M1 Mac mini display issue

jup, white-pink flashing of the entire screen for a very short split second every 10 min or so, sound also drops, changed HDMI 2.0 cables as well as the ports on my TV no improovement, tried thunderbold to HDMI same problem and blur on 4K ! can´t be the TV other devices work fine

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.

OK. I am done with it and returning my M1 Mac mini. After purple squares on login on my 1080p screens, hooked on a brand new Dell 4K monitor. Seems to be working fine for a few days, now I have flickering on dark areas, small lines, sometimes ghosting or weird color shifts. Monitor works fine on other machines. I tried different cables (hdmi/tb3), bought some new (8K) 0.5 meter ones. Can't trust this is a software issue anymore.

Will try again when M1x/M2 will hit the shelves.. :)

The pink squares during booting (start at the login screen, disappear soon after having logged in) are still my only issue. I've been using it for over a week now without seeing them, but that's because I've been putting my Mini into sleep mode instead of shutting it down.

Tonight Apple called me, because they were looking at this thread. Some questions were asked about the issue.

This indicates that Apple is looking into it, fingers crossed they'll figure out what's causing it.

I could quickly make the pink squares appear again after rebooting a couple of times.

Apple asked if the mouse cursor goes over or "behind" the pink squares. I wasn't able to answer that because whenever I tried to move my cursor to one of the pink squares they were blinking and moving.

*update: I tried again and managed to get my cursor on the pink squares now. So if Apple is reading this thread again: the cursor goes over the pink squares, not behind them.

Apple reached out to me yesterday also. I returned mine though so I couldn’t provide logs, although had lots of details and pictures / videos to share.

For me (probably you as well) the mouse travels over the pink squares. I’ve also had white and gray squares, but usually those happened before the OS loaded or in recovery mode while running diagnostics or when reinstalling the OS.

My M1 has been working perfectly for 6 weeks with a HDMI connection to a ProArt 32 in monitor. Today it booted into a pinkish screen. I tried HDMI cable changes and also via an adapter to USB-c with no improvement. Then I shut down the mini using the power button and after a minute restarted. That solved it.

Hoping for an other perfect 6+ weeks.

Same problem here. It started randomly when I was working with App Updates so the unit wasn't on for more than an hour. I switched my display settings from "Default for this display" to "Scaled" with the native monitor resolution and refresh rate. Haven't seen the artifacts since, but this is troubling because artifacts are usually indicative of hardware (in this case GPU) malfunction.

The pink squares issue still persists here. They are visible every now and then during log-in. The mac is Mac Mini M1 8GB.

And I'm having very weird connectivity problems with the ethernet connection.

Now I'm having a line of black squares flash randomly and a row of pink squares when scrolling web pages. It would be comforting to know this is a software bug, but I'm worried its a hardware problem. I have the 8GB model.

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.

"Everything works great". Ya, except for random artifacts plaguing the workspace. Say what you will about Windows and their affiliates, but my HP workstations don't have display issues out of the box. The monitors and our accessories meet the standards listed by HP, and work with the compatible products showing the same standards.

The fanboys will waive this issue away, but this is simply unacceptable. I've used Apple hardware in an enterprise setting for over 14 years and have had my share of issues over time, but nothing like this right out the gate. Is it hardware or Big Sur? Maybe both? Apple is supposed to be a cut above, so I guess I was expecting better. This seems rushed.

Yeah, there are issues with HP, Dell, and everybody else with drivers, hardware, etc. That's why they include driver/software update utilities on the computers by default when you get them.

The more I think about this the more I think it's just a driver issue. As an example of a driver issue, I installed Linux on an old computer last night and had the same kind of artifacts (these being black and white) on my screen. I updated to a better driver and everything was fine. I get that we shouldn't have this kind of problem out of the gate with these but at least Apple is taking it seriously.

I returned mine, as I noted previously in the thread, but I'll probably get another one in a month or two. I'm not totally throwing Apple out on this one.

So far I'm not having same issues on Macbook Pro M1 8GB - internet trough USB-LAN is working great but not with the Mini... and Pro has not the pink squares -issue (at least not with the native dispaly)

Internet connection seems to be much slower on the Mini LAN and it stalls completely every now and then.

I've experienced this issue as well. Assuming it is a OS issue as mine comes and goes like you said and corrects itself eventually. Doesn't appear to be a permanent issue like burn in, pixels out or a hardware limitation on the M1.

Hopefully some Apple updates will fix this bug in Big Sur. :)

*For reference, I have the 16GB M1 Mac Mini and is still happening on it.

I'm really starting to think it are hardware problems, because now I always have this screen full of noise when I want to wake the Mini from sleep.

This hasn't been a problem at all before, I've only been encountering the pink squares until now.

Absolutely nothing has changed. Still on MacOS 11.1, nothing changed to the monitor or all other things that are plugged in,...

I always need to replug the HDMI cable now, something that wasn't an issue during the first couple of weeks.

It's starting to get really tempting to return it after all.

This video on Youtube shows the exact same issues (pink squares and screen full of noise when waking from sleep)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e68IrduzYas

(This is not my video)