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M1 Mac mini not waking display after sleep

ellsworth said:
Cross posting from another thread:

My M1 Mac Mini is 2 weeks old and has been experiencing Sleep Mode crashes. 3 nights/days in a row, I put my computer to sleep, turn off the wireless keyboard power, turn off my version 1 magic mouse and turn my off my monitor. The next morning, when I turn everything back on, I get the message that my computer unexpectedly restarted. I'm using a DELL Monitor connected via HDMI and currently have a Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 dongle attached.

Specs: Mac mini M1, 2020
16 gigs of ram
1TB SSD
MacOS Big Sur 11.1

Also to note, every so often, I'll see the little pink pixel squares spread-out across the screen as seen here: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/02/21/pink-squares-external-display-m1-mac-mini/

I'll do a test tonight by unplugging the dongle to see if the problem still occurs.
Click to expand...
Did two tests over the last two nights.

Test #1: Pulled out the thunderbolt dongle and only had the HDMI cable plugged in before putting the Mac mini to sleep overnight. Woke up the next morning to a "Your computer was restarted because of a problem" message.

Test #2: Didn't put my computer to sleep and simply placed the screen saver on and turned the monitor off overnight. Woke up the next morning and the Computer did NOT crash or restart itself.
 
ellsworth said:
Did two tests over the last two nights.

Test #1: Pulled out the thunderbolt dongle and only had the HDMI cable plugged in before putting the Mac mini to sleep overnight. Woke up the next morning to a "Your computer was restarted because of a problem" message.

Test #2: Didn't put my computer to sleep and simply placed the screen saver on and turned the monitor off overnight. Woke up the next morning and the Computer did NOT crash or restart itself.
Click to expand...
So it appears the “Sleep” mode is the BIG deal?
 
I want to add that this is not an issue specific to the M1 mini.

My end-2018 mini has the same issue with a Dell 4K display. Changing the cable from HDMI to type-C does not help. It is as annoying as can be.
 
Well, just went the other way, changed the TB3 to HDMI monitor cable that I was using to a regular HDMI to HDMI cable, and now things are working really well. Monitor wake up is faster and more consistent. And haven't had the "monitor doesn't get awakened" problem since changing cables. Maybe it's just luck, but I like the way that it's working now a LOT better.

Great return for such a small change!
 
I have 0 issues with usb-c-hdmi hub. Hdmi-hdmi just doesnt wake anything up.
 
I had a similar issue with my M1 Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt monitor. When the Mac turned the display off after the preset time it would not come back up when I clicked a key to awaken it (I do not sleep my computer, just the monitor). What happened was I would usually get a black screen although sometimes when clicking a key it would faintly flicker and you could barely seen what was on the screen for a second, but then it would go to black. I had to either unplug/replug the USB-C display cable, and/or power off and on the monitor to get it to work. Sometimes it was really bad and only a shutdown and restart would fix it. Finally I just turned down the brightness after I was done for the day.

I worked with Apple support who collected a half gig of system info and said they would call back in a few days . While waiting for the callback I saw 11.2.3 had been released and while that was updating support called. They said they thought it was the driver for my Wacom tablet which seemed to throw errors at the same time the monitor tried to awaken.

When the update finished I removed those drivers and so far it is behaving correctly. I usually like to try one fix at a time so I know what worked but unfortunately I did two. So I am not sure which one or both was responsible for the final success. The monitor still doesn't immediately display when rebooting, it only comes up about halfway thru but I can live with that, for now.
 
mobeans said:
I had a similar issue with my M1 Mac Mini and a Thunderbolt monitor. When the Mac turned the display off after the preset time it would not come back up when I clicked a key to awaken it (I do not sleep my computer, just the monitor). What happened was I would usually get a black screen although sometimes when clicking a key it would faintly flicker and you could barely seen what was on the screen for a second, but then it would go to black. I had to either unplug/replug the USB-C display cable, and/or power off and on the monitor to get it to work. Sometimes it was really bad and only a shutdown and restart would fix it. Finally I just turned down the brightness after I was done for the day.

I worked with Apple support who collected a half gig of system info and said they would call back in a few days . While waiting for the callback I saw 11.2.3 had been released and while that was updating support called. They said they thought it was the driver for my Wacom tablet which seemed to throw errors at the same time the monitor tried to awaken.

When the update finished I removed those drivers and so far it is behaving correctly. I usually like to try one fix at a time so I know what worked but unfortunately I did two. So I am not sure which one or both was responsible for the final success. The monitor still doesn't immediately display when rebooting, it only comes up about halfway thru but I can live with that, for now.
Click to expand...
What monitor do you have? I am going to have to follow-up with Apple. My case isn’t really moving anywhere. Some folks have had their M1 replaced by Apple to then resolve their display issues — others have reported this had no effect whatsoever. So am not sure what I need to do at this point — if I return the M1, what are better options, I can’t return my monitor as it’s past the return date, if I sell it I’m not going to get the full price I just paid for it 3 months ago. I love my monitor though. It’s the LG 32UL950.
 
Think77 said:
Could you attach a picture of the setup? Sounds like something I could use. Want to be sure that I buy the right thing.
Click to expand...
So do some of you think using a USB-C hub helps alleviate the sleep/wake issues by using that type connection?
 
bdsmith63 said:
What monitor do you have? I am going to have to follow-up with Apple. My case isn’t really moving anywhere. Some folks have had their M1 replaced by Apple to then resolve their display issues — others have reported this had no effect whatsoever. So am not sure what I need to do at this point — if I return the M1, what are better options, I can’t return my monitor as it’s past the return date, if I sell it I’m not going to get the full price I just paid for it 3 months ago. I love my monitor though. It’s the LG 32UL950.
Click to expand...
It's an older Apple Thunderbolt 2 monitor
 
ellsworth said:
Did two tests over the last two nights.

Test #1: Pulled out the thunderbolt dongle and only had the HDMI cable plugged in before putting the Mac mini to sleep overnight. Woke up the next morning to a "Your computer was restarted because of a problem" message.

Test #2: Didn't put my computer to sleep and simply placed the screen saver on and turned the monitor off overnight. Woke up the next morning and the Computer did NOT crash or restart itself.
Click to expand...
Update #3: Updating to Mac OS 11.2.3 has solved my problem of my computer crashing and restarting itself when in sleep mode overnight.

Update #4: My first over-night sleep-mode test after updating to Mac OS 11.2.3 was a fluke. Two nights in a row now and the computer is still displaying the unexpected restart messaging and crash report. Baah!!!
 
Last edited:
ellsworth said:
Update #3: Updating to Mac OS 11.2.3 has solved my problem of my computer crashing and restarting itself when in sleep mode overnight.
Click to expand...
Maybe there is some magical slow fix with11.2.3 that will help mine! I tried it the day it was released for updating and didn’t seem to make a difference, however, I will give mine another try!
 
bdsmith63 said:
Maybe there is some magical slow fix with11.2.3 that will help mine! I tried it the day it was released for updating and didn’t seem to make a difference, however, I will give mine another try!
Click to expand...
Ugh. Well, you are correct. I must have got lucky with my initial test. The second night that I put my computer to sleep, it woke up the next morning with the unexpected restart message. Back to square one.
 
ellsworth said:
Ugh. Well, you are correct. I must have got lucky with my initial test. The second night that I put my computer to sleep, it woke up the next morning with the unexpected restart message. Back to square one.
Click to expand...
Ugh is RIGHT! I'm getting back on the phone with Apple Support again this weekend. Going to keep pressing them on this issue.......!
 
Signed up for MacRumors just so I can chime in. Recently purchased Apple Refurb M1 Mini and am seeing same problem. Apple has reset NVRAM and I'm on my 3rd support case with them now. Very frustrating but I've learned some things along the way that may help Apple or others determine the fix.

Was able to confirm that attaching a simple USB-C based monitor will work when the mac won't wake my primary HDMI monitor. From here I can gracefully shutdown/reboot. Curiously I looked at display settings to see what was connected and the Mac was reporting the primary HDMI as "Unknown Monitor" (It's an Acer Predator 27"). I attempted to screenshot this but the resulting screenshot was just the wallpaper (never seen that happen).

When I met with Apple today they recommended the following settings change:

sudo pmset -a autopoweroffdelay 86400

This will push deep hibernation out to 24 hours as opposed to the default 4 hours (14400 is default)

I haven't tested this yet, but it may help some people avoid the issue. The engineer said this has been an ongoing case since Mojave and is not M1 specific.
 
TechMoments said:
Signed up for MacRumors just so I can chime in. Recently purchased Apple Refurb M1 Mini and am seeing same problem. Apple has reset NVRAM and I'm on my 3rd support case with them now. Very frustrating but I've learned some things along the way that may help Apple or others determine the fix.

Was able to confirm that attaching a simple USB-C based monitor will work when the mac won't wake my primary HDMI monitor. From here I can gracefully shutdown/reboot. Curiously I looked at display settings to see what was connected and the Mac was reporting the primary HDMI as "Unknown Monitor" (It's an Acer Predator 27"). I attempted to screenshot this but the resulting screenshot was just the wallpaper (never seen that happen).

When I met with Apple today they recommended the following settings change:

sudo pmset -a autopoweroffdelay 86400

This will push deep hibernation out to 24 hours as opposed to the default 4 hours (14400 is default)

I haven't tested this yet, but it may help some people avoid the issue. The engineer said this has been an ongoing case since Mojave and is not M1 specific.
Click to expand...
I am glad you chimed in with some advice. So by changing the hibernation time frame out, if you exceed 24 hours then you’re back to the same issue? How do you apply this change, I’m not familiar with those type of commands within MacOS.
 
I just thought I'd chime in. I set up my Mini M1 a couple of days ago and thought all was well until I tried to wake it a little while ago. No dice. I had it connected to a Samsung M7 4K smart monitor via HDMI and unplugged/replugged the HDMI cable, but that didn't do it. I switched to USB-C, and that miraculously woke it. I'll see tomorrow morning if it wakes while hooked up via USB-C, but what a pain in the arse.
 
mfm77 said:
I just thought I'd chime in. I set up my Mini M1 a couple of days ago and thought all was well until I tried to wake it a little while ago. No dice. I had it connected to a Samsung M7 4K smart monitor via HDMI and unplugged/replugged the HDMI cable, but that didn't do it. I switched to USB-C, and that miraculously woke it. I'll see tomorrow morning if it wakes while hooked up via USB-C, but what a pain in the arse.
Click to expand...
Ugh—-! This is crazy — I had better luck with HDMI but not the quality my monitor can deliver with that connection and prefer USB-C to USB-C (TB3) the best, but I have to set my monitor DisplayPort setting to 1.2 instead of 1.4 — not optimal AT all.....
 
bdsmith63 said:
I am glad you chimed in with some advice. So by changing the hibernation time frame out, if you exceed 24 hours then you’re back to the same issue? How do you apply this change, I’m not familiar with those type of commands within MacOS.
Click to expand...
Open terminal and paste it in there.
It will prompt for PW, done.

I was able to wake my mac today after maybe 16 hours idle, so this is a temporary fix for me. It still puts monitor to sleep but doesn't go deeper. If there is a way to permanently disable this somehow it would be cool. I doubt the energy draw is much different between these two low power modes.
 
TechMoments said:
Open terminal and paste it in there.
It will prompt for PW, done.

I was able to wake my mac today after maybe 16 hours idle, so this is a temporary fix for me. It still puts monitor to sleep but doesn't go deeper. If there is a way to permanently disable this somehow it would be cool. I doubt the energy draw is much different between these two low power modes.
Click to expand...
Great thanks for the info. During the weekdays, I’m only on my M1 for about an hour each morning before I head to work. On weekends I am using it more frequently, so the fix might benefit me during that time period. I wish I could get Apple to tell me they’re testing the issues with all these different type monitors to get down the root of the problem.
 
Last edited:
gooimac said:
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
Click to expand...
Same issue for me on exactly the same Mac mini as yours (M1, 8Gb, 256, Big Sur 11.2.3), except it only occurs with USB-C to DisplayPort. I have also had some random unwanted graphics 'effects', at the moment this is in the guise of the login screen appearing off to the bottom left hand corner for a few seconds before it corrects itself. I can at least wake the display, (32" Samsung U32J592UQU) manually which I couldn't do on my previous monitor.
 
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