "Return to Sleep" timeout value that is in the registry - when the Power Plan is set to High Performance. If this plan is in play - and I need the machine to wake for - say - a backup at 2:00am...the machine will wake okay - and then NEVER go back to sleep.

MS confirms this is - by design. Boo.

Cheers!

VP

 

[Barman58]

Can't say I really dislike much about Win 7 - EXCEPT:

It will not honor the "Return to Sleep" timeout value that is in the registry - when the Power Plan is set to High Performance. If this plan is in play - and I need the machine to wake for - say - a backup at 2:00am...the machine will wake okay - and then NEVER go back to sleep.

MS confirms this is - by design. Boo.

Cheers!

VP

Hi VP.

This particular registry entry is for a particular purpose - to shut-down a wake up instruction that has not been acted upon in a set time period - basically an accidental wakeup preventer.

If you wish to do what you wish you can have a look at the built in "shutdown" command

Add a batch or other script to your backup routine to control what you wish to do after completion .

Full syntax is as follows

C:\Users\Barman58>shutdown -?
Usage: shutdown [/i | /l | /s | /r | /g | /a | /p | /h | /e] [/f]
    [/m \\computer][/t xxx][/d [p|u:]xx:yy [/c "comment"]]

    No args    Display help. This is the same as typing /?.
    /?         Display help. This is the same as not typing any options.
    /i         Display the graphical user interface (GUI).
               This must be the first option.
    /l         Log off. This cannot be used with /m or /d options.
    /s         Shutdown the computer.
    /r         Shutdown and restart the computer.
    /g         Shutdown and restart the computer. After the system is
               rebooted, restart any registered applications.
    /a         Abort a system shutdown.
               This can only be used during the time-out period.
    /p         Turn off the local computer with no time-out or warning.
               Can be used with /d and /f options.
    /h         Hibernate the local computer.
               Can be used with the /f option.
    /e         Document the reason for an unexpected shutdown of a computer.
    /m \\computer Specify the target computer.
    /t xxx     Set the time-out period before shutdown to xxx seconds.
               The valid range is 0-315360000 (10 years), with a default of 30
               If the timeout period is greater than 0, the /f parameter is
               implied.
    /c "comment" Comment on the reason for the restart or shutdown.
               Maximum of 512 characters allowed.
    /f         Force running applications to close without forewarning users.
               The /f parameter is implied when a value greater than 0 is
               specified for the /t parameter.
    /d [p|u:]xx:yy  Provide the reason for the restart or shutdown.
               p indicates that the restart or shutdown is planned.
               u indicates that the reason is user defined.
               If neither p nor u is specified the restart or shutdown is
               unplanned.
               xx is the major reason number (positive integer less than 256).
               yy is the minor reason number (positive integer less than 65536


Reasons on this computer:
(E = Expected U = Unexpected P = planned, C = customer defined)
Type    Major   Minor   Title

 U      0       0       Other (Unplanned)
E       0       0       Other (Unplanned)
E P     0       0       Other (Planned)
 U      0       5       Other Failure: System Unresponsive
E       1       1       Hardware: Maintenance (Unplanned)
E P     1       1       Hardware: Maintenance (Planned)
E       1       2       Hardware: Installation (Unplanned)
E P     1       2       Hardware: Installation (Planned)
E       2       2       Operating System: Recovery (Planned)
E P     2       2       Operating System: Recovery (Planned)
  P     2       3       Operating System: Upgrade (Planned)
E       2       4       Operating System: Reconfiguration (Unplanned)
E P     2       4       Operating System: Reconfiguration (Planned)
  P     2       16      Operating System: Service pack (Planned)
        2       17      Operating System: Hot fix (Unplanned)
  P     2       17      Operating System: Hot fix (Planned)
        2       18      Operating System: Security fix (Unplanned)
  P     2       18      Operating System: Security fix (Planned)
E       4       1       Application: Maintenance (Unplanned)
E P     4       1       Application: Maintenance (Planned)
E P     4       2       Application: Installation (Planned)
E       4       5       Application: Unresponsive
E       4       6       Application: Unstable
 U      5       15      System Failure: Stop error
 U      5       19      Security issue
E       5       19      Security issue
E P     5       19      Security issue
E       5       20      Loss of network connectivity (Unplanned)
 U      6       11      Power Failure: Cord Unplugged
 U      6       12      Power Failure: Environment
  P     7       0       Legacy API shutdown

C:\Users\Barman58>

Have a play with the -i option if you want a GUI to test options.

 

[roiiploe]

Hi VP.

This particular registry entry is for a particular purpose - to shut-down a wake up instruction that has not been acted upon in a set time period - basically an accidental wakeup preventer.

If you wish to do what you wish you can have a look at the built in "shutdown" command

Add a batch or other script to your backup routine to control what you wish to do after completion.

I disagree. According to these very forums (and the tutorials) this particular entry is supposed to put my just woken machine back to sleep - 120 seconds after an "idle" condition has occurred like after a WHS backup has completed - just like it did in Vista.

However - Microsoft support confirms this does not work at all. I haven't been able to find a single user that could:

1. Wake a sleeping machine either by tapping the keyboard/shaking the mouse
2. Or by unattended wakeup (like a backup, Windows Update whatever)
3. And have the machine return to sleep after 120 seconds of idle timee

No matter what method of wake-up is done - the machine does not honor or recognize this value - what it does recognize is the "Sleep After" value for the power plan that's in play. If it's "Balanced" (for anyone who has not changed the Power plan) - the machine will sleep after 30 minutes. Over here - the machine will "never" sleep since my machines are set to the High Perf power plan - and the sleep value is Never.

As far as a "wake-up preventer" mechanism...not a chance. Accidental, act of god or otherwise - all my Windows 7 workstations will stay awake "forever" if it's waken from slumber - whether something is going on - or not.

In Vista however - this worked like a dream - even with the High Performance Plan in full swing. A wakeup occurs...a task is done...or a task is not done (accidental) and exactly 120 seconds later...night night sweet machine.

Microsoft Support could not even determine what this value was doing in Windows 7 - after a week of investigating it...they claim what I am seeing - is by design.

If anyone can actually prove they have a Windows 7 machine that was put to sleep (pressing Sleep on the keyboard or by Start menu), bumped awake (or woke up via scheduled task) and then actually watched the machine go back to sleep after 120 seconds of idle time - I am all ears. But I haven't found one yet - cause they do not exist.

Since this power saving mechanism is now rendered useless...I just do my backups while the machines are up and then shut them down. Don't even bother with sleep mode anymore....

Cheers

VP

 

[Petey7]

...No matter what method of wake-up is done - the machine will only go back to sleep AFTER the idle time has elapsed for the power plan that's in play ("Balanced" for anyone who has not changed the Power plan) in this example - the machine will wait 30 minutes. In my case - the machine will never sleep since my machines are set to the High Perf power plan - and the sleep value is Never....


Cheers

VP

You do realize how easy it is to change the power plan settings right. I use the "balanced" plan, but I change almost every setting. Go to power options in control panel. Click Change plan settings, and the option you want is right there. There are even more options available by clicking Change Advanced Plan Options I'll admit it might look different on a desktop, but you should still be able to change the setting in less than two minutes. I sometimes change a setting for a short time period, then change it back, because it takes about 10 seconds for me to do.

 

[cluberti]

I have a "high performance" machine that wakes up periodically to update media center and run a few scheduled tasks, and it always goes back to sleep within a few minutes of the last task's completions. I believe you when you say your box won't go to sleep, but I am running the same OS code as you and mine does. The only difference between our machines is likely to be drivers...

For example:

C:\Users\user>powercfg -query
Power Scheme GUID: 8c5e7fda-e8bf-4a96-9a85-a6e23a8c635c  (High performance)
...
  Subgroup GUID: 238c9fa8-0aad-41ed-83f4-97be242c8f20  (Sleep)
    Power Setting GUID: 29f6c1db-86da-48c5-9fdb-f2b67b1f44da  (Sleep after)
      Minimum Possible Setting: 0x00000000
      Maximum Possible Setting: 0xffffffff
      Possible Settings increment: 0x00000001
      Possible Settings units: Seconds
    Current AC Power Setting Index: 0x00000000    // <- Sleep after: never
    Current DC Power Setting Index: 0x00000000    // <- Sleep after: never

----------
Log Name:      System
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Power-Troubleshooter
Date:          8/5/2010 6:27:57 PM
Event ID:      1
Task Category: None
Level:         Information
Keywords:      
User:          LOCAL SERVICE
Computer:      Carl-PC
Description:
The system has resumed from sleep.

Sleep Time: ‎2010‎-‎08‎-‎05T13:21:26.782877800Z
Wake Time: ‎2010‎-‎08‎-‎05T22:27:47.921200700Z

Wake Source: Timer - Windows will execute '\Microsoft\Windows\Media Center\mcupdate_scheduled' scheduled task that requested waking the computer.
----------

...A few SCM/7036 and 7040s here for the WMC Scheduler and BITS services, and then...

----------
Log Name:      System
Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-Power
Date:          8/5/2010 6:32:19 PM
Event ID:      42
Task Category: (64)
Level:         Information
Keywords:      (4)
User:          N/A
Computer:      Carl-PC
Description:
The system is entering sleep.

Sleep Reason: System Idle
----------

It's only by design if YOU wake the machine (or the computer thinks you did). If you wake it via the keyboard, mouse, or power button, technically that's a user wake and the sleep timer is reset. If an application or service did the waking, it SHOULD go back to sleep (as my box does), and not honor anything about the power plan. Only user-initiated events will keep the system awake on High Performance / Sleep after: never, so it'd be interesting if you ran powercfg -lastwake after your machine wakes and won't go back to sleep to see what actually woke the box. Technically, if your box was woken and won't go to sleep, that should be a user event like the mouse, a keyboard, or the power button as the reason.

There is also a powercfg command (that MS should have had you run) that can determine if anything would keep your box from sleeping as well after a wake event, powercfg -requests.

 

[roiiploe]

I have a "high performance" machine that wakes up periodically to update media center and run a few scheduled tasks, and it always goes back to sleep within a few minutes of the last task's completions. I believe you when you say your box won't go to sleep, but I am running the same OS code as you and mine does. The only difference between our machines is likely to be drivers...

It's only by design if YOU wake the machine (or the computer thinks you did). If you wake it via the keyboard, mouse, or power button, technically that's a user wake and the sleep timer is reset. If an application or service did the waking, it SHOULD go back to sleep (as my box does), and not honor anything about the power plan. Only user-initiated events will keep the system awake on High Performance / Sleep after: never, so it'd be interesting if you ran powercfg -lastwake after your machine wakes and won't go back to sleep to see what actually woke the box. Technically, if your box was woken and won't go to sleep, that should be a user event like the mouse, a keyboard, or the power button as the reason.

There is also a powercfg command (that MS should have had you run) that can determine if anything would keep your box from sleeping as well after a wake event, powercfg -requests.

AWESOME!

You are truly the first person I have come across that has shown me the "way" on this. Could you list your hardware specs...I really really want to solve this issue and if there is a way to do it - I am willing to try.

Does your machine go back to sleep after 120 seconds - post an "unattended" wake-up...like a program guide update or Windows Update?

If you provide some specs on what you are running - I would really appreciate it.

Cheers!

VP

 

[roiiploe]

There is also a powercfg command (that MS should have had you run) that can determine if anything would keep your box from sleeping as well after a wake event, powercfg -requests.

Now this is bizarre...when I run powercfg -requests...I get:

SYSTEM:
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\SERVER\Videos\Top Gun\my movies.xml] Process ID: [2412]
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\SERVER\Videos\Star Wars\mymovies.xml] Process ID: [2412]
[DRIVER] \FileSystem\rdbss
A file has been opened across the network. File name: [\SERVER\Videos\Star Wars\Star Wars._mkv_JRSidecar.xml] Process ID: [2412]

AWAYMODE:
None.


Even more bizarre - because - I have never ever watched Top Gun or Star Wars from this machine. The process ID of 2412 seems to be tied to an instance of Explorer and then something called the Microsoft HomeServer Archive Transfer Service...?!?

I gotta check this out....I shall return!

Cheers,

VP

 

[roiiploe]

OMG! SOLVED.

Turns out this frigging service: Windows Media Center TV Archive Transfer Service - has been holding up the parade over here for months!

After a quick disable of that...I checked powercfg - requests again - and saw an empty screen. Then the big test - I scheduled SyncBackSE to wake the machine and copy a few files to a network share...and then pressed Sleep on the keyboard...

A minute later...the machine woke...did the task...and then - wait for it - after 120 seconds...back to sleep! Holy crap - I have seriously been battlling this for MONTHS!

Finally solved. I would like to thank MS Support for being about as far away from a solution as humanly possible....and to cluberti for showing me that all is not as it seems - and especially that -requests command.

Cheers!

VP

 

[cluberti]

Finally solved. I would like to thank MS Support for being about as far away from a solution as humanly possible....and to cluberti for showing me that all is not as it seems - and especially that -requests command.

Good to hear, although if you talked to an outsourcer (personal support), most of those folks don't even work for MS, so it's not surprising they have no clue how the product works. Unless you've got hours to use under a premier support contract or are willing to pay $300 for a standard professional incident to talk to a premier support engineer without one, you're going to get someone with a v- or a- alias (aka, contractor) who has little access to Microsoft resources to help you figure it out. If you pay the professional incident fee, or call under a premier agreement, you have access to FTE employees, both frontline and their escalation engineers if things get tricky. Basically, you're getting access to the premier support folks with a professional incident, and the SEs and EEs will have access to source code, the product groups, etc - and most of those folks have many years of working with their products 24/7/365 (rather than the v-/a- outsourcers, who probably had a week or two of training and then were thrown to the wolves).

Trust me on this, I've got lots of experience with MS support - pay the fee if it's really something you want fixed and the personal support folks aren't giving you any help.

 

[roiiploe]

Good to hear, although if you talked to an outsourcer (personal support), most of those folks don't even work for MS, so it's not surprising they have no clue how the product works.

That's what I figured...I did get a v- guy on the wire and he was zero help.

But now that I have one machine working - my other two will not smarten up. I managed to get my workstation going fine...sleep...wake up...sleep.

But the other two...(oddly with almost identical hardware) even with a clear powercfg -requests readout...continue to stay up after a test backup...

Gonna need some more trouble shooting here....I have ran powercfg -energy...and I get a variety of errors on each box - but I get the same on my workstation and it's working fine. I am wondering if it's video drivers or some USB device...I get a bunch of warnings about several USB devices that won't entere selective suspend etc...

Any additional help would be grand...

Cheers!

VP

 

[cluberti]

If you use a script to wake it, what does powercfg -lastwake say was the last wakeup event? Hopefully it's the event you expect, but if not, that's a good place to start.

You could also run powercfg -devicequery wake_armed to see what devices CAN wake the system. It'd be interesting to see the output of these three commands (-lastwake, -devicequery, -energy) compared to your working box.

 

[roiiploe]

If you use a script to wake it, what does powercfg -lastwake say was the last wakeup event? Hopefully it's the event you expect, but if not, that's a good place to start.

You could also run powercfg -devicequery wake_armed to see what devices CAN wake the system. It'd be interesting to see the output of these three commands (-lastwake, -devicequery, -energy) compared to your working box.

I will run all three on the two workstations and post em up here...

Cheers,

VP

 

[roiiploe]

If you use a script to wake it, what does powercfg -lastwake say was the last wakeup event? Hopefully it's the event you expect, but if not, that's a good place to start.

You could also run powercfg -devicequery wake_armed to see what devices CAN wake the system. It'd be interesting to see the output of these three commands (-lastwake, -devicequery, -energy) compared to your working box.

So this is getting downright weird...for these two machines that will not co-op.

First - a wee bit of history. The one workstation that is now working is my personal machine. It has a GigaByte motherboard...standard issue EP45-UD3L. It will wake, perform a task and then return to sleep (idle) state within 120 seconds of the task completing. One thing that is totally "right" about this machine - when I watch it do the wake cycle - is that the monitor attached - ALSO stays in some sort of suspend mode while the task is being completed - the screen remains black...power light is solid - instead of blinking and the machine does it's business quickly and goes back to sleep.

For the other two machine - that are not co-operating - they have identical motherboards Gigabyte EP45-UD3R with standard issue hardware (nVidia graphics, Corsair RAM..etc etc...both have the same PSU). They wake up okay...they perform the task okay...but they cannot seem to attain that "system idle" state that is required to kick in after the 120 second timeout period. Also very different for these two - their monitors come of full blast during wakeup...full desktop, full power...and the of course - they stay on. Just wondering if video has anything to do with this...?

Anyhoo - onto Powercfg. I have tried a boatload of things on one machine:

1. Pulled ALL the powercfg reports using the above commands.
2. devicequery is normal - only one device on thr machine - the keyboard can wake the machine
3. -requests - shows nothing on all three stages
4. -energy shows nothing out of the ordinary - except that every single USB device cannot enter "suspend" state...I saw a few of these in the report for my working machine so I do not see this as a barrier to attaining a "system idle" state.

Every more strange is that I can change the Power Options on this box and change the "put this computer to sleep" value to 1 minute...stand back - and the box faithfully goes to sleep in one minute. It works perfectly. So I am stumped.

Something is keeping it from reaching that "system idle" state after an unattended wakeup....in my last tests...I did a wake cycle and after the machine did not go back to sleep in 120 seconds...I ran -requests again and saw a

filesystem\srvnet

under the System area...something on the network is chatting away to this machine...but then I run it again 5 minutes later and -requests show nothing. I have shut of Antivirus thinking that may be the problem. I removed this machine from the Homegroup and shut off any sharing of media...basically this thing is just out there on the network with no ties to anything and it still does not go back to sleep...

sigh...

I will keep digging

VP

 

[apollodominion]

If you use a script to wake it, what does powercfg -lastwake say was the last wakeup event? Hopefully it's the event you expect, but if not, that's a good place to start.

You could also run powercfg -devicequery wake_armed to see what devices CAN wake the system. It'd be interesting to see the output of these three commands (-lastwake, -devicequery, -energy) compared to your working box.

So this is getting downright weird...for these two machines that will not co-op.

First - a wee bit of history. The one workstation that is now working is my personal machine. It has a GigaByte motherboard...standard issue EP45-UD3L. It will wake, perform a task and then return to sleep (idle) state within 120 seconds of the task completing. One thing that is totally "right" about this machine - when I watch it do the wake cycle - is that the monitor attached - ALSO stays in some sort of suspend mode while the task is being completed - the screen remains black...power light is solid - instead of blinking and the machine does it's business quickly and goes back to sleep.

For the other two machine - that are not co-operating - they have identical motherboards Gigabyte EP45-UD3R with standard issue hardware (nVidia graphics, Corsair RAM..etc etc...both have the same PSU). They wake up okay...they perform the task okay...but they cannot seem to attain that "system idle" state that is required to kick in after the 120 second timeout period. Also very different for these two - their monitors come of full blast during wakeup...full desktop, full power...and the of course - they stay on. Just wondering if video has anything to do with this...?

Anyhoo - onto Powercfg. I have tried a boatload of things on one machine:

1. Pulled ALL the powercfg reports using the above commands.
2. devicequery is normal - only one device on thr machine - the keyboard can wake the machine
3. -requests - shows nothing on all three stages
4. -energy shows nothing out of the ordinary - except that every single USB device cannot enter "suspend" state...I saw a few of these in the report for my working machine so I do not see this as a barrier to attaining a "system idle" state.

Every more strange is that I can change the Power Options on this box and change the "put this computer to sleep" value to 1 minute...stand back - and the box faithfully goes to sleep in one minute. It works perfectly. So I am stumped.

Something is keeping it from reaching that "system idle" state after an unattended wakeup....in my last tests...I did a wake cycle and after the machine did not go back to sleep in 120 seconds...I ran -requests again and saw a

filesystem\srvnet

under the System area...something on the network is chatting away to this machine...but then I run it again 5 minutes later and -requests show nothing. I have shut of Antivirus thinking that may be the problem. I removed this machine from the Homegroup and shut off any sharing of media...basically this thing is just out there on the network with no ties to anything and it still does not go back to sleep...

sigh...

I will keep digging

VP

i had a kinda the same prob on my old Core 2 Quad Q6600 which is now a lan pc with a Nforce 650SLI UD4 from gigabyte but now uses an ASUS G41 Chip-set ( P5G41C-M LX ) and its even faster on 7 (LOL i know its funny cause it has Windows 7 Support on Mobo itself XD) but i just totally disabled power management on Sleep and so forth just stay on and RUN!!!! on both my pc's

 

[CUJoe]

Thank you Cluberti. the cmd powercfg -requests helped resolve my sleep issue. I found that I had apparently sent a document to a little-used printer and it had not printed, so print spooler was keeping my Win 7 Ultimate from sleeping!!!