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

I have this problem as well. Using a MacBook Air with M1 Big Sur updated to 11.0.1. Happens on both admin accounts. Disabled screensaver in both accounts. I don’t know what a hot corner is. How do you get out of screensaver when it’s locked up? It goes to the screensaver Drift while I’m in the middle of banking and also another investment site. No other apps open at the time.

on another forum they say it is related to multiple accounts, which is the case on mine: I have two sessions opened at the same time. I'll try using just one session at a time and see what happens;

interestingly I noticed I am able to move from my 1st session to my second via the little icon in the top nav bar, but the way back from my 2nd to my 1st session is not possible: the icon is hidden in this case.

Not sure, but there may be an issue with the management of multiple sessions/accounts.

Yeah- having single account may be a workaround, but is not a solution. I'm planning to do some further tests over the weekend as I need to remove my daughter’s account which is being used for remote lessons intra week. testing with user logged out as a workaround sounds also reasonable - looking forward for your feedback.

I am having this issue as well. I will be actively using my MacBook Air M1 and the screensaver will randomly turn on, rendering the computer unusable. No keystroke, trackpad input or anything will turn off the screensaver.

I will add, I have found that you do not have to completely shutdown the computer to turn off the screensaver. You can shut the laptop lid and open back up and it will turn it off. Even though this is a solution, this is not an ideal experience and certainly not the intended design.

Here's to hoping there will be a a fix to resolve this issue.

I have a MacBook Air 13 M1 with Big Sur updated to 11.1. Didn't have this problem when I bought the MBA but started getting it after I turned on hot corners (not to screensaver but to other functions). Had to use Touch ID button or close the lid to recover. Now I've turned off all hot corners and the problem seems to have gone away.

Try turning off all hot corners.

Confirmed - after updating to 11.1 I’ve re-enabled fast user switching and issue reoccured, so it is not fixed there. Earlier I had it disabled for nearly a week and haven’t encountered any occurrence of it, so I’m going to disable it back.

Apple support confirmed they are aware of the issue, however they couldn’t confirm which update is going to have a fix and when:-(

The same problem seems to happen over here. Randomly the screensaver comes on and you can't use the macbook anymore. even option+apple+esc does not work because that window is hidden behind the screensaver. The screensaver tab in settings also acts weird. If you choose a setting and turn it off again, that setting seems to stay on (in the preview window) untill the macbook is restarted.

using any "Hot corners"?

IMHO, you are correct. This appears to have all the hallmarks of a software issue. It's just a matter of when.

Having the exact same issue on my m1 mba!

Thanks, I’ll give that a try. My wife and I are fast switching profiles, we’ll try completely logging out of one user profile before logging into another.

This only seems to happen mostly you log in a second User on the SAME Big Sur Apple-Silicon M1 without logging off the first User (Fast User Switching).

I faced similar issue - Using M1 Big Sur 11.1

Were you able to resolve the issue?