New MacBook Air (M1, 2020) crashing all the time!

I am experiencing the same exact thing. My MacBook Air (M1, 2020) is locking up in safari... Keyboard becomes unresponsive, but I can press Escape and it will go back until it gets to a point where it completely freezes. Have to turn it off and back on to get it to do anything.

Had this exact same issue. Regardless of app - sometimes just system windows. Everything would become unresponsive and I'd get the beach ball. This was on an M1 Pro. I ended up returning it and am waiting for bugs to get worked out, whether it's software or hardware. The idea of troubleshooting a brand new laptop is absolutely absurd to me and would rather wait for Apple to get it right rather than me have to put up with it as the consumer.

My wife's brand new M1 Air 16GB is spontaneously restarting every 4-8 hours of use. I posted about it here: M1 MacBook Air - two abrupt restarts in 24 hours.

I've got a day or two more of troubleshooting to try then we will return it. Maybe buy a refurb Intel Air or Intel MacBook Pro.

Two questions for someone not experiencing crashes:

1. Do you use Fast-User switching?
2. Are you using Microsoft Office 365 (installs OneDrive)?

We have about one spontaneous restart every 4-5 days. Far higher than on my older Intel Air, but better than many here. We did use migration assistant to go from High Sierra. I've seen improvement after reinstalling macOS and one of the recent Big Sur updates. This is still not an acceptable behavior though.

The last step is a full wipe and reinstall -- but that's at least a full day of my life. At my age I don't have that many life days to burn!

I'm going to give it at least one more macOS/firmware update before going there.

This is absolutely horseradish. I got a new 2020 M1 MBP 16gb RAM in early April. Returned it for a replacement towards the end of April after having tried the 4-5 troubleshoots that apple support suggested. I used my computer for about 6-7 hours a day nothing too computationally challenging and it would freeze up/beachball at least 4 times a day. I even had few third party apps. Literally a policy key, Avira, and Zoom. I had to purchase a 2020 M1 MB air for work during the 2 weeks it would take for apple to send a replacement (ridiculous that they don't have the 16gb RAM in store). AND EVEN THE air started to hit 4-5 freeze-related restarts and a new issue: freezing after inputting my password on the login/lock screen. The 2020 M1 MBP 16gb RAM replacement just came in this week. Haven't had freezing issues yet, but within 1 hour of using it, It froze after inputting my password on the login/lock screen... I guess I'll update at the end of the month.

Have you tried running it with Bluetooth off? If you really need to get work done, and it's your only machine, I've found that that's made a huge difference over the past two days.

For Mac mini owners (like me) with a similar problem: obvs you need to have wired peripherals to make it work, but if you do, it's worth a try.

I am also experiencing this on m1 air, it occurs a lot when sharing a link on iMessage, the cancel button is unresponsive and the entire browser locks up, I have installed the beta and I advise all new m1 users to do the same and file bug reports with everything you find and help solve these issues.

seems to me there are a lot of problems MacBook M! users are having that are not being reviewed or even published by on line computer mags. many MacBook air users are very happy with the M1 chip on various online forums and report no problems.

the only solution would be to try to pinpoint the problem like too many open tabs in safari, or 3rd party apps.

turning off bluetooth is a 2003 solution to a computer problem and should not be an option in 2020.

[Edited by Moderator]

FWIW, all of those with issues should download Etrecheck

from the MacApp Store, run it and post the results here

using the additional text icon at the bottom of these windows.

I find more often than not that there is some third party app

or extension either knowingly or unknowingly installed that

are causing such issues or said apps are simply not compatible

with the M1 or for that matter macOS Big Sur.

My MacBook Air (8 CPU/8 GPU/ 8 GB RAM) model is running great and

beyond all my expectations. So, there is something unique

on your individual systems that is causing problems.

snowleapard2020 wrote:

thanks for this reply, i am still on the fence over purchasing a new MacBook air.

all i read here is users problems with the M1 MacBook air.

That is because this is a help community. People only post

here when there is a problem. Like a hospital, how many

healthy people check in for no reason when they are healthy.

If people have working machines and are happy, they have no reason

to post here.

Also, after spending many years here helping people, a majority of

the time most issues are "self inflicted". Of course there are cases

of true bugs but they tend to get ironed out. Problem is, unlike

days of yore, the vast majority of people are not computer savvy

and often do things, often without even knowing it, that create

issues.

billykioso wrote:

Thanks, I've done as you suggested and downloaded EtreCheck. I have pasted the report below.

For one, check with Wacom to make sure their product is not just M1

compatible but also Big Sur compatible. Sometimes hardware devices

can gum up the works if they are try to communicate with drivers and

drivers tryin to connect but neither see each other.

I noticed some Google stuff and I know their Backup and Sync (Google Drive)

is problematic on M1 Macs and some non-M1 running Big Sur.

Dropbox may also have similar issues as Google Drive does. A quick Google came up

with a Dropbox beta release for clearing up M1 issues.

The Adobe CC stuff had some initial issues but it seems macOS 11.0.1 fixed

somethings and the CC update fixed others.

Freezing even when in System Preferences and nothing running. Booted in Safe Mode and all is good. All problems disappeared. But I cannot figure out what is causing the problem. Check the normal areas in /System/Library and ~/Library, nothing found. Nothing launching. Ideas?