M1 issues: post them all here!

[rsucre]

I'm experiencing an issue with my MacBook Air M1. When the external display is connected, Touch ID stops working. I noticed that in that situation, Touch ID may work if my hand palm is resting on the aluminum. It seems like some kind of electrical grounding issue when the external display is connected via the USB-C port using any of my USB-C to HDMI adapters (tried with 2 different ones). It seems that also the trackpad becomes a little less smooth (the cursor movement) under that circumstance too.

Anyone experienced this situation?

 

[Quixotic3]

Amazon Music HD stutters around the 30 second mark on ultra hd tracks. I have tried going into Audio Midi setup and messing with the settings but that hasn't improved anything. I was having a lot of issues with airplay crackling and stutters so I switched over to a D10s Dac to a L30 that allows me to use the usb to RCA or Toslink and feed my headphones and Kef Lsx speakers (both have the same issues). The crackling has gone away but the stutter persists. Apple Music is not lossless so I can't do a comparison to tell if it is an issue with the Amazon App or the M1 Mac. I wanted to load the Amazon Music iOS App from the App Store to test if it is the Rossetta2 conversion but I get a not compatible with this device message. I have read other places that this is also an issue with Tidal and Qobuz but I do not have those services to test.

 

[Ocala2020]

You have to wonder how much actual long term testing they did on your product and the mac mini...I think...not much.....

 

[Jochheim]

I also got my M1 Mini today and I am quite happy (for now) BUT it is really puzzling to me, that Apple - a multi Billion Company - can’t get Monitor support right in all those years. I had problems with intel macs in the past and now the M1 Mini has also a strange behaviour. I drive two external displays - one 4K 32 inch Z32 and one 27 inch WQHD Monitor. If I connect the 4K display via HDMI I can’t use HighDPI scaling options (macOS gives me really strange resolutions). Connecting it to the thunderbolt port works better (still other scaling options than my intel MacBook) but I get random black dropouts. They seem to be completely random and are not that bad, but common apple, is this your definition of Apple quality?

 

[phl92]

I got my MBA M1 (8GB Ram, 512 SSD) 3 days ago and yesterday was the first day I really used it.
So I had a Zoom Video Talk for 55min and at the beginning I had 79% battery. At the end I still had 72% (wow!). I was impressed. After that I closed the MBA and before sleeping I checked once more how much battery it had: 70% (2% in 2 hours while it was closed). Next day morning it had 69% and now... so all day it was in standby it has 67%.
So it used almost the same amount of battery while closed in and in sleep (20hours) as in 55minutes Video conference.

My activity Monitor shows nothing in particular ... I think 5% drain is a lot when not used??

 

[Quackers]

I got my MBA M1 (8GB Ram, 512 SSD) 3 days ago and yesterday was the first day I really used it.
So I had a Zoom Video Talk for 55min and at the beginning I had 79% battery. At the end I still had 72% (wow!). I was impressed. After that I closed the MBA and before sleeping I checked once more how much battery it had: 70% (2% in 2 hours while it was closed). Next day morning it had 69% and now... so all day it was in standby it has 67%.
So it used almost the same amount of battery while closed in and in sleep (20hours) as in 55minutes Video conference.

My activity Monitor shows nothing in particular ... I think 5% drain is a lot when not used??

It might be a little early to judge that kind of thing. See how it goes maybe.

 

[jerryk]

I got my MBA M1 (8GB Ram, 512 SSD) 3 days ago and yesterday was the first day I really used it.
So I had a Zoom Video Talk for 55min and at the beginning I had 79% battery. At the end I still had 72% (wow!). I was impressed. After that I closed the MBA and before sleeping I checked once more how much battery it had: 70% (2% in 2 hours while it was closed). Next day morning it had 69% and now... so all day it was in standby it has 67%.
So it used almost the same amount of battery while closed in and in sleep (20hours) as in 55minutes Video conference.

My activity Monitor shows nothing in particular ... I think 5% drain is a lot when not used??

Could be still indexing. Give it a few days to see how it settles in.

 

[bsmr]

I got my MBA M1 (8GB Ram, 512 SSD) 3 days ago and yesterday was the first day I really used it.
So I had a Zoom Video Talk for 55min and at the beginning I had 79% battery. At the end I still had 72% (wow!). I was impressed. After that I closed the MBA and before sleeping I checked once more how much battery it had: 70% (2% in 2 hours while it was closed). Next day morning it had 69% and now... so all day it was in standby it has 67%.
So it used almost the same amount of battery while closed in and in sleep (20hours) as in 55minutes Video conference.

My activity Monitor shows nothing in particular ... I think 5% drain is a lot when not used??

Same for my. I checked it with istat menus.
m1 is eating a lot of CPU and RAM while closed/sleeping. Quite annoying. Maybe a bug?

 

[bsmr]

Could be still indexing. Give it a few days to see how it settles in.

No for me. Must bei something else.

 

[bsmr]

Post in thread 'iStat Menus Now (Sort of) Supports Temperature Sensors on M1!'
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...mperature-sensors-on-m1.2276062/post-29410830

 

[phl92]

Post in thread 'iStat Menus Now (Sort of) Supports Temperature Sensors on M1!'
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...mperature-sensors-on-m1.2276062/post-29410830

For me indexing could be, I put 15GB of music 1,5 days ago on it. But also the Safari browsing takes quite a lot of battery now. I went from 67% to 61% in less than 40minutes.
My activity monitor shows this atm:

 

[jason2040]

To be fair [monitor support] has been pretty well publicised. It's a limitation of the M1 chip. But having said that, how can the mac mini run two screens if it's a limitation of the M1 chip?

It's not a limitation of the M1 chip itself -- There's just a lack of the additional Thunderbolt controller chips in the M1-based Macs to handle the bandwidth required for multiple 4K+ resolution displays. This is the same for 2-port Intel based Macs as well. Only the Intel-based Mac's with 4 ports have the extra TB controller to handle those two additional ports, and can supply the extra bandwidth to power more 4K (or higher) monitors. Once Apple releases 4-port versions of Apple Silicon Macs, they will have the extra TB chip(s) and thus support multi-monitors directly (without needing the hub + DisplayPort adapter + lower res workarounds).

 

[Quackers]

It's not a limitation of the M1 chip itself -- There's just a lack of the additional Thunderbolt controller chips in the M1-based Macs to handle the bandwidth required for multiple 4K+ resolution displays. This is the same for 2-port Intel based Macs as well. Only the Intel-based Mac's with 4 ports have the extra TB controller to handle those two additional ports, and can supply the extra bandwidth to power more 4K (or higher) monitors. Once Apple releases 4-port versions of Apple Silicon Macs, they will have the extra TB chip(s) and thus support multi-monitors directly (without needing the hub + DisplayPort adapter + lower res workarounds).

Thanks. That makes sense.
It does contradict what I read on the subject but those were early reports on the M1 so could easily have been inaccurate.

 

[petterihiisila]

So I accidentally posted this on the mini/display issues thread, but here it goes here too;

TLDR: I can't use both my screens at once.

I'm sitting here crying at my desk.
I'm so ****ing tired of this.
Had display problems for 3 years with my old MBP 2017. Every day at work I would be fiddling for well over 30 minutes, to my bosses dismay, and half of the days I'd just sit there with one display, while the other 27" just sat dark for me to glance longingly at as space became scarce.

So, I sent for the M1 six weeks ago. I waited and waited, and finally, it arrived the day before last. It's the first time since 2008 that I've fallen in love with a computer, I honestly love this thing. The sound, the keyboard! I didn't dare plug her into my two displays for this reason... I just ****ing knew it would be more of the same **** as the last three years. Alas, I was right, and therefore I cry.

It allows me one or the other — either the subpar coloured 34" Acer, or the limited spaced, but beautiful, 27" Dell. The first is HDMI to usb-c, the other usb-c to usb-c with charging.
However I try, it will not allow me both.

I'm so goddamn tired. Tired of spending thousands upon thousands on tech that eats my time with mundane plugging and unplugging, tired of adapters that break down every three months... Tired of being tied to a system I love and do not want to leave.

No need to cry, I've got 3 functional displays plus the internal display on the M1 Air right now. Some have six. The performance is great. The one downside is that using Apple Watch to unlock the Mac doesn't work when the external displays 2+3 are in use.

The trick is to use a DisplayLink dock. It's a software GPU, allowing an arbitrary number of extra displays. It doesn't make a dent in the M1 performance, hasn't for me in the past few weeks anyway. Low single-digit extra CPU load, which is meaningless, since while docked, the Air is also plugged in via the primary ext monitor.

Some people use a Dell dock, but at the same time complain about clamshell mode not working. I semi-randomly bought a "ThinkPad Hybrid USB-C with USB-A Dock" which is recognized by the DisplayLink Manager. There are country variants to that dock, just be sure it says "hybrid USB-C with USB-A Dock" in the title. No drivers other than downloading the above Manager software, and it doesn't even install kernel extensions or other shady stuff. It's just a menubar app.

Here's a setup that works as I type this:

• Monitor 1 is connected to the Mac, it's a TB3 monitor.
• Monitors 2 and 3 are connected to the Lenovo via HDMI. It has DisplayPorts too.
• When I open DisplayLink Manager, monitors 2 and 3 lit up. When I quit it, the monitors go to sleep.
• The DisplayLink dock is daisy-chained behind the USB-C ports of the TB3 monitor. One cable for 3 monitors + power + half a dozen USB devices.

Caveats/unknowns:

• I wouldn't recommend daisy chaining with USB-C monitors, I presume it's a lot of total bandwidth per second, could saturate the USB-C bus.
  • ... or maybe it works with USB-C daisy-chaining too; I don't have a USB-C monitor to test with.
  • If the primary monitor is USB-C, then attach the dock to port 2 of the Mac, or into any free USB-C port.
• Don't connect hard drives with the same USB-C path with the DisplayLink dock. If the USB-C chain gets saturated, then the displays could have performance hiccups. Give the DisplayLink its own lane, or have it benefit from TB3 that won't get saturated by running more displays behind it.
• Night Shift only works on the one direct-connect monitor. I've disabled Night Shift and use F.lux when in laptop mode.

Tested:

• Extended desktop OK
• All scaled resolutions OK (using a scaled 2048x1152 on a 2560x1440 24" panel; the result is not retina but it's sharp)
• Clamshell mode OK
• No observable performance impact
• Monitor positions and resolutions carry over reboots or dock attach/detach

The only downside compared to the same setup with my previous 16" MBP so far is that ... well, the Apple Watch thing, and Night Shift isn't quite the same. Otherwise this setup works, it's faster than the 16" and it's quiet.

The other downside is that the dock isn't free. But it isn't very expensive either, check it out. And it will almost certainly work with the M2 or whatever it's going to be called, because it's essentially software. I already sold my eGPU and the 16".

 

[bloodbuzz_ohio]

Hey guys,

I've been using a MacBook Pro M1 for the past 2 weeks. Apart from a weird warm chemicals smell sometimes coming from the MacBook I have only encountered 1 issue, although it's a very annoying one and incredibly dangerous that defeats the security of the MacBook.

So this is the scenario:

Using my MacBook, close the lid. Open after 1 minute, it's asking for my password or Touch ID, all good. Unlock and.... Touch Bar is bricked. Can't do anything with it. Wherever you touch it does absolutely nothing.

"I should close the lid and give it a minute, perhaps it get's sorted"... after 1 minute I'll open the lid:

Straight to desktop, no password, no Touch ID no nothing. Ah, and Touch Bar is still in a coma.

At this point I have to either restart the MacBook, or press the power button to shut down the screen, unlock again, but most of the times this has happened for the Touch Bar to come back to life I have to restart.

This is very annoying, and mostly it's not safe. If someone picks up my MacBook while it is on this tantrum they will have access to my desktop straight away. And they won't be able to play with volume, brightness etc because the Touch Bar is d e a d .

Any help?

 

[Jochheim]

@bloodbuzz_ohio
With my intel MBP with Touch Bar I randomly get also a „glitchy“ touchbar after waking the machine. Although it is mostly fine after a minute i am pretty sure it has something to do with BTT (better touch tool, with aqua touch) - so maybe you have also installed BTT?! Definitely suc... that something compromises your security!

 

[bloodbuzz_ohio]

@bloodbuzz_ohio
With my intel MBP with Touch Bar I randomly get also a „glitchy“ touchbar after waking the machine. Although it is mostly fine after a minute i am pretty sure it has something to do with BTT (better touch tool, with aqua touch) - so maybe you have also installed BTT?! Definitely suc... that something compromises your security!

Hey man. I don’t BTT nor any other app related to customize the Touch Bar, it’s vanilla.

 

[hagjohn]

M1 Mini.

I've had some bluetooth issues. Thunderbolt to DP color seems a bit washed out. No issues with HDMI to HDMI.

I did have freeze/reboot happen due to the Weather Channel app that I downloaded to test how a mobile app would work. Canary Edge sometimes takes a while to load but, like the Weather Channel app, it is still new, so I'll give it a bit of time to get it optimized properly.

 

[Jochheim]

I also got my M1 Mini today and I am quite happy (for now) BUT it is really puzzling to me, that Apple - a multi Billion Company - can’t get Monitor support right in all those years. I had problems with intel macs in the past and now the M1 Mini has also a strange behaviour. I drive two external displays - one 4K 32 inch Z32 and one 27 inch WQHD Monitor. If I connect the 4K display via HDMI I can’t use HighDPI scaling options (macOS gives me really strange resolutions). Connecting it to the thunderbolt port works better (still other scaling options than my intel MacBook) but I get random black dropouts. They seem to be completely random and are not that bad, but common apple, is this your definition of Apple quality?

I also changed the thunderbolt port from left (if you look at the mini) to the right port and tada - no blackouts. Someone mentioned this in this or another thread so it seems that the left port is broken or otherwise impaired.

 

[Ocala2020]

Mine is MacMini M1 is going back to Apple for a full refund....my mini 2011 runs better...

 

[VitoBotta]

On my primary screen, a BenQ EL2870U connected with a USB-C to HDMI cable of my M1 mini, sometimes I see some weird flickering lasting for several seconds and then stopping by itself. I have tried also a USB-C to DisplayPort cable but it happens regardless of the cable. It doesn't happen often, but it's annoying when it does. Anyone else?

 

[Ocala2020]

USB-C is an input without devices ...its a bad idea at best.

 

[tyrone841]

Got a Mac Mini M1 (512 GB, 16 GB RAM) as a stationary Mac hooked up to a Philips screen with a built in USB hub and KVM switch. Mac Mini was connected to the screen/hub only via USB-C. Problem was: whenever I was switching from my work (windows) laptop back to my Mac Mini, it would not recognize the USB hub in the screen. So no shared keyboard/mouse/webcam. And what bothered me the most - that with my 2018 15" MBP, it all worked flawlessly.

If I either turned the screen off and on again, or if I detached the USB-C Cable and plugged it in again, it suddenly recognized my USB peripherals.

But to make it all worse, even when the screen was set to USB-C, say I was actively working on the Mac Mini, and then shut it down and start it up again, it did not recognize the USB devices again. And again, with the MBP - also just connected via the USB-C cable, it worked perfectly fine.

As much as I would have loved to play around with it (it was always intended as a 'just for fun' machine), but this was a dealbreaker for me.

Oh, and the fact that resetting it to factory settings was basically impossible (although updated to 11.1). I had to go through the Terminal hassle in recovery mode to download 11.0.1 thing from Apple which was the fix for the "personalization" problem that first users had - which mine didn't have, but I could not create new user accounts after resetting it.

So, in the end, since I bought it from an Apple authorized dealer and not Apple themselves, I could not just return it (Austrian law). So I sold it - mere 30 hours after getting it. And I "lost" only 60 EUR. Lucky I guess.

 

[VitoBotta]

USB-C is an input without devices ...its a bad idea at best.

What do you mean?

 

[bloodbuzz_ohio]

Does anyone has issues with the Touch Bar when waking up the MacBook? I open the lid and my Touch Bar is frozen for like 10 ou 20 seconds sometimes more..