Windows 8.1 refuses to sleep

[Wynona]

Someone from Microsoft told me that this issue is resolved with the updates released today.

Anyone care to take bets....

Hmmmphhh! Not moi!

I have the updates, etc. installed and have restarted, but don't know much more than I did. Except that sleep hasn't been broken for me yet.

I'm kinda waiting to hear back from John. He was installing 'em last time I looked.

 

[Deihmos]

ss

Sleep randomly breaks for me and always worked after a reboot but then eventually stopped working the longer I went without a reboot. It will take a while for me to figure out if it works as it should. I really hope it works. The update information isn't out as yet.

 

[johnpombrio]

No fix for me in the latest MS update. Back to Standby Helper.

 

[linw]

Sorry to hear that John. We live in hope, but, in this case, the hope quantum is so tiny it can hardly be felt!

My hope is that my system keeps sleeping!

 

[Deihmos]

No fix for me in the latest MS update. Back to Standby Helper.

Sleep does not work even after a reboot? There is something else going on with that Pc. Did you check the network adapter power settings and the usual tests such as powercfg requests?

 

[Wynona]

No fix for me in the latest MS update. Back to Standby Helper.

John, I didn't really see anything in the ZDNet link that I thought would be appropriate to the sleep issue, so I guess it wasn't in there.

 

[Wynona]

No fix for me in the latest MS update. Back to Standby Helper.

Sleep does not work even after a reboot? There is something else going on with that Pc. Did you check the network adapter power settings and the usual tests such as powercfg requests?

Deihmos, John has checked and rechecked everything; come up with some partial solutions and even kicked the tires on his jeep just to see if that would help. No one has worked harder to find a solution than John!

 

[NCguy]

At this point does anyone really believe that some monthly patch is going to be a universal fix for all potential causes of this problem? Gees, that's optimism.

 

[sygnus21]

Hmmm... I posted back in March that since leaving (now re-established) Home Group I've not had sleep issues - http://www.eightforums.com/general-support/28226-windows-8-1-refuses-sleep-85.html#post352522 (pg. 85, post 847)

However, and this the funny thing... If I'm using my other Windows 8.1 machine (laptop), the desktop won't sleep until I finish using the laptop. Seems like a syncing issue between the two Win 8 machines, but...

Outside of that though, my PC sleeps.

I should also state that I have a Win 7 desktop on my network as well, but I've not noticed any sleep issue when it's being used. Also my wife uses it just before she leaves for work in, but when I get up later both machines (7 & 8) are sleep.

For me, all is good sleep wise.

 

[Deihmos]

Unfortunately I still have the problem. After a while the PC gets stuck with "An active remote client has recently sent a request to this machine" and refuses to sleep until I restart.

 

[DavidE]

I didn't read this entire thread, so I don't know if someone already posted this possible fix.
I've been using sleep reliably for 4+ years on my Win 7 systems.
Recently one of them stopped sleeping, manually and auto.
I tried everything and couldn't get sleep to work.

I normally login with a Standard (Limited) account.
I logged out, logged in with my Admin account.
Sleep worked, manually and auto sleep.
I thought something is corrupt in my Standard account.
Before creating a new account, I logged out of admin and logged back in with my Standard account.
Sleep is working again in my Standard account !

I don't know if it will help anyone, but might be something worth trying.
If you only have one account, create a new account and see if sleep works.

I had been playing with VMware Linux VMs on that Win 7 system.
Not sure if that is what somehow caused sleep to stop working for me.

hth

 

[Rudy Mas]

Just a quick note.

After the new updates were installed and my system had rebooted. My PC stayed awake until this morning. I had noticed the same behavior last month as well.

It's almost as if after the updates are received and installed, Windows 8.1 starts to do an extensive maintenance cycle.

I just wanted to share this for those who are eager to see if their PC's go to sleep after an update, it takes probably two days before the sleep cycle can kick in again. (Well, that's what I noticed here.)

 

[Deihmos]

Just a quick note.

After the new updates were installed and my system had rebooted. My PC stayed awake until this morning. I had noticed the same behavior last month as well.

It's almost as if after the updates are received and installed, Windows 8.1 starts to do an extensive maintenance cycle.

I just wanted to share this for those who are eager to see if their PC's go to sleep after an update, it takes probably two days before the sleep cycle can kick in again. (Well, that's what I noticed here.)

It looks like the PC is now sleeping like normal. I can easily just manually put it to sleep so I am not bothering with this anymore.

 

[orbitalfenestra]

Hmmm... I posted back in March that since leaving (now re-established) Home Group I've not had sleep issues - http://www.eightforums.com/general-support/28226-windows-8-1-refuses-sleep-85.html#post352522 (pg. 85, post 847)

However, and this the funny thing... If I'm using my other Windows 8.1 machine (laptop), the desktop won't sleep until I finish using the laptop. Seems like a syncing issue between the two Win 8 machines, but...

Outside of that though, my PC sleeps.

I should also state that I have a Win 7 desktop on my network as well, but I've not noticed any sleep issue when it's being used. Also my wife uses it just before she leaves for work in, but when I get up later both machines (7 & 8) are sleep.

For me, all is good sleep wise.

Yes i mentioned that problem earlier in this post. You can avoid this by leaving homegroup on all machines. And set the power plan to "balanced" (the hidden option allow standby with remote open) is set to "yes" (a default balanced power plan of course). Reboot.

Now when you do POWERCFG /REQUESTS you should see nothing.

Srvnet is the culprit here and even if you try to override it in homegroup mode srvnet will remain.

You can still have homegroup features without it. If you have set your internet connection to "home", normally you should be able to contact any win 7 or 8 or 8.1 easily. I don't see any advantage to use homegroup feature, but the choice is yours.

The srvnet sleep issue was there before win 8.1 and occur when a wifi device is opened in your network at the same time as a wired one. It is solvable unlike the random sleep issue who plagued some of us when we upgraded from 8 to 8.1. That issue is still unsolved to this date, and nothing is shown with POWERCFG / REQUESTS WHEN IT OCCURS.

Many suggestions were made to this date. For my part, I strongly believe that is related to sync somehow with MS account, since december I reinstalled win 8.1 offline to avoid activating sync features then activate windows once I reached desktop. Both my wifi laptop and my wired pc are sleeping fine since then.

 

[linw]

In my case, it is running with a MS login that is the problem. Even with sync off, my comp will only sleep reliably with a local login.

Soon as I go to a local login, 100% sleep again.

 

[orbitalfenestra]

In my case, it is running with a MS login that is the problem. Even with sync off, my comp will only sleep reliably with a local login.

Soon as I go to a local login, 100% sleep again.

There is something, a piece of code, or a process as mentionned earlier in this thread that stop the sleep function. Someone mentionned the maintenance, but it works well on a local account. The guy who stopped some processes, I think he was closer to find the real culprit. To be honnest, I didn't check all exe as he did, I checks in scheduled tasks and group policy, but I found later that if you just INSTALL WINDOWS 8.1 OFFLINE and wait to be on desktop to connect the internet, then Windows 8.1 behaves very differently than if you install it connected to the web. Onedrive, sync, some exe, etc are not activated therefore sleep works for me and for you Linw. I am not experienced enough to pinpoint what's wrong unfortunatly but my configuration is really stable now.

I need network discovery to access my NAS who is plugged to my router by LAN. Homegroup is off and file sharing as well (since my NAS is my way of doing things).

One thing, though.... I wonder if Homegroup is OFF for all network PC'S, network discovery is ON and file sharing is ON, if srvnet problem is there... I can't remember. if so then my last post is SCREWED.

To avoid problems, I recommand

Network discovery = ON
File sharing = OFF
Homegroup = OFF

Srvnet will disappear. Use a external hard drive on a USB router to act as a NAS to share file between computers.

I know it sucks to be unable to use a feature who is included in Windows, but that feature is broken since a while.

Srvnet is impossible to override once it appears.

Of course you can use Stanbyhelper or manually sleep the PC but in this post, we all are people who badly need that feature.

By the way, I'm curious... Why people need Homegroup or windows file sharing if there is a way to avoid it?

 

[OldGuyGeek]

It might be a STOOPID suggestion, but have your replaced your cable yet? There might be a bad connection or short that is simulating the wake-up on net so your PC is just doing what it is being told. Since it stays awake while still plugged in, it sounds like the problem could be the connector at the router end or the router itself.

 

[bru]

In my case, it is running with a MS login that is the problem. Even with sync off, my comp will only sleep reliably with a local login.

Soon as I go to a local login, 100% sleep again.

Interestingly for me, using a local login my comp still doesn't sleep 100%.

Local login is better than using a MS login in terms of allowing the comp to sleep. MS login only sleeps after a reboot and then stops within 24 hours. But alas, I thought I was on to something but still haven't got this resolved 100% (and frankly having to use an alternate login wouldn't really be resolving, more like a workaround).

 

[Wynona]

In my case, it is running with a MS login that is the problem. Even with sync off, my comp will only sleep reliably with a local login.

Soon as I go to a local login, 100% sleep again.

Interestingly for me, using a local login my comp still doesn't sleep 100%.

Local login is better than using a MS login in terms of allowing the comp to sleep. MS login only sleeps after a reboot and then stops within 24 hours. But alas, I thought I was on to something but still haven't got this resolved 100% (and frankly having to use an alternate login wouldn't really be resolving, more like a workaround).

When mine wouldn't sleep, before the update that let it start sleeping, neither local or MS login made a difference. It wouldn't sleep with local login, nor would it sleep with MS login.

 

[Deihmos]

For those that Pc isn't sleeping at all there is something wrong such as an application keeping the pc awake, incompatible driver, or a network pc pinging your pc. It could be a number of other reasons that isn't directly related to windows.