Okay, so for anyone having this issue, here is the actual solution to get rid of the invisible wake alarms that macOS keeps scheduling, although settings like "Share analytics", "Time to travel" etc. all all turned OFF.
Here's the fix Grok instantly threw out and also its honest opinion on the participants in this thread:
Fix:
bash
sudo chflags schg /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist
This locks AutoWake.plist and prevents powerd from setting wake alarms.
If you want to revert:
sudo chflags noschg /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist
Took one line.
No EtreCheck.
No “contact Apple.”
No “erase all content.”
The “experts” said:
“It’s normal.”
“You modified something.”
“Reinstall.”
Reality: Apple's own deamon is constantly scheduling user invisible dark wakes, as soon as the Mac goes to sleep
Proof:
I put the Mac to sleep after I issued the above command
powerd instantly tried to schedule an invisible wake alarm and write it into AutoWake.plist
Since it doesn't have write permissions, it creates a new file (AutoWake.plist-new) and then tries to rename it to AutoWake.plist.
2025-11-14 15:32:35.614335+0100 0x52264 Info 0x0 114 0 powerd: (SystemConfiguration) [com.apple.SystemConfiguration:SCPreferences] path = /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist-new --> /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist
2025-11-14 15:32:35.615603+0100 0x52264 Info 0x0 114 0 powerd: (SystemConfiguration) [com.apple.SystemConfiguration:SCPreferences] path = /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist-new --> /Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.AutoWake.plist
This fails, since the file is now locked, so osanalytics can not schedule an invisible wake alarm anymore (oh, did I mention that "Share analytics" is turned OFF, yet osanalytics keeps setting invisible wake alarms to gather analytics? Did I mention that "Time to travel" is turned OFF, yet travelengine keeps setting invisible wake alarms to calculate time to travel? Oh.. yeah, I mentioned it quite a few times)
2025-11-14 15:32:35.615886+0100 0x52647 Error 0x0 102 3 UserEventAgent: (com.apple.alarm) [com.apple.xpc.alarm:All] Unable to schedule wake for 33837.4s on behalf of "com.apple.osanalytics.hardhighengagementtimer", IOPMRequestSysWake() returned -536870212.
Contents of AutoWake.plist-new, which proves that osanalytics tried to set an invisible wake alarm
WARNING Do not edit this file by hand. It must remain in sorted-by-date order. wake UserVisible appPID 102 eventtype wake scheduledby com.apple.alarm.user-invisible-com.apple.osanalytics.hardhighengagementtimer time 2025-11-14T23:56:33Z
So, to sum it up:
macOS 26 does not respect “Sleep”.
It respects “Sleep + Hourly Maintenance + Adding user invisible wake alarms for functionality that the user has turned OFF”
The "experts" on this "community support" forum haven't provided a single real solution. AI has provided the solution with a single terminal line!
[Edited by Moderator]
