Reports have started to emerge that some M1 Mac users are experiencing a strange issue that makes a screensaver randomly appear and take over the entire computer’s display — even if you’ve never set one up.
While MacRumors was the first publication to report on the issue following posts to its forums, there are also reports on Reddit and Apple’s support forums. The glitch seems to primarily affect the M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini.
Has anyone ever seen this? It just recently appeared on my secondary account on my new m1 pro. I can’t exit it unless I switch back to primary account and back to secondary account. from r/MacOS
Strangely, there’s even one user that has encountered the problem with the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which features an Intel processor. This indicates that there’s a possibility the source of the screensaver bug could be macOS and not Apple’s M1 chip.
MacRumors forum member ‘dawideksl’ shared a video of the glitch on YouTube.
While my experience with Apple’s M1 MacBook hasn’t been perfect, I haven’t encountered this particular issue. If you do run into the permanent screensaver, closing the lid of your MacBook and re-opening it should solve the problem. If you have a Mac mini things get a little more complicated.
MacRumors also reports that if your Mac has two profiles, disabling fast profile switching in the ‘System Preferences’ can solve the issue.
Regarding issues I’ve experienced with the M1 MacBook Pro I’ve been using for the last few months, I’m still unable to get my Benq EW3280U 4K HDR monitor to connect to the M1 MacBook Pro at more than 30Hz despite it being capable of 60Hz. This seems to be a somewhat widespread issue with specific 4K monitors, so hopefully, Apple releases a fix soon.
On the plus side, the Bluetooth problems I initially ran into seem to have been fixed though.
Source: Reddit, Apple support forums, MacRumors forums Via: MacRumors