Newbie here too that created an account to post having the same issue on new M1 Air. I have not had the problem connected to my Thunderbolt dock with an external monitor. It only happens off-doc. It is also happening more frequently and like others my screensaver is disabled.
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Big Sur Is Locking Up My M1 MacBook Air
- Thread starter Fazzl
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Has everyone with this problem sent diagnostics to Apple? They need to know how many are affected.
I ask because I often turn it off when setting up.
I ask because I often turn it off when setting up.
Just happened to me on my 2 day old M1 MBA running Big Sur 11.1. Closing the lid and opening it again seemed to resolve the issue at least temporarily. It was running on battery power and didn't have anything else plugged into it.
I have - they are aware of the issue - I found that if I press the power button for 2 seconds and close the lid for 10 seconds and re-open and should see my profile up and just type or press my power button and it'll turn on. I get the screen saver about 2 or 3 times a day and at random times and using different programs.
I tried this but doesn't work. Also, last time (this morning) I pressed Option+cmd+power to force to quit, hit enter and then Shift+cmd+Q to log out. After several strokes, it worked but not sure if that was the case. It's been I pain. I thought I got a virus but now I noticed that many people have the same issue.
Lid close, lid open works. But that’s not so trivial if the computer is already in clamshell mode, docked vertically. Which is often the case with mine. It’s a bummer, but with 11.1 I haven’t seen it happen for days. Not sure if even once. Knock knock.
Also happens to me! It seems to happen when video is going fullscreen and there's some trigger for the screensaver. Super weird bug. Hoping it had gone away in 11.1, guess I'll now hope for 11.2.
Yesterday I had a strange lockup on my 2018 Mini. The entire computer just locked up. I'm using generation 1 Apple magic keybd and trackpad. I rebooted both keyboard and trackpad and no changes. Then all of a sudden the Mini came back to life. I'll turn off the screensaver just in case .
Wow, okay, this is happening to my two accounts on my new Mac mini, so I don’t have the option of closing the lid. I’m on 11.1, so I guess this hasn’t been fixed yet.
Neither account has the screensaver turned on right now, but it started up anyway.
By logging into the account that DIDN’T start the screensaver, I was able to find the process in the terminal and sudo kill it, then log into the affected account again. So I suppose a temporary solution for people is to keep a dummy account around to log into so they can kill errant processes.
What was the full path of the process you killed? I tried that approach once but there were many candidates and I chose the wrong one, had to sudo reboot in the end to bring it back life. Not ideal.
Yesterday this happened again after a long time with no issues. 11.1. And the lid close/open trick didn’t work that time. A key combo to log out was the only way out.
Actually, today I killed a bunch of things and nothing worked, so I finally did a kill -HUP on the windowserver process. That got it all running again, though it did shut down all the active windows on both logged in accounts.
The process is called something like ScreenSaverEngine, from /System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app.
Interestingly, today my partner was logged in, and the screen saver turned on. Then *I* got a call, and the screen coincidentally turned off like power saver had suddenly turned on. Then when we tapped on the keyboard, the screensaver was gone. This is a very odd problem.
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jan@canephora ~ % ps -A | grep Screen
(some stuff cut)
10999 ?? 0:30.41 /System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -loginWindow
11002 ?? 0:00.04 /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIns/Computer Name.appex/Contents/MacOS/Computer Name
11003 ?? 0:00.05 /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIns/iLifeSlideshows.appex/Contents/MacOS/iLifeSlideshows
11004 ?? 0:00.10 /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIns/legacyScreenSaver-x86_64.appex/Contents/MacOS/legacyScreenSaver-x86_64
11005 ?? 0:00.04 /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIns/legacyScreenSaver.appex/Contents/MacOS/legacyScreenSaver
11197 ttys002 0:00.00 grep Screen
jan@canephora ~ % sudo kill -9 10999
So, I think this is interesting. The process that I killed was specifically running with the -loginWindow flag. If anyone else can do a similar process listing, I'd be interested to see whether or not this is common. Maybe it's the user switching/login screen system that's spinning this process up, which is why people are saying that it's happening even though their personal settings have it turned off.
(some stuff cut)
10999 ?? 0:30.41 /System/Library/CoreServices/ScreenSaverEngine.app/Contents/MacOS/ScreenSaverEngine -loginWindow
11002 ?? 0:00.04 /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIns/Computer Name.appex/Contents/MacOS/Computer Name
11003 ?? 0:00.05 /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIns/iLifeSlideshows.appex/Contents/MacOS/iLifeSlideshows
11004 ?? 0:00.10 /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIns/legacyScreenSaver-x86_64.appex/Contents/MacOS/legacyScreenSaver-x86_64
11005 ?? 0:00.04 /System/Library/Frameworks/ScreenSaver.framework/PlugIns/legacyScreenSaver.appex/Contents/MacOS/legacyScreenSaver
11197 ttys002 0:00.00 grep Screen
jan@canephora ~ % sudo kill -9 10999
So, I think this is interesting. The process that I killed was specifically running with the -loginWindow flag. If anyone else can do a similar process listing, I'd be interested to see whether or not this is common. Maybe it's the user switching/login screen system that's spinning this process up, which is why people are saying that it's happening even though their personal settings have it turned off.
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Could it be that the computer was unplugged and some 5 odd minutes had passed without interaction? This could effectively result in the same as the "lid close, lid open" workaround ... which has worked for me all but once.
I'll try that the next time. To be sure, the process list looks very different when the bug isn't happening.
ps -A | grep Screen
62865 ?? 0:01.22 /System/Library/PrivateFrameworks/ScreenTimeCore.framework/Versions/A/ScreenTimeAgent
2310 ttys000 0:00.00 grep --color Screen
I'm having the same issue and can confirm that closing and opening the lid is the only fix that works for me. This is not so simple if you have an external monitor attached. In that case you have to disconnect the external monitor and then close and open the lid. Otherwise the laptop remains awake. Huge problem if you are trying to get work done or are in a Zoom call.
Just happened to me for the fist time. MBA M1. I got it working again with the CTRL+SHIFT+Power, which got me to the Lock Screen, which allowed me to log in to my wife’s account, which ended the madness. Not ideal, obviously, but another “fix” besides closing the MacBook screen.
I haven't had the problem for a couple days after making sure that only one user is logged in at a time. That means no fast user switching, a full logout every time someone is finished with the machine. It's the least painful workaround so far.
Got my wife an M1 MBA for Christmas, and now it has started doing this random lockup on the screen saver, right when she's in the middle of doing something. It did seem to start yesterday when I created my own login account on the machine, so we will see how it goes by doing a total log out if we want to swap users, and fast user switching is disabled.
Bit of a bummer as my wife is more of a Windows user after drifting away from Macs for several years, and I was hoping this machine would satisfy her that Apple had fixed a number of issues! So hopefully it won't happen again.
Hope this is fixed with 11.2. Everyone should file a bug report when it happens!
Bit of a bummer as my wife is more of a Windows user after drifting away from Macs for several years, and I was hoping this machine would satisfy her that Apple had fixed a number of issues! So hopefully it won't happen again.
Hope this is fixed with 11.2. Everyone should file a bug report when it happens!
My issue is probably just the opposite but feel it is related. I put my M1 Air in the screen saver mode to be sure that items in the Dock can run while I am sleeping. Then sometime during the night it goes out of screen saver mode and displays the login screen. I also am using an additional Samsung monitor in this but feel that it really is not related to that. Basically, the item in the dock that I wanted to run does not run because the computer is not active or so it appears.
I see same thing w M1 MBA. Screensaver randomly turns on. Touch ID causes screen to toggle between screensaver and login screens. No external monitor. Bluetooth mouse attached.
Happens on
- two different user accounts.
- different programs.
I can get out of it by closing the lid and reopening. Hoping it will be fixed in next OS update?
Happens on
- two different user accounts.
- different programs.
I can get out of it by closing the lid and reopening. Hoping it will be fixed in next OS update?
For those affected, have you tried not allowing the computer to sleep and allowing the screen to turn off with no screen saver?