M1 Air randomly disconnects from display when in clamshell

[BootLoxes]

I use a usb c to hdmi cable and connect it to a 1080p monitor. Sometimes when in clamshell the display will just shut off like the mac is going to sleep and then I have to press a key on the keyboard to get it to wake up. Then i have to enter my password to log back in.

The frequency of this is getting annoying. I will be typing and it just cuts off. I do not know what to do but i expect my mac to stay connected to my monitor. Any ideas how I can fix this?

 

[chronos1919]

I have this same issue with the MacBook Pro. The display will intermittently cut out. Very annoying. Currently looking for a solution as well.

 

[BootLoxes]

I have this same issue with the MacBook Pro. The display will intermittently cut out. Very annoying. Currently looking for a solution as well.

I am honestly starting to wonder if I should have just bought a mini instead since my air spends about 75% of its time connected to a monitor. That cut out keeps breaking my work flow

 

[xraydoc]

Do you have the sleep mode set to sleep the screen after a few minutes of inactivity? Gotta say it's not a behavior I've seen on my MBA, though the amount of time I've had it connected to an external display has been limited so far.

 

[BootLoxes]

Do you have the sleep mode set to sleep the screen after a few minutes of inactivity? Gotta say it's not a behavior I've seen on my MBA, though the amount of time I've had it connected to an external display has been limited so far.

Its set for 30 min of inactivit, however it will cut off while I am using it. Thats the annoying part. I will literally be typing and then boom black screen. Then I press my keyboard again and it will wake up at the login screen

 

[jdb8167]

Its set for 30 min of inactivit, however it will cut off while I am using it. Thats the annoying part. I will literally be typing and then boom black screen. Then I press my keyboard again and it will wake up at the login screen

Until Apple fixes it something you can try:

sudo pmset disablesleep 1

This worked for me when I had your problem with Big Sur 11.0.1 and 11.1. It has been fixed since 11.2 for me though. Another problem I have is that I use a Power Delivery USB-C dock with the M1 MacBook Air charger and if I plug too many devices into the dock, the MacBook thinks the charger has been removed and immediately puts the MBA to sleep. This also fixes that problem which is unlikely to ever get an Apple fix since that is how it is documented to work.

To reverse it:

sudo pmset disablesleep 0

Edit: Another thing that might help, you can delay how long it takes for the MacBook to think you need to login again. The setting is in System Preferences->Security & Privacy->General, Require password [immediately|5 seconds|...|5 minutes|...] after sleep or screen saver begins. The screen may still cut out but at least you won't have to login again.

 

[BootLoxes]

Until Apple fixes it something you can try:

sudo pmset disablesleep 1

This worked for me when I had your problem with Big Sur 11.0.1 and 11.1. It has been fixed since 11.2 for me though. Another problem I have is that I use a Power Delivery USB-C dock with the M1 MacBook Air charger and if I plug too many devices into the dock, the MacBook thinks the charger has been removed and immediately puts the MBA to sleep. This also fixes that problem which is unlikely to ever get an Apple fix since that is how it is documented to work.

To reverse it:

sudo pmset disablesleep 0

Edit: Another thing that might help, you can delay how long it takes for the MacBook to think you need to login again. The setting is in System Preferences->Security & Privacy->General, Require password [immediately|5 seconds|...|5 minutes|...] after sleep or screen saver begins. The screen may still cut out but at least you won't have to login again.

Alright. For now I will test by plugging the charger directly into the mac and go from there. If the problems stop then its the usb c dock that I use. If it continues I will try the terminal commands you gave me.

Thank you

 

[ice29]

I have a similar problem, it's happening 100% of the time after I wake the macbook -> it gets woken up, then after a few seconds it goes to sleep again and then after a second it wakes up. It happens every single time, just the amount of seconds varies...
Sometimes (once a few days) it goes to sleep also while I work, it's a pain when I'm presenting something in Teams...
It happens with 4K screen connected via Thunderbolt Hub and USB-C DP cable, but also older 1080p monitor with USB-C HDMI, behavior is the same...

I hope it gets fixed in the future, since it gets annoying

 

[Chicane-UK]

Not sure if it's the same but mine (M1 MacBook Pro) had been behaving really well on an older build of Big Sur (11.2.2 I think?) but I just finally updated to 11.4 and almost immediately I'm having a nightmare this morning with the display cutting out constantly... I haven't changed anything connectivity wise (and I will confess to having quite the arrangement, with a KVM switch and a USB-C hub to get the config I need) but it had been working just fine until I patched it....

It's really the only thing tarnishing the M1 experience for me honestly thus far as this issue seems to have come and gone variously ever since I bought it back in January..

 

[dgdosen]

How's this issue been? I've been seeing it as well, but it seems to not happen after a reboot into clamshell mode (at least until I disconnect and reconnect...)

 

[pshufd]

I have had this issue on my 2014 and 2015 Macs when they aren't plugged in. So I've learned to always leave them plugged in when in clamshell mode.

 

[dgdosen]

... I've learned to always leave them plugged in when in clamshell mode.

Hmm - might this be an M1 issue because power is put "on hold" frequently in the name of battery health?

 

[ed_209]

This thread helped me isolate the problem, thank you all - at least now I am able to not use clamshell and avoid the issue, preventing loss of sanity.

Confirming my experience with a MacBook Air M1 and Big Sur 11.5.2 using 80W USB-C power delivery from a Lenovo Q24h-10 display:
- With the Mac open, completely stable external display. Retina display dims and brightens frequently (randomly) if the "slightly dim display while on battery power" is set. Unsetting that results in stability on both Retina and external display.
- With the Mac closed ('clamshell mode'), external display goes black and sleeps. The USB-C signal is cut and the monitor energy saver powers it down if you don't wake the Mac. The monitor wakes immediately if you press a key. Frequency is intermittent, from a few minutes to just seconds. Rinse and repeat.

It's definitely the Mac initiating putting the display to sleep because, if your security settings require a password "immediately after sleep", every time this happens you get prompted to authenticate.

I've just read this thread so haven't tried with an additional power supply yet. I assume - but haven't confirmed yet - the Mac itself sleeps too. This can be checked using a remote ssh/vnc connection but haven't had a chance yet. Will do tomorrow.

Theories:
(a) Perhaps it's a problem with USB-C PD. Testing with an Apple power supply in the second USB4 port should isolate this.
(b) Another thought - maybe the magnet sensors in the case are electically flapping and the Mac thinks the case is opening and closing frequently.

Any thoughts very welcome.

 

[jdb8167]

This thread helped me isolate the problem, thank you all - at least now I can not use clamshell and avoid the issue, preventing loss of sanity.

Confirming my experience with a MacBook Air M1 and Big Sur 11.5.2 using 80W USB-C power delivery from a Lenovo Q24h-10 display:
- With the Mac open, completely stable external display. Retina display dims and brightens frequently (randomly) if the "slightly dim display while on battery power" is set. Unsetting that results in stability on both Retina and external display.s
- With the Mac closed ('clamshell mode'), external display goes black and sleeps. The USB-C signal is cut and the monitor energy saver powers it down if you don't wake the Mac. The monitor wakes immediately if you press a key. Frequency is intermittent, from a few minutes to just seconds. Rinse and repeat.

It's definitely the Mac initiating putting the display to sleep because, if your security settings require a password "immediately after sleep", every time this happens you get prompted to authenticate.

I've just read this thread so haven't tried with an additional power supply yet. I assume - but haven't confirmed yet - the Mac itself sleeps too. This can be checked using a remote ssh/vnc connection but haven't had a chance yet. Will do tomorrow.

Theories:
(a) Perhaps it's a problem with USB-C PD. Testing with an Apple power supply in the second USB4 port should isolate this.
(b) Another thought - maybe the magnet sensors in the case are electically flapping and the Mac thinks the case is opening and closing frequently.

Any thoughts very welcome.

If for some reason your display stops sending power to your MacBook Air and the MacBook is in clamshell it will automatically sleep. If you want to experiment to see if this is happening you can use a command line pmset command to force your MacBook to stay wake in battery clamshell.

sudo pmset disablesleep 1

To set it back to normal


sudo pmset disablesleep 0

Obviously if you use a standard charger that would also be a good test.

Having said all this, I’ve never heard of a case where a display power delivery stopped sending power. That would be strange since even a sleeping portable needs to be charged.

 

[ed_209]

Having said all this, I’ve never heard of a case where a display power delivery stopped sending power. That would be strange since even a sleeping portable needs to be charged.

Thanks - will definitely try this too in order to further isolate.
One more data point:
- Same (brand new) monitor, same cable, same USB-C PD works fine with a 2017 MacBook in clamshell, rock solid. So it's definitely M1 Air related as opposed to cable or monitor hardware.

For this reason, even though I'm sceptical - like you - that it's USB-C PD flapping power, it's still possible that downstream power is the culprit - maybe it's when the Air determines to charge or not charge the battery.
This behaviour has been happening with a fully charged battery. Haven't seen what happens with a depleted battery yet.

But still.... why only when in clamshell mode?
I'm also going to try the old magnet technique to trick the Air that it's display is closed once I figure out where these are on the M1. If the behaviour continues, then it's unlikely to be magnetic sensor related. If it ceases, then it might be as simple as faulty magnetic sensors - still very hard to believe.

 

[T Coma]

I am honestly starting to wonder if I should have just bought a mini instead since my air spends about 75% of its time connected to a monitor. That cut out keeps breaking my work flow

I'm planning for a purchase soon myself, and wondering about going the mini route vs a laptop. If the laptop spends 75% of the time attached to a monitor, that means 25% presumably mobile. The mini of course can spend 0% of the time mobile, so a 25% of the time off-monitor requirement is obviously a deal breaker for the mini, cut outs or not. Hopefully that will not be an issue in the forthcoming MBPs.

 

[ed_209]

Confirming my experience with a MacBook Air M1 and Big Sur 11.5.2 using 80W USB-C power delivery from a Lenovo Q24h-10 display: <snip>
- With the Mac closed ('clamshell mode'), external display goes black and sleeps. The USB-C signal is cut and the monitor energy saver powers it down if you don't wake the Mac. The monitor wakes immediately if you press a key. Frequency is intermittent, from a few minutes to just seconds. Rinse and repeat.

Additional USB-C PD random clamshell slumber data points, unfortunately likely specific to my configuration so may not be helpful to others on this thread...

1. Plugging in the original Apple power supply to the second USB-C port does not alter the situation. The USB-C PD implementation chooses one supply based on (I assume) max watts available. So 65W from the Q24h-10 always wins. I'd need a MacBook Pro adapter to trump this I guess, and don't have one to hand.

2. I confirmed by timestamped external pinging that the Mac is definitely sleeping when the screen does - it's not just signal loss to the display. The M1 is so fast at waking from sleep that you don't imagine this is the case.

3. I didn't end up needing to try pmset disablesleep 1, but thank you @jdb8167.

I found a thread on the Lenovo forums with many people complaining about the early USB-C PD implementation on this monitor, based on firmware LB-01. My unit has LB-03, but the problem descriptions were eerily similar.

The Q24H-10 supports three unconventional options:

• USB Charging: Enables the USB ports on the back including the USB-C port to charge devices even though the monitor goes to sleep
• Smart Power: If the monitor is not consuming significant power, it will bump the power output from 65W to 80W
• Super USB-C Charging: This forces the monitor to send 80W to the laptop, but brightness gets locked and all devices connected to the USB-A ports get disabled.

I had naively enabled "Smart Power" when setting up, thinking this would make for faster charging.
The random sleeps felt like they were power related, so I figured I'd disable this and see what happens.

Shazam! Random clamshell sleep vanished. I can definitively confirm normal M1 Air operation in clamshell mode with 65W charging.

My control is another Q24H-10 attached to a late 2017 MacBook 12". I enabled the Smart Power setting to see what would happen. Interestingly, though the clamshell sleep problem never occurred, I did find that the MacBook ran fine from 80W USB-PD but did not charge its battery after this was set. Disabling the setting restored normal 65W battery charging.

So I think Lenovo's Q24H-10 Smart Power is... errrr.... dumb.

I still don't know the root cause. You can imagine that SmartPower might be dynamically ranging between 65 and 80W supply, and that perhaps the MacBook Air M1 does not expect variable power. Perhaps the power drops before the wattage changes, or perhaps the Mac processes a change in PD wattage as a disconnect then reconnect. In clamshell mode once the monitor is disconnected it is *supposed* to go to sleep, which would explain the behaviour. And of course this doesn't account for the different behaviour in the Intel MacBook, but the M1 hardware is so radically different it's not surprising I guess.

Hard to say if this is an Apple or Lenovo problem, but Lenovo developers should be best placed to test and have vested interests in getting this resolved (one can only hope).

So...I hope this info helps somebody else in some way, but for now I will stop bothering everybody on this thread and begin petitioning Lenovo to fix this situation.

Footnote: These are otherwise great 1440p monitors and a natural pairing for MacBooks, especially if you manage to find them on sale.

 

[OneManLaptop]

Until Apple fixes it something you can try:

sudo pmset disablesleep 1

This worked for me when I had your problem with Big Sur 11.0.1 and 11.1. It has been fixed since 11.2 for me though. Another problem I have is that I use a Power Delivery USB-C dock with the M1 MacBook Air charger and if I plug too many devices into the dock, the MacBook thinks the charger has been removed and immediately puts the MBA to sleep. This also fixes that problem which is unlikely to ever get an Apple fix since that is how it is documented to work.

To reverse it:

sudo pmset disablesleep 0

Edit: Another thing that might help, you can delay how long it takes for the MacBook to think you need to login again. The setting is in System Preferences->Security & Privacy->General, Require password [immediately|5 seconds|...|5 minutes|...] after sleep or screen saver begins. The screen may still cut out but at least you won't have to login again.

Just wanted to thank you for this.

I updated to Ventura today and I couldn't get the monitor to stay on for love nor money. I'm on an M1 Laptop connecting to an Ultrawide Samsung. It could sometimes be flakey before but it was completely unusable since the update.

With your trick it connects immediately and stays connected. It's not a great longterm solution and I'm unsure what a more permanent fix means but for now, you've saved my bacon! Thank you kindly.