[SOLVED] Mac OS X: Macbook Keeps Sleeping when Closed Can't VNC In

So, I guess I'm the first post here. Guess who's friend had an unused mac book that they didn't want as they moved? That's right, me. I'm trying to learn some licensing as well, if it's really not ok to use in the instance I "would like" to use it in. But here goes: I have a macbook, which I just got. It appears to be an older 17 inch laptop. My current goal, is to set it up as an app server. On all my machines, intended as an app server, which is getting increasingly small that's not a linux system, my intended use is me, and possibly but doesn't have to be, any roommates or other family I may have.

I am intending this macbook to be an app server. It's there when I need a desktop OS, and I need an app or two where it won't run on my linux system. My linux mint system which is dual boot, and on top of my other linux system. For most purposes, I'm transitioning totally away from mainly windows. That transition will take some time and learning. That is why I need a few app servers, as they are my main way into windows or another OS, when needed. Those, are not meant to be totally servers. Work on other servers is another story, but one I'm working on too. I log onto my app servers when I need to run an app, which I have no other way to run. All of them, have their own monitors and keyboards, when I need to local in and the network isn't working. But VNC can be used to go onto them too.

I'm trying to use the vnc built into my mac book. If this is a bad idea for my mac book for any reason, I can instead use it as a normal laptop, which I sometimes pull out and locally use most often, but if I can make this work, this would be better. That way, it's always available, even when I'm not carrying it, and I'm' away.

My problem, is that the thing keeps sleeping when I close the lid. I'm trying to adjust settings so it doesn't do that, but it's not easy to figure out what does what. I can't keep the lid open all the time, when I do this, because I have 4 machines, all laptops, just stacked on top of one another. Uniess I get something built or buy some sort of rack for them, I can't always keep the lids open. I know how to not have this problem on windows, but I'm completely learning from almost scratch everything, which doesn't transfer over from linux experience, about the mac. I don't know how the boot up works, and I just learned by teaching myself, which window button does what. I have some experience with that kind of window button on linux, but mostly I tend to prefer the general layout of a windows pc, as far as what window buttons do what. I have heard, it's really consistant. I might have some books telling me a little bit about it. I do not know if it's updated entirely, I'm not sure how I would make sure it's updated entirely. I don't have any concept of how to tell if it's running the latest edition of os x. I have no idea how to check.

I do use macs a little bit in church, but barely know my way around them right now, except for what applies from windows and linux pc experience. I could install linux on the machine, there are some that can run. But that defeats the purpose currrently of using this. I won't be using it for the majority of my work, no matter what. Just when I need to run some proprietory special case app or use some hardware piece.

I've taken my first really big step of being primarily windows free, and don't want to move to a mac book entirely. I want to mostly move to linux. I want to use my pc for work, not really games so much, and that holds true with all machines for their primary purpose, except for machines like my wiis and my other handheld gaming systems. Most of what I need is web or libre office.

I want to use whatever I have to when I start more work, and when I go to school. I don't want to be so into my linux that I can't do those things. However, I want most of my work to be on those devices whenever possible including wok or school in the future. Hope this will help you help me to get the laptop to stop sleeping when I close the lid. Thanks!

By the way, very happy with the almost current version of Linux Mint! Without it, none of this would be possible, and I may not be able to live on my budget anymore. In an extreme case, I might even need to be homeless if it weren't for this stuff. Yes I'm still donating to them, but it's as I can actually afford to. I might later be able to figure out a little bit of monthly money, but for now, not having an expensive set price, really helps me out. I think windows is way too expensive. Not that when using it, I want to purposely violate a license though. I just cannot afford that cost anymore, so I'm also happy with what linux can do, if that makes sense. In whatever way, I find that I NEED computers for day to day living.

Progress. With an external monitor it sleeps less. However, something is still wrong. It wouldn't work when I just tried to log on. I'm going to try to fix it. However, a few more problems popped up. The monitor is blue, even when other colors, when I use the screen connection. Second, whenever I switch to it on my kvm switch, it works, but when I switch back to this linux machine, then I lose control over the external keyboard and mouse. Then I must do a reboot to gain control again. This is unacceptable, but it's the mac's fault. I'll deal with it, but what I mean, is it makes it hard to get work done.

The rebooting is partly why I use Linux on my main machine now anyway. Even with that, I have to reboot a lot less than on windows. I was taking hours on windows 10 to check email, when on Linux, it can be done in a few seconds.

It looks like it wasn't asleep anymore, the network was not working.

I think, the display in being plugged in was really my answer. I found where it said this might be the case. I also made sure I tried to update. It's the latest version of mac os x that it supports, looks like ventura is the latest period, but catelina or something like that, is what mine supports. Excuse me, capitan. I was hoping the latest version, would have better options for power, so I could fine tune things. But I think it works, so I'm closing it. However, if someone has ideas about the blue screen and the control issue, let me know. Until then, thanks, even though I solved it myself. Hopefully it will help someone else.

Just some info that may or may not help you poke around on this:

- On the Mac, if you click the 'apple' icon on the top bar (at the left) and select 'About This Mac' it will give you information about current OS, hardware, etc, and that can be expanded (there will be a button in that screen) to System Report, which will give you a lot of detailed information about the machine (sort of like AIDA on Windows but its a built-in)

- To mess with power management settings, open the system settings (its a 'cog' icon in Applications) and find the power settings (go to search inside is most easy, its a lightbulb icon - get used to a lot of ideograms and icons instead of clear text, its just part of the platform) - it is possible to disable the monitor ever going off when the machine is idle, but I am not sure how this interacts with a laptop (I don't have any Mac laptops, just a few desktops - all of them can be set to never turn off their display outputs easily in any version of OS X/macOS I've used)

Some observations from having used a Mac as a VNC system like this over time:
- If you let the display go to 'sleep' or 'off' it can cause problems for accessing it remotely, so (at least with desktops) what I tend to do is force the display out always-on (which it will fuss at you 'will waste power' but at least on newer ones it does not measurably do so), and then physically power off any attached display that you want off when the machine is not in use

- If you use a lot of Apple's cloud services (e.g. Music, TV+, Arcade, iMessage, etc) make sure you don't just close the window but also quit the application (no little 'dots' under the icon in the Dock) when finished - I've found if you leave, for example, iMessage 'open' for days/weeks on end it will eventually get into some sort of unhandled error condition and the machine has to be rebooted to have the Apple cloud services work right again; I've been told (as in this is hearsay) it has something to do with caching for iCloud/Apple cloud services that isn't properly garbage collecting when not exited. From personal experience if I remember to close those apps entirely when not in use, the machine will happily do weeks or months of uptime (basically only reboots for update), but if I leave them open as ghost applications I will be rebooting every 2-3 days for things to work properly.

- If you happen to have full disk encryption (FileVault) enabled, you can remotely reboot without having to go walk over to the machine to put in the password when it comes back - ssh into the machine (or open terminal in VNC but ssh seems more right to me for remote terminal), and run

sudo fdesetup authrestart

It will ask for password twice (one for sudo and one for the command itself), you give it the FileVault password on the second, and then it will reboot and grab the decryption on startup and get you into a remote-usable system

I don't understand what you mean by 'blue screen' - is this only on the physical laptop display and a tint to the color? Or some sort of 'the display only draws a blue output like a solid color box'? If the former I'd wonder if there isn't physical damage to the display connector inside of the machine's hinge or the backlght for the internal display, if the later I've never seen that before and wouldn't know where to begin to speculate. The only possible 'maybe its this' side feature is that newer versions of macOS have a 'blue shift' feature that may be enabled - dig around in the Display settings to see if that is so, but I don't think that's likely the culprit here.