M1 Mac mini not waking display after sleep

[PhillipD]

I too also have this problem. I have an M1 Mac Mini and a Dell U2718Q. I have it connected currently via USB-C - Display Port. To force it to wake up I disconnect the USB-C connector and connect it back.

Phill

 

[avonord]

My M1 (8gb/256) Mac mini doesn't seem to want to wake my displays after its been sleeping. I have tried with 2 different displays with 2 different HDMI cables with the same thing occurring on each one. I am currently only using one at a time. I also noticed some pink squares/graphics glitches on the Big Sur boot/log in screen (with the coloured background, not the black and white boot up)

I am going to leave it with the display set to never sleep for now to see if anything is different after leaving it for a while.

Any one else having similar issues? I don't have a USB-C to HDMI or DisplayPort to try currently.

I had my mini for a week, and only had this happen once to me couple days ago.

My set up:
- LG 34BK95U-W 5k2k
- USB-C thunderbolt3 connection - DisplayPort v1.2
- OSX 11.1
- Default Energy Control Panel setting

 

[pgib]

Okay quick update on the wake from sleep issue--I went into settings last night and unchecked "Put hard disks to sleep when possible". I left my computer on so that it would go to sleep over night and when I woke up this morning, the monitor woke up along with my M1 Mac mini when I pressed on my keyboard.

Can someone else test this and see if it solved your problem? I'll continue to monitor this situation as well in case the problem comes back again.

View attachment 1682824

Edit 1: I've had my computer fall asleep due to inactivity 3 times so far today and it has woken up my monitor successfully each time. Unless the problem returns again, this seems to be the solution to my sleep-wake issue.

I don't have this in my Energy Saver settings.

 

[pgib]

I would encourage everyone to log an issue with Apple about this, providing as much details as you can:

Feedback Assistant

feedbackassistant.apple.com

I logged mine under macOS -> Sleep/Wake -> Display did not turn on at all

Based on the "Recent Similar Reports", the right people may not even be aware.

 

[MrZippyUK]

And in my experience even if they are there is no real rush to fix bugs unless they get front page headlines. I’m thinking the long standing screensaver issue on tvOS.

Anyway I’m watching this thread because I’m looking to setup a relatively cheap family Mac, this would never be powered off, therefore you can see my interest if they fail to wake from sleep.

 

[bochey1314]

I have a similar problems with my mini m1. I am using the Dell 49in U4919DW. Mainly I got the following two issues with different cables.
- When connected via usb-c to usb-c cable to my monitor, my monitor do not wake up at all. It just keep saying no signal. I must unplug the usb c cable and plug it again in order to get the signal back.

- When connected via usb-c cable to hdmi cable to my monitor, I got either a blue screen(most of the time it wake up now) / full white noise screen (some time, just like the other person describled in his/her youtube video ) on waking up the mac mini m1. I must unplug and plug the usbc to hdmi cable in order to get the display back to normal


This is very annoying. thinking to return it.

 

[rodg1985]

I bought an M1 Macmini a month ago and was experiencing a similar issue as described here. I actually had 2 problems: i could not get a second display to work (it was recognized but with a black screen), and the one display i had working would not wake up. I had 2 somewhat old monitors with a VGA and a DVI inputs, no hdmi. I used cables from Amazon, DVI-USB-c and DVI-Hdmi. The working monitor i had connected to the USB-c input. In reading and doing trouble shooting i learned that the M1 can only drive one monitor via USB-c. Therefore, i had no option but to also use the HDMI port which seemed to not be working properly. I called Apple support and concluded that the issue was with the monitor. (we connected the mac to an hdmi port in my TV and it worked). I bought a new LG monitor from Best Buy for $129. It has 2 HDMI and 1 VGA ports. Just by changing my monitor and connecting via an hdmi-hdmi cable both problems got fixed! Seems that the black screen is somewhat related to the use of the HDMI port. I wonder if the HDMI is expected to be the primary monitor and that is the reason. In the Energy saver settings, i have "Prevent computer from sleeping...." checked and "Put hard disks to sleep...." not checked. Hope this helps somebody.

 

[seattle438]

M1 wake up might be related to Time Machine...

I fired up my M1 Mac mini after Christmas to replace a 2014 mini. For the first couple of days, I was running my display over an HDMI cable and the mini always woke up -- sort of. A couple of times it was initially unresponsive after entering the password. Several days after Christmas, I reconnected to my monitor with a USB-C to DisplayPort cable, which seemed to be working until this morning when I ran into the problem described in this thread. I tried adding a wired keyboard to no avail. But I did notice that my Time Machine drive seemed to be active. After a couple of minutes, with occasionally tapping on the BT keyboard, the M1 woke up -- And checking the preferences, a backup had been in process just prior to the wake up.

Whether or not it is relevant, the backup drive is connected to one of the USB-A ports.

So, again, my screen did not wake up when from the keyboard when the mini was in the midst of a backup. Out of curiosity, I "logged in" in the blind, still nothing displayed. Then I cycled the screen off/on -- and there I was, all logged in. I interpret this to mean that when the backup is occurring, the "wake up" signal to the display is not being sent. A quick scan of DisplayPort architecture suggests that the power cycling sends an interrupt to the computer.

 

[MrDoh]

Another new M1-based mac mini. Using a T3 port for the monitor on the mac, and HDMI port on the monitor, so "adapter" style cable. Monitor is a Dell U2415. I've had a couple of issues. A few times the computer hasn't awakened (or the computer hasn't awakened the monitor, can't tell which easily) after sleep. Most times, the computer and monitor wake up fine...requires a reboot to get everything out of sleep.

The other thing was once I had a row of four small green squares on the first desktop screen after boot-up. The squares were about 1/2" per side of the square, and a inch or two apart.

Just as a matter of interest, I never have "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" checked in Energy Saver. Might have something to do with a Time Machine backup going on, though, from the time that I tried to wake the mac up, and the time on the last Time Machine backup, could have been about the same time, but I'll have to keep an eye on that one in the future to verify that.

Odd things, but the green squares have not repeated, and the not fully waking up after sleep thing has been like a couple of times a week. Easy to put up with. I should submit a report about these issues though, and see what the response (if anything) to that is.

 

[MickeyDeLo]

Just came to add that I am experiencing the same issue.

My setup:

• Mac Mini (M1 2020)
• MacOS 11.1
• ASUS monitors 2560x1440, one USB-C the other HDMI

After waking from Sleep a number of outcomes have been experienced, multiple times.

Outcomes that I have experienced - ordered by frequency:

• Only one monitor comes on
• Only one monitor comes on, then 2 minutes later after flickering the other monitor comes on then freezes, then reboots
• Nothing happens, then boots (monitors show Apple logo)
• Monitors come back on, but the resolution on one of them is 1024x768 and cannot change to 2560x1440
• Nothing, need to hard boot
• Go to login screen with pink/green interference (maybe 40 pixels or so) scattered on the monitor
• Things wake normally

I will report this bug to Apple and I hope the rest of you do as well. I've encountered something similar a few years ago and Apple fixed it pretty quickly (In the next point update IIRC)

 

[ClemsonDV]

I'm having the Thunderbolt 3 --> Display port issue with my LG monitor as well. I just received another cable to test out if this is causing the issue. And frankly it's worse. The original cable did this intermittently, but the new cable is now not waking up the monitor whenever it sleeps. I can get the monitor back with a restart, but unplugging and swapping connections do not work.

I have a direct HDMI to HDMI connection on my older monitor. It will take over as main desktop upon wake up which is nice, but I bought the new monitor to go with this new M1 Mac mini.

Any response from Apple? Should I take the Mac mini back?


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[iJon]

We are having issues as well. What makes it stranger is that we have one M1 Mac at our office, two monitors of the same kind, one hooked up via HDMI and the other one hooked up with HDMI>USB C and that user is not having any issues.

We just deployed 2 new M1 Macs for a client of ours and having a lot of trouble getting them to wake after the display turns off, just says going into power saving mode. No idea what is causing it but it shouldn't be this hard to wake a display, so I do think something funky is going on with these new Macs and M1 chips.

I think my only solution is to keep an eye on this and tell the displays to never turn off and have staff manually turn them off at night.

 

[iJon]

Went onsite to visit a client today and no matter what I did, I couldn't get the monitor on. I could remote into the computer, and it detects the monitor and you can move around the mouse, but nothing we did would turn on the screen. I edited the monitor to use DisplayPort 1.1 instead of 1.2 but that did nothing.

The only thing that actually worked was switching to VGA with a USBC>VGA cable. Everything worked perfectly after that so I'll be switching my client's other Macs to VGA until this is sorted out.

 

[MrZippyUK]

I can’t believe there has been no feedback from Apple yet, although saying that I’ve only seen this issue posted here, but then again it’s serval users. I’m waiting to order a Mac mini still but won’t until this issue is acknowledged and a promise made of a fix.

 

[curiousmike1300]

Just wanted to add my experience.

Bought my wife an M1 mac-mini for Christmas - had it plugged into an ASUS monitor over HDMI cables.
Basically would only sporadically awake the monitor.

Took the advice here and used an USB-C->HDMI adapter and using that, the monitor now consistently awakes from sleep.

Annoying to say the least.

 

[bdsmith63]

An SSD does not have moving parts to put to sleep, so my understanding is that there is no benefit to having this feature turned on.

Even a HDD would be better off without being put to sleep often because it's stressful for it to constantly park and unpark the heads and spinning up.

I just setup the M1 with the LG 32UL950 via USB-C. I am having issues with the display not waking from sleep after an extended period of time. So would I just need to logout of my computer each session when I’m done, simply turn off the display and leave the M1 constantly running — or am I better to just turn it off? I typically use it once a day early morning, then more frequently on weekends. I am frustrated with the “sleep mode” not working properly after spending fair amount of money on the type of display I purchased.

 

[MrDoh]

Another new M1-based mac mini. Using a T3 port for the monitor on the mac, and HDMI port on the monitor, so "adapter" style cable. Monitor is a Dell U2415. I've had a couple of issues. A few times the computer hasn't awakened (or the computer hasn't awakened the monitor, can't tell which easily) after sleep. Most times, the computer and monitor wake up fine...requires a reboot to get everything out of sleep.

The other thing was once I had a row of four small green squares on the first desktop screen after boot-up. The squares were about 1/2" per side of the square, and a inch or two apart.

Just as a matter of interest, I never have "Put hard disks to sleep when possible" checked in Energy Saver. Might have something to do with a Time Machine backup going on, though, from the time that I tried to wake the mac up, and the time on the last Time Machine backup, could have been about the same time, but I'll have to keep an eye on that one in the future to verify that.

Odd things, but the green squares have not repeated, and the not fully waking up after sleep thing has been like a couple of times a week. Easy to put up with. I should submit a report about these issues though, and see what the response (if anything) to that is.

Found the answer to whether the computer wasn't waking up, or whether the monitor wasn't being awakened by the computer...it's the monitor not being awakened by the computer. Found this by the fact that I had stopped a video clip just before I walked away from the mac and it went to sleep, and then when I did the usual things I do to wake up a computer after sleep (mouse clicks and power switch), the mouse clicks turned the video clip back on, I could hear the audio, no picture of course, the monitor was dark. So the computer was awake, but the monitor wasn't .

So apparently the computer is not waking the monitor sometimes when it wakes up after sleeping. Bummer...again, takes a full restart to get both the computer and monitor awakened. And it may well have something to do with Time Machine backup...every time this happens I look at the Time Machine Preferences, and there has been a very recent backup time showing. Not sure how these relate, but it could have something to do with interrupts, I suppose.

This has happened more often recently, could be just lucky timing *smile*.

 

[Ultron]

Found the answer to whether the computer wasn't waking up, or whether the monitor wasn't being awakened by the computer...it's the monitor not being awakened by the computer. Found this by the fact that I had stopped a video clip just before I walked away from the mac and it went to sleep, and then when I did the usual things I do to wake up a computer after sleep (mouse clicks and power switch), the mouse clicks turned the video clip back on, I could hear the audio, no picture of course, the monitor was dark. So the computer was awake, but the monitor wasn't .

So apparently the computer is not waking the monitor sometimes when it wakes up after sleeping. Bummer...again, takes a full restart to get both the computer and monitor awakened. And it may well have something to do with Time Machine backup...every time this happens I look at the Time Machine Preferences, and there has been a very recent backup time showing. Not sure how these relate, but it could have something to do with interrupts, I suppose.

This has happened more often recently, could be just lucky timing *smile*.

I have Time Machine backup set up, but my monitor (LG 34WL85-C) wakes up fine. My previous monitor (Dell U2713HM) would not wake up. They were both connected via HDMI-to-HDMI cable.

Instead of full-restart, you should be able to unplug and replug in your display cable to get the monitor to work again.

 

[MrDoh]

I have Time Machine backup set up, but my monitor (LG 34WL85-C) wakes up fine. My previous monitor (Dell U2713HM) would not wake up. They were both connected via HDMI-to-HDMI cable.

Instead of full-restart, you should be able to unplug and replug in your display cable to get the monitor to work again.

I’ll try that, but it’s much easier and faster for me to reboot than to get to the monitor cable connectors.

 

[mannyvel]

So I'm having this. 1 WQHD connected via HDMI, 1 WQHD connected via a CalDigit 3 DP -> DP. The HDMI one always wakes up.

The Caldigit one wakes up occasionally. If it doesn't wake up I need to unplug and replug the DP cable; powering off the monitor and powering it back on doesn't do it.

I don't mind, I just don't put the monitors to sleep. But it'd be nice if it worked.

 

[ScottBotkins]

Glad I found this thread. I got my M1 Mac mini 3 days ago. I have one 4K monitor via hdmi and the other 4K usb-c ->hdmi. The hdmi one is the only one that wakes up. I assume this is software and not hardware so I’m not returning it. Hopefully a fix is on the way.

 

[forumwarrior]

I too have been experiencing a similar problem since getting my M1 Mini back in December, and 11.1 has not fixed it. My particular set involves on Monitor connected directly to the M1 via HDMI, and another connected to my CalDigit TB3 hub, again over HDMI. My issue is NOT that my monitors don't wake; they do, though often with a 10-15 second delay. My main problem is that, once in a while (every couple days), the system crashes shortly after logging in. This only occurs when I leave the Mini unattended for a while, at which point I presume it goes into Sleep mode.

The particular sequence of events is invariably:

1. Step away from Computer for > 15 mins
2. Come back, hit mouse and/or keyboard to wake
3. System takes 10-15 seconds to wake
4. Everything seems fine for a few seconds, then system freezes for about 10 seconds before the screen flashes green then pink, then reboots
5. After reboot, log in, and all windows open at the time of the crash are restored

As you can imagine, this is very annoying. Seems likely a software issue, but I haven't been able to exactly trace the underlying cause. Anyone have any tips?

 

[MrZippyUK]

Has no one had any progress with Apple? I’m sure at least one person here had spoken to them. What’s odd is why this isn’t getting more press, like the Bluetooth issues and now screensaver issues with M1 macs.

 

[Think77]

Same issue here with Mac mini M1: Screen not waking up after sleep or system not being used for [whatever timing is set in settings > energy saving].

USB-C -> Dual Link DVI-D adapter (Belkin) -> Apple Cinema Display 30"

Everything seemed to work fine for 4-5 days. But now it doesn't. Cable must be unplugged -> plugged in again.

EDIT: Reported the issue to Apple.

 

[scgf]

Interestingly when I used an Intel NUC8 running Windows 10, plugged into the same monitor (an LG 24UD58) I was plagued with this exact issue - the computer just wouldn't waken the monitor in the morning or after some other long period of inactivity. The computer was awake, I could ping it. Only a reboot would get the display working again. Intel couldn't work out what was wrong, even though an earlier Intel graphics driver was fine.

Now I have an M1 Mac Mini I see the same issue very infrequently - like 4 times since mid-December and in 3 cases unplugging the display port plug solved it.

My 2017 iMac was a complete nightmare too. I actually had to abandon it because it would require frequent rebooting for the display to work. Lots of posts online about the issue with Catalina.

There is clearly an issue across the board and heads need to be knocked together to get this thing working as it should.