M1 Mac mini display issue

Did you try pulling the power cord for 1 minute? Maybe the nvram will reset then... What do you see in System Report / Displays?

"Just updated to 11.2.1 but issue remains."

Try 11.3b. Worked for me.

Hi there,

I have a very similar issue. Mac Mini M1 basic 8GB model.

The very first time when I switched on my brand new mac mini and went through the set up, everything was fine. Then I installed Adobe Creative Cloud, Photoshop and InDesign. I did several test about the performance of this computer and I was more than satisfied.

Next day when I switched on and try to log in to my account for the first time it started to show some short magenta lines, and restarted itself without logging me in. The whole thing repeated 4-5 times until I could finally log in. Just after every restart when you can see the white apple logo on the black screen, my monitor lost the signal for a sec or something.

I tried many times to shut down my mini wait a few minutes, or just restart from the menu, I could never log in for the first time, I always saw that signal lost, and the magenta lines just after typing my password.

I called apple support several times and finally I took it to the service. They did some tests reinstall the OS, did some test again, and said my Mac Mini is just perfect. There is no any issue. They suggested to try another HDMI cable and/or different displays.

I've just done all this things today. I could log in at every single attempts today, but I always had the signal lost and the magenta lines on three different monitors, with two different cables. No other displaying issues after logging in. So, basically there is nothing that can affect my user experience if I close my eyes just when I turn on my brand new computer, and type my password. But I'm not happy with this.

I really hope that this is some kind of OS issue and not a hardware problem, so it will be fixed in the next version.

Best,

Zoltan

Exactly the same issue here. I have to admit that it’s concerning. The only time I’ve ever seen something similar before is faulty GPU.

i had it over USB C from install. It was a pink line across some of the setup prompts. Now it seems to be from cold. I’ve changed now and have 2 monitors and it appears on the primary monitor.

I've got an appointment at the Apple store later this morning. The trouble is that it's intermittent so there's no guarantee it will happen on demand.

My gut feel is that this is a hardware issue and that there are yield issues. Some of them are being put into the Macbook Air (which has 1 GPU core disabled), but some are leaking into the wild in the Mac Mini.

I hope I'm wrong.

All I can say is that it looks like a hardware issue to me (I've had a few failed GPU's in my time), I've seen it happen on both USB C and HDMI, and on two different monitors. It seems to be there from a cold start but disappears once things are warmed up. I've seen pink squares and pink lines.

Yeah agreed. If it's bothering you or you have a bad case of it probably best to return if possible.

My replacement machine is definitely better than the first. The problem has appeared twice so far, once at the first (very) cold boot 5 mins out of the Amazon van last night (7pm), and once this morning. Both rectified by a reboot and it has yet to re-appear in todays session following said reboot at 08:30am. Same keyboard, mouse, screen, apps, settings as the first machine.

When the issue does appear there's less squares onscreen and they cover a smaller area. They also only appear at the top now, first machine had them both top and bottom.

At this stage I think I'm going to keep the device though. Main risk being if it fails outside the 12mo warranty of course, with any serious failure within that period covered. Theres always the chance of a software fix or fault acknowledgement in the meantime. Unfortunately for me I sold my Surface to return to the Mac after 6 years so don't have another machine to revert to.

If I was to guess I'd say it's a problem with some display controller. If it was a shared memory issue I'd expect the artefacts to show up in screenshots which they do not, it's almost as if the image leaves the M1/RAM just fine, but fails to reach the display intact.

Im no expert, just an observation.

Hoping for a resolution for everyone.

Best.

Hi there,

Another interesting (albeit very annoying) issue.

I am currently testing a workaround on my BenQ 1080p 144hz panel where I have the Displayport-to-USBC cable @ 120Hz as "Display 1" on the Mac, but then a HDMI-to-HDMI cable on the same monitor (60Hz) set as "Display 2" on the Mac. I have then enabled "mirror display".

No pink squares after many reboots (may be somehow tapping into what various commenters have mentioned about their second display being OK?), but I have had my first full-on system crash/auto reboot. The crash log seemed to reference "Thunderbolt" a few times.

Not holding much hope that the pink squares are totally gone at this stage, however, desktop switching is now buttery smooth where it was glitchy before, and I am able to re-enable shadows in World of Warcraft without the screen flickering.

I am presuming this is safe to do (can't see why not though at your own risk as ever :D) though if so it would be interesting if anyone else had positive results trying it.

Best.

Thanks, Kasnicof, but I got the opposite. I had problems with two monitors, but never had the pink squares. I tried your solution just in case it could fix my issue with multiple monitors, and when I turn "separate spaces" off, the monitors kept going crazy and I saw the pink squares for the first time. Since I didn't have that problem before I got the scare of my life. I manage to get the image back, access Mission Control, turn "separate spaces" back on, and now the pink squares disappeared. I still have trouble with dual displays, but at least the squares are gone (with "separate spaces" ON). I can't believe Apple put this untested product in the market.

@Adam-Strange, yes, very quick full-screen flash of pink immediately before power down.

That just looks like a screen memory muffler quick-clear before unloading rom and powering down or something.

I'm really not seeing anything that makes me think the machines are going to melt and blow up. If you're having ongoing, persistent issues, just return or swap out the machine. Numbers of machines coming back in will be a WAY more important barometer of severity to Apple than all of us int his echo chamber.

We're all in this thread for the same reason.

Return the machine.

Unit counts are what will matter to Apple.

Just do it.

That’s my hope too. I never notice possible HW issues when using the computer. The performance is nice. On my mini the pink squares only return for a moment when I boot/reboot.

Not knowing if it’s a HW issue (that might get worse in the future) is the most annoying part of it all. The return window is slowly closing.

On the 2018 Mini the HDMI is busted after upgrading to Big Sur. Downgrading the OS fixes it again.

The HDMI chip in the M1 mini is the same one. So those problems could certainly be related.

Had the same issue , went to Apple they replaces the Mac with a new one, went home and it did the same thing in the same spot as before. Starting to think it is a screen compatibility thing not hardware defect. The first one also had numerous kernel panics can a screen compatibility issue do that?

If at all possible, take your monitor with you and/or test it on a selection of monitors before you go. Last thing you want is a store rep being unable to reproduce it using "apple suggested" equipment, or apple equipment.

Ok i think i found a fix for that. In my case ive noticed that only when I have white images or equally bright scenes the screen seems to loose power and it flashes. If the image is dark that wont happen. Try to underscale the image in monitor preferences. the black border helps. Also If you put the monitor in 50hz the flash is less frequent.

i dont know what the **** is happening with the Mac mini M1 but my guess is software and Bluetooth issues that seem to disrupt the sistem.

Maybe it's time to look deeper. I think the video artifacts that most people in here are complaining about are pretty low-end issues and will be resolved in upcoming updates, firmware updates, or maybe in next-gen hardware. I just don't see them as any sort of show stopper. Signal issues, collisions, varying cable/monitor combinations, cleanliness of input power, and so forth.

Yes, some people are having weirder, image/video related issues. They should be addressed with all due urgency.

But the other issues being mentioned, perhaps in conjunction with the video artifacts, maybe they're indicative of other things.

Maybe an inventory of what you've loaded.

Maybe a listing of what accessories are in use, if all issues persist when all/some/none of them are in use.

Maybe a detailed analysis of time after boot, time after power up, time after sleeping, idle time, load/stress time.

Or consider returning the units if they're not perfect....? They should be kick ***, because Apple knows how to build this stuff.

In any case, I suspect that Apple needs more information than they're currently getting (or to supplement what they're currently getting), or they need to inundated with non-perfect return numbers so they know it's a serious-to-the-buyers issue(s) and that the market place won't accept products without more broad based testing.

For myself, I have the following software packages and hardware accessories in use, and I see the pink squares only at the login screen, roughly on 5% of reboots and power-on boots:

Xcode

Android Studio

Flutter

VSCode (m1 native experimental build)

Sublime Text 3

Pixelmator Pro

SetApp

Lastpass

Backblaze

Slack

Apple 104-key keyboard

Apple trackpad 2

Generic, $14 amazon bluetooth mouse

Dell U2518D 1440 monitor and the HDMI cable that came with it

Lenovo Q24 1440 monitor and an amazon USB-C cable driving it

Apple USB to Lightning cable hung off the computer for occasional hookup to my iPhone SE2

Ethernet cable going in to Google WiFi

Generic USB external drive enclosure holding a 500gb Other World Computing SSD for Time Machine

Everything works great. As mentioned, on roughly 1 in 15-20 reboots, I'll see a couple pink squares only on the login screen.

They are back ! The Mac mini m1 started to have the purple pixels and sudden blank screens again..

The fix below didn't work :

• There was an audio splitter (3.5mm) connected to the audio output of the monitor and since I removed it these strange squares stopped appearing (since few days)

I'm planning to try these :

• Try different HDMI Cables
• Run the Mac mini m1 with a Samsung LED TV and check for the purple pixels / blank screens