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Screensaver comes on randomly and prevents use in Big Sur and M1

We have a new MacBook Pro M1 with Big Sur 11.0.1 and already in a half dozen instances the screensaver has come on in the midst of using the computer, despite having screensavers turned off. When the screensaver appears randomly, the computer becomes unusable and has to be restarted to function again.

Anyone else have this issue?

Interestingly, I am the guest user of this MBP and this started to happen on my GF's side after I once turned the screensaver on in my partition. I have since turned my screensaver setting off but it still happens. I think this should provide a clue to the engineers, because it only happens in the main user partition.

MacBook

Posted on Nov 24, 2020 8:39 AM

Best reply

Michael Tchong Author

Level 1

74 points

Posted on Nov 28, 2020 6:51 PM

Hi Grant, while you insist that Apple engineers cannot be reached by posting here, I do want to remind you that in 2013 Apple acquired Topsy, a social media monitoring firm to listen in on social media conversations and parse through the entire web to monitor sentiment. I can assure you that while individual engineers do not read these forums, product marketing generates reports of overheard bugs that cause negative sentiment. 🙂

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179 replies

Jan 29, 2021 6:11 AM in response to johan201

Anyone know how to undo the /Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver loginWindowIdleTime 0 fix?

Jan 29, 2021 7:40 AM in response to Ralph6410

You should be able to set the screensaver start time in the usual way with system preferences.

zephyr70

Level 1

4 points

Jan 29, 2021 10:37 AM in response to Ralph6410

I think you should be able to set SS time as you normally do from system preferences.

Jan 30, 2021 12:59 PM in response to Michael Tchong

Yes same happened here... in middle of online chat to my internet provider ... wasn’t even away from screen. So annoying ! Had to turn off and back on ... disabled screen saver but still happens 🤨🧐

Jan 30, 2021 5:15 PM in response to zephyr70

This seems to have worked for me (Macbook Pro M1). If you can live without a screensaver....

ccamart

Level 1

4 points

Jan 30, 2021 8:59 PM in response to cameronfrompaloalto

Eventually, you know it is a software issue and you also know this will be fixed in a software update. Don’t return or exchange your brand new macbook over this...

Jan 31, 2021 5:43 AM in response to cameronfrompaloalto

Adding this /Library/Preferences/com.apple.screensaver loginWindowIdleTime 0 at the command line worked for me and has not stopped my screensaver from working.

Feb 4, 2021 6:40 AM in response to Michael Tchong

I just got a brand new M1 two days ago and ran into this issue. Yesterday the laptop froze while my wife was using it and we had to restart to get it working again. Not a good start.