IR won't activate screen on 10.8.3 Mountain Lion Mac Mini

I use my Mini for home theatre, but the IR won't active the screen.
Using Screen Sharing will activate the screen.
I see others have reported this issue with 10.8.2 that went away with 10.8.3. Alas 10.8.3 didn't cure this problem for me.

Originally I suspected it was due to sleep/hibernate, but this looks to be false as I can ssh into the Mini and use it fine. Also I ran the Plex home theatre app under "caffeinate", and it didn't help.

Prior Research: I have read many man pages, forums, articles (see refs at bottom). Tried many combinations of settings, but to no avail. I turn to StackExchange for guidance.

  • My previous Mini running Snow Leopard worked just fine, but I don't wish to install Snow Leopard on my late model mini.
  • I have tried the NVROM/PROM reset 4 times. Hasn't helped.

My machine:

Mac mini - Late 2012 - Software OS X 10.8.3 (12D78)

Reference Sites:
Mac Mini won't wake after sleep with Mountain Lion


Solution 1:

Don't know how to get the display to wake up using your IR remote, but @wuc provided a great workround since you said you can ssh into the machine.

Step 1: SSH into your Mac.

Step 2: Run this command: pmset schedule wake "01/01/2012 20:00:00" (with a date of your choosing, of course).

Here's a bit of background on the new "features" Apple added to Lion and Mountain Lion that make it harder to wake up your display.