M4 Mac Mini issues

[Baywatchboy]

I bought the M4 Mac Mini a few months ago, upgrading from the 2018 Mini. I've been having constant issues with it and I'm wondering if anyone else is having the same problems. I attached a screenshot of what I got and am running 2 monitors (dual HDMI from Thunderbolt) and a TV (HDMI) as a third monitor. Here are some of the ones I'm having:

Keyboard is only recognized for Pages and no other app - I don't believe this is a keyboard issue, but rather an issue with the computer
Can not tab through apps
Force quit does not seem to work
If I have a few tabs open in Safari and open Chrome to stream video, video is jumpy - quitting Safari and restarting it seems to fix this
I've had to manually restart with power button because computer won't restart or shutdown from dropdown menu

I use my computer for very basic stuff. I'll usually have Safari (usually 4-5 tabs), Mail, Filemaker and Slack open. Occasionally I will have Chrome open as well. Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciate. I feel like I screwed myself by upgrading. Thanks in advance.

 

[PaulD-UK]

What keyboard are you using?
Is it an Apple one that can be plugged in to see if that helps?

 

[Baywatchboy]

What keyboard are you using?
Is it an Apple one that can be plugged in to see if that helps?

I'm using an Apple wireless keyboard. Plugging it in was the first thing I tried. Didn't change anything. I think I ended up restarting the computer.

For all the issues I listed, restarting cures everything, at least temporarily.

 

[streetfunk]

Does not sound normal.

What you "could" try to do:
Reboot into recovery mode.
Ersase the SSD.
Reinstall the macOS fresh again.
Take first a TM backup of your system. Or something similar

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

Do you have a traditional wired keyboard? If so, plug it in as a substitute for the wireless to rule out/in problems with the wireless keyboard. If the wired one works fine, you'll narrow things down to the keyboard or the bluetooth connection.

I'm presuming the whole list revolves around using the keyboard. For instance, "cannot tab through apps" (on the keyboard???). If not, edit post 1 with a bit more detail. Is keyboard sufficiently charged?

Are you using keyboard far from Mini?

I don't know where the bluetooth antennas are on the new Mini. They used to be built into the BOTTOM of Macs. So you might try putting the Mini up on its side to expose the bottom towards the keyboard to see if that makes any difference. To proactively deal with the potential of this, I have my Mac mounted to a wall, bottom side "facing" keyboard.

If everything can be bluetooth issues, sub in wired keyboard and wired mouse for a while and see if problems repeat.

What macOS version are you running?

If through some of this you more thoroughly suspect the keyboard, take it to an Apple Store, link it to a demo Mac Mini there and see if these issues will repeat. That would show that it is a problem beyond only your one Mac Mini. And if I did this, I'd then try the exact same with a Mac Studio and see if it repeats with a different Mac model. If not, you'll have pinned it down to a Mac Mini problem (beyond your own). If it does, you'll just about confirm that your keyboard has some issue (though it could still be macOS 15 too). For further clarification, move on to an iMac on display for one more (different) Mac test. As it does or does not repeat with these other Macs, you''ll be growing or shrinking confidence about it possibly being the keyboard vs. your Mac.

If you happen to have a former Mac around that could be updated to latest macOS too, you might try keyboard with that Mac as one more "different' Mac test with all other variables the same.

 

[ignatius345]

Something is clearly amiss, and what you're saying about the Finder freezes and the stuttering video playback implies it's more than just the keyboard.

I'd consider wiping and reinstalling the system as suggested by @streetfunk (obviously backing up first). Before you bring in all your old stuff, I would actually start a brand new user account* and use it as a "vanilla" system for a little while to see if the problems come back or not.

1. If problems you saw do come back, you're probably looking at hardware issues at that point.

2. If they don't come back, try bringing in your old stuff (via Migration Assistant, from that backup you made), and then see what happens.

3. If the problems come back after migration of your old stuff, then you know the problem is something in the user account(s) or applications you just migrated back in.

* important: if you're setting up a test user account, name it "test" or something, because if it has the same name as your real user account from your backup, you'll run into conflicts when you try to migrate that back in.

 

[Baywatchboy]

Do you have a traditional wired keyboard? If so, plug it in as a substitute for the wireless to rule out/in problems with the wireless keyboard. If the wired one works fine, you'll narrow things down to the keyboard or the bluetooth connection.

I'm presuming the whole list revolves around using the keyboard. For instance, "cannot tab through apps" (on the keyboard???). If not, edit post 1 with a bit more detail. Is keyboard sufficiently charged?

Are you using keyboard far from Mini?

I don't know where the bluetooth antennas are on the new Mini. They used to be built into the BOTTOM of Macs. So you might try putting the Mini up on its side to expose the bottom towards the keyboard to see if that makes any difference. To proactively deal with the potential of this, I have my Mac mounted to a wall, bottom side "facing" keyboard.

If everything can be bluetooth issues, sub in wired keyboard and wired mouse for a while and see if problems repeat.

What macOS version are you running?

If through some of this you more thoroughly suspect the keyboard, take it to an Apple Store, link it to a demo Mac Mini there and see if these issues will repeat. That would show that it is a problem beyond only your one Mac Mini. And if I did this, I'd then try the exact same with a Mac Studio and see if it repeats with a different Mac model. If not, you'll have pinned it down to a Mac Mini problem (beyond your own). If it does, you'll just about confirm that your keyboard has some issue (though it could still be macOS 15 too). For further clarification, move on to an iMac on display for one more (different) Mac test. As it does or does not repeat with these other Macs, you''ll be growing or shrinking confidence about it possibly being the keyboard vs. your Mac.

If you happen to have a former Mac around that could be updated to latest macOS too, you might try keyboard with that Mac as one more "different' Mac test with all other variables the same.

I am using an Apple wireless keyboard and my first remedy for that specific issue was to try a wired keyboard. That did not solve that issue. I am currently running 15.2. I don't think it's a keyboard issue.

 

[Baywatchboy]

Does not sound normal.

What you "could" try to do:
Reboot into recovery mode.
Ersase the SSD.
Reinstall the macOS fresh again.
Take first a TM backup of your system. Or something similar

Definitely doesn't sound normal. I was trying to avoid doing something like this, but that just might be what I have to do. Thanks.

 

[Baywatchboy]

Something is clearly amiss, and what you're saying about the Finder freezes and the stuttering video playback implies it's more than just the keyboard.

I'd consider wiping and reinstalling the system as suggested by @streetfunk (obviously backing up first). Before you bring in all your old stuff, I would actually start a brand new user account* and use it as a "vanilla" system for a little while to see if the problems come back or not.

1. If problems you saw do come back, you're probably looking at hardware issues at that point.

2. If they don't come back, try bringing in your old stuff (via Migration Assistant, from that backup you made), and then see what happens.

3. If the problems come back after migration of your old stuff, then you know the problem is something in the user account(s) or applications you just migrated back in.

* important: if you're setting up a test user account, name it "test" or something, because if it has the same name as your real user account from your backup, you'll run into conflicts when you try to migrate that back in.

Appreciate it. I was beginning if I got the one bad apple (pun not intended). Thanks for the tip on the test user account. 👍

 

[NeonNights]

A few other sites have reported USB-C dropouts and connectivity issues on the new M4 Mac Mini. I haven't seem MacRumors report on it yet. I realize your issue is with a wireless Apple keyboard, but you're also experiencing disconnects with the wired connection. Hopefully we learn about what's plaguing some new Mac Mini owners and hopefully the issue can be remedied in software.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/01/15/m4-mac-mini-may-have-a-usb-c-connectivity-problem

 

[Baywatchboy]

A few other sites have reported USB-C dropouts and connectivity issues on the new M4 Mac Mini. I haven't seem MacRumors report on it yet. I realize your issue is with a wireless Apple keyboard, but you're also experiencing disconnects with the wired connection. Hopefully we learn about what's plaguing some new Mac Mini owners and hopefully the issue can be remedied in software.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/25/01/15/m4-mac-mini-may-have-a-usb-c-connectivity-problem

I don't think I've had any USB-C issues. At least none that I'm aware of. I really don't think there's an issue with my keyboard, I think there's multiple issues with my computer.

 

[Honza1]

Keyboard is only recognized for Pages and no other app - I don't believe this is a keyboard issue, but rather an issue with the computer
Can not tab through apps
Force quit does not seem to work
If I have a few tabs open in Safari and open Chrome to stream video, video is jumpy - quitting Safari and restarting it seems to fix this
I've had to manually restart with power button because computer won't restart or shutdown from dropdown menu

Some of this may be related. None is normal. The shutdown issue is something I have seen before and is kind of low level annoyance. Starting mac mini is rare event.
Video issues can have many reasons and may be related to corrupted process spinning out of control, which can be also responsible for keyboard/Ui issues.

You need to identify if it is user software (corruption, misconfiguration, ...), macOS issue, computer hardware, or external electronic noise. Keep reading, it is interesting, I had lots of Bluetooth issues for many years...

The important question is - how often you have these problems? Is it reproducible or random, all the time, often, or rarely... Is it in specific times of day? All of these are clues to this mystery...

UI issues you have could be related to keyboard-computer communication - which could be due to either Bluetooth issues or some kind of process (Finder?) occasionally misbehaving. If BT connection to keyboard is poor, all of those UI symptoms are possible.

Bluetooth strength may be marginal or there meay be EM noise in where the Mini is. My Intel mini had worse BT card than my current mini M4 (same M4 as yours) and where it was apparently a lot of EM noise from AC/heating system when it was running in area where M4 was located. So Spring/Fall all was OK, Winter and hot Summer, keyboard and mouse misbehaved all the time. Some devices misbehaved more, some less. This is pain to figure out. Eventually I added grounding to parts of my furnace and most BT issues were fixed. Took me 3+ years to figure this out. It is possible to get from the Macos info on BT signal strength and S/N ratio.
Now, this should be relatively easy to identify - connect the keyboard by cable and if it does not happen when connected via cable, it points to BT - either bad radio in Mac or Keyboard - or noise. In my case it was noise, but either device may be also problem. Obviously, BT is Apple problem (warranty), EM noise yours.

If the UI issues are even with wired keyboard, it is not BT. Suspect in that case is some process hanging the UI - there are many processes in any OS today and if any is corrupted or has corrupted configuration, it can temporary hang the computer. This can resemble what you see if the process spins up and abuses resources, os kind of hangs and does not respond to user input. You can go to Activity monitor and leave that running on screen to see, if any process at the same time jumps to 100% or more.
If it is process, you need to figure out how to fix it:
To test you can create a new user without any additional software (no Chrome or anything else) and try if there are still issues in this new clean user. In some cases this treats the problem, in which case it is something which user has specifically installed in their setup (extensions/applications) or something which is corrupted for the user (plist). It is MUCH easier to create new user than wipe and reinstall user and has sometimes same effect. If the new user does not have issues, you need to decide if you want to try to fix the old user account one or move data into the new one and delete the old one. Either way, it is work to do any of these - but this is your problem since it is your configuration/software which is corrupted, not really Apple.

If that fails and problem is even for fresh user, it is either macOS corruption or hardware. You can take mini to Apple for warranty repair, but they will reinstall macOS as their first step. So you can do it yourself also... You need to wipe the user and reinstall the system. Make sure you have proper and full backup, preferably two. Check the backup before deleting anything.

If that does not fix it, it points to hardware... Apple genius bar is your next best bet or call and ship it to them. You may need new mini or at least part of the mini. Apple will fix it, all M4 minis are still under warranty and what you see is not normal or acceptable.

If you fix the keyboard/UI issues, video playing and restart may be fixed also. Solve this UI issue first.

 

[Baywatchboy]

Some of this may be related. None is normal. The shutdown issue is something I have seen before and is kind of low level annoyance. Starting mac mini is rare event.
Video issues can have many reasons and may be related to corrupted process spinning out of control, which can be also responsible for keyboard/Ui issues.

You need to identify if it is user software (corruption, misconfiguration, ...), macOS issue, computer hardware, or external electronic noise. Keep reading, it is interesting, I had lots of Bluetooth issues for many years...

The important question is - how often you have these problems? Is it reproducible or random, all the time, often, or rarely... Is it in specific times of day? All of these are clues to this mystery...

UI issues you have could be related to keyboard-computer communication - which could be due to either Bluetooth issues or some kind of process (Finder?) occasionally misbehaving. If BT connection to keyboard is poor, all of those UI symptoms are possible.

Bluetooth strength may be marginal or there meay be EM noise in where the Mini is. My Intel mini had worse BT card than my current mini M4 (same M4 as yours) and where it was apparently a lot of EM noise from AC/heating system when it was running in area where M4 was located. So Spring/Fall all was OK, Winter and hot Summer, keyboard and mouse misbehaved all the time. Some devices misbehaved more, some less. This is pain to figure out. Eventually I added grounding to parts of my furnace and most BT issues were fixed. Took me 3+ years to figure this out. It is possible to get from the Macos info on BT signal strength and S/N ratio.
Now, this should be relatively easy to identify - connect the keyboard by cable and if it does not happen when connected via cable, it points to BT - either bad radio in Mac or Keyboard - or noise. In my case it was noise, but either device may be also problem. Obviously, BT is Apple problem (warranty), EM noise yours.

If the UI issues are even with wired keyboard, it is not BT. Suspect in that case is some process hanging the UI - there are many processes in any OS today and if any is corrupted or has corrupted configuration, it can temporary hang the computer. This can resemble what you see if the process spins up and abuses resources, os kind of hangs and does not respond to user input. You can go to Activity monitor and leave that running on screen to see, if any process at the same time jumps to 100% or more.
If it is process, you need to figure out how to fix it:
To test you can create a new user without any additional software (no Chrome or anything else) and try if there are still issues in this new clean user. In some cases this treats the problem, in which case it is something which user has specifically installed in their setup (extensions/applications) or something which is corrupted for the user (plist). It is MUCH easier to create new user than wipe and reinstall user and has sometimes same effect. If the new user does not have issues, you need to decide if you want to try to fix the old user account one or move data into the new one and delete the old one. Either way, it is work to do any of these - but this is your problem since it is your configuration/software which is corrupted, not really Apple.

If that fails and problem is even for fresh user, it is either macOS corruption or hardware. You can take mini to Apple for warranty repair, but they will reinstall macOS as their first step. So you can do it yourself also... You need to wipe the user and reinstall the system. Make sure you have proper and full backup, preferably two. Check the backup before deleting anything.

If that does not fix it, it points to hardware... Apple genius bar is your next best bet or call and ship it to them. You may need new mini or at least part of the mini. Apple will fix it, all M4 minis are still under warranty and what you see is not normal or acceptable.

If you fix the keyboard/UI issues, video playing and restart may be fixed also. Solve this UI issue first.

Thank you. Appreciate the time it took for all of that. In short, I've had the computer for 3 months. The keyboard issue has happened twice. The video issue 4-5 times (as I mentioned, that's usually cleaned up with quitting and restarting Safari). Not being able to tab between apps, 3-4 times. Having to restart with power button because force quit/restart won't work, 2-3 times. Computer is 12 inches from keyboard and magic trackpad (zero issues with trackpad). All of that seems to be a bit much for a new computer, especially in that time frame.

Thanks to you and other posters, I have a few more things I can try. I posted mostly to see if I was the only one having these types of issues.

 

[Honza1]

Thank you. Appreciate the time it took for all of that. In short, I've had the computer for 3 months. The keyboard issue has happened twice. The video issue 4-5 times (as I mentioned, that's usually cleaned up with quitting and restarting Safari). Not being able to tab between apps, 3-4 times. Having to restart with power button because force quit/restart won't work, 2-3 times. Computer is 12 inches from keyboard and magic trackpad (zero issues with trackpad). All of that seems to be a bit much for a new computer, especially in that time frame.

Thanks to you and other posters, I have a few more things I can try. I posted mostly to see if I was the only one having these types of issues.

Your problems are quite rare... I assumed this was every day or every few days.
For 3 months you had keyboard issue 2x? My keyboard runs more often out of battery since no one bothers to charge it.
Video issues can be anything when playing in web browsers where server can try to run some advertisements or other crap in background and overloads the client while that is trying to play. You should not immediately blame mini for web play issues. If your video issues would be happening for local files playing in good quality app, may be. But in web browser? Using whatever crappy web player that site pushed to you? You are lucky it is this rare.
I have to restart my Safari occasionally, may be every 2 weeks, because some web site misbehaves and forces some corrupted data onto it... Safari itself restarts the some pages routinely because it identifies them as misbehaving and using too much power.
Force quitting and tab switching is bit surprising, those are quite baseline macos functions.
Basically, this frequency of problems is not out of line, if you are really using the mini. Windows, Macs, Linux. Stuff today is too complicated for its own good and if you really use it, bad things will happen occasionally.
Happiness is managing your expectations ;-)

 

[Fishrrman]

Disconnect TWO of the displays.

Run with only ONE display for ONE day.

Do things start running better?

If so, connect the second display.

Run for a day or two.

Do any problems come back?

(you ought to be getting the gist of my suggestions by now... probably something to do with your "display arrangements"...)

 

[TechnoMonk]

Take it to Apple. You should still be under warranty. This doesn’t sound normal at all.

 

[Honza1]

Take it to Apple. You should still be under warranty. This doesn’t sound normal at all.

If the problem is this rare, OP will not be able to document/show anything and they will not do anything. It is really difficult to force repair/replacement with vague, non catastrophic, description which cannot be demonstrated on spot. "My keyboard stops working" 2x in 3 months is not going to justify any action.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Those issues are certainly atypical.

The video issue 4-5 times (as I mentioned, that's usually cleaned up with quitting and restarting Safari). Not being able to tab between apps, 3-4 times. Having to restart with power button because force quit/restart won't work, 2-3 times. Computer is 12 inches from keyboard and magic trackpad (zero issues with trackpad). All of that seems to be a bit much for a new computer, especially in that time frame.

If the problem is this rare, OP will not be able to document/show anything and they will not do anything. It is really difficult to force repair/replacement with vague, non catastrophic, description which cannot be demonstrated on spot. "My keyboard stops working" 2x in 3 months is not going to justify any action.

Indeed, this will create more difficulty and require more time to troubleshoot.

Anyway...

1. New user account

I would actually start a brand new user account* and use it as a "vanilla" system for a little while to see if the problems come back or not.

* important: if you're setting up a test user account, name it "test" or something, because if it has the same name as your real user account from your backup, you'll run into conflicts when you try to migrate that back in.

For the most part, this is the easiest place to start. A conflicting/misconfiguration or third-party software is also the most likely culprit. Don’t migrate any settings and install only the apps you need (e.g., just FileMaker and Slack — alongside the included Apple apps, of course).

2. Reset to factory state

Does not sound normal.

What you "could" try to do:
Reboot into recovery mode.
Ersase the SSD.
Reinstall the macOS fresh again.
Take first a TM backup of your system. Or something similar

This is the old school method. It’s not necessary nor recommended on M-series err Apple Silicon Macs. In other words, don’t go manually deleting/erasing internal SSD containers/partitions, you’re likely to cause yourself more hassles. Instead:

Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support

Use Erase All Content and Settings to quickly and securely erase all of your settings, data, and apps, while maintaining the operating system currently installed.

support.apple.com

I'm using an Apple wireless keyboard. Plugging it in was the first thing I tried. Didn't change anything. I think I ended up restarting the computer.

So, when the keyboard becomes seemingly unresponsive, plugging it in doesn’t resolve the problem?

Can not tab through apps
Force quit does not seem to work
If I have a few tabs open in Safari and open Chrome to stream video, video is jumpy - quitting Safari and restarting it seems to fix this
I've had to manually restart with power button because computer won't restart or shutdown from dropdown menu

Some of this may be related.
Video issues can have many reasons and may be related to corrupted process spinning out of control, which can be also responsible for keyboard/Ui issues.

Agreed, UI lag and stalled or very delayed shut down process very well could be the same software conflict, which sends us back to 1 and 2 (i.e., fresh starts).

 

[Baywatchboy]

Those issues are certainly atypical.



Indeed, this will create more difficulty and require more time to troubleshoot.

Anyway...

1. New user account

For the most part, this is the easiest place to start. A conflicting/misconfiguration or third-party software is also the most likely culprit. Don’t migrate any settings and install only the apps you need (e.g., just FileMaker and Slack — alongside the included Apple apps, of course).

2. Reset to factory state

This is the old school method. It’s not necessary nor recommended on M-series err Apple Silicon Macs. In other words, don’t go manually deleting/erasing internal SSD containers/partitions, you’re likely to cause yourself more hassles. Instead:

Erase your Mac and reset it to factory settings - Apple Support

Use Erase All Content and Settings to quickly and securely erase all of your settings, data, and apps, while maintaining the operating system currently installed.

support.apple.com

So, when the keyboard becomes seemingly unresponsive, plugging it in doesn’t resolve the problem?


Agreed, UI lag and stalled or very delayed shut down process very well could be the same software conflict, which sends us back to 1 and 2 (i.e., fresh starts).

Appreciate it. No, plugging in the keyboard did not solve the issue.

 

[Baywatchboy]

Your problems are quite rare... I assumed this was every day or every few days.
For 3 months you had keyboard issue 2x? My keyboard runs more often out of battery since no one bothers to charge it.
Video issues can be anything when playing in web browsers where server can try to run some advertisements or other crap in background and overloads the client while that is trying to play. You should not immediately blame mini for web play issues. If your video issues would be happening for local files playing in good quality app, may be. But in web browser? Using whatever crappy web player that site pushed to you? You are lucky it is this rare.
I have to restart my Safari occasionally, may be every 2 weeks, because some web site misbehaves and forces some corrupted data onto it... Safari itself restarts the some pages routinely because it identifies them as misbehaving and using too much power.
Force quitting and tab switching is bit surprising, those are quite baseline macos functions.
Basically, this frequency of problems is not out of line, if you are really using the mini. Windows, Macs, Linux. Stuff today is too complicated for its own good and if you really use it, bad things will happen occasionally.
Happiness is managing your expectations ;-)

At the end of every day, I close all apps before putting computer to sleep. In regards to the video playing, I brought it up because I have not had this issue with any Mini I've had in the past. My last two Minis had 8 and 16GB respectively. I decided for 24 this time to give myself a little more "freedom". Yes, my issues are rare, but this is a brand new computer giving me issues I have never experienced with any Mac setup I've had in the past. I purchased refurbished Minis in the past to save money, but decided to splurge and get something new, partially because there was no refurbished computer that fit was I was looking for

 

[TechnoMonk]

If the problem is this rare, OP will not be able to document/show anything and they will not do anything. It is really difficult to force repair/replacement with vague, non catastrophic, description which cannot be demonstrated on spot. "My keyboard stops working" 2x in 3 months is not going to justify any action.

Worth a try. I would personally take it to Apple Store and open a case.

 

[popup]

First of all I would try disconnecting the TB monitors and use only the HDMI connector. I have similar problems with a USB-C hub. If I connect a USB enclosure and the mouse/keyboard receiver to the hub the mouse and the keyboard become erratic. So I am using only the HDMI of the hub for a second monitor.