New M1 MacBook Air keeps crashing and freezing... I can't force quit as the keyboard becomes unresponsive.
Help!
Anyone else out there struggling with this?
I keep checking for system updates but nothing yet...
MacBook Air 13″, 11.0
Erased and reinstalled OS at last 10
times. Apple sent it off for repairs twice. They couldn’t find any issues but still replaced logic board and touchpad both times. It still came back with same problems of freezing as soon as I used keyboard or touchpad. I was without a usable machine for almost two months from I bought it new. Spent many hours on phone with Apple support who didn’t have a clue and passed me around, often never getting back to me. They constantly refused to exchange it even though it was obvious the machine was a dud. Eventually they relented and I finally got a replacement. It works fine just as it should. And that was on 11.1 I remain convinced it was a hardware issue.
Bought MacBook Air M1 8gb in late Nov 2020. Had keyboard, touchpad, cursor freezing issues since day one. Spent hours on tech support line. They even put me thru to “an M1 expert” in California (I’m currently in UK) who proceeded to walk me thru his fix which bricked machine. Have erased and reinstalled over 10 times. Finally it was sent for repair as they refused to exchange it. Tech guys couldn’t find any problem but swapped out logic board and touchpad. It came back - 5 mins later while thing locked down and frozen again. Complained to Apple support who again refused to exchange it, insisting it went back for repairs. Apple supervisor promised to “own the case” but he hasn’t replied to me on over 7 days. Machine came back today from 2nd repair - another logic board and touchpad. 5 mins of setting it up - clean install, no backup, no non-Apple software and... same problem - Frozen and locked keyboard, touchpad and cursor. A total piece of junk and appalling support from Apple. I’ve been without a working machine since early December and I am a writer unable to work because of this.
Everytime I use an external hard drive #1 when I am copying stuff, it would freeze and restarts with kernel panic. When I use external hard drive #2, after eject the drive and the computer goes to Lock Screen, it would freeze and restarts with kernel panic. I was suspecting it was because of the NTFS reading software I installed. But after I Uninstalled the software, it is still having kernel panics. And Apple tech support told me to OPTION + COMMAND + P + R reset, i was having less freezes and it still happens. It sucks. I thought only I was having this issue.
M1 MacBook Air 256GB, 8G RAM
The only solution I have found is closing programs before putting it to sleep, which defeats the point of buying this thing in the first place.
Happened to me just now. the trackpad does not click when the laptop gets frozen. Had to plug in the charger to wake it up! wasup, apple?
I can confirm I also don’t have the problem anymore since Monterey. Restarted itself once since I use that OS but it was probably because of a different issue.
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.
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]
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.
Whether people have "self inflicted" issues over the years, it doesn't change the fact that this one isn't.
It doesn't seem to be as widespread as the butteryfly keyboard issue, but there are those getting a bum unit.
Look at this from another person's perspective. I've successfully used a mac for decades, I innocently buy a Macbook Air M1, and now people suspect I'm the biggest buffoon that cannot successfully use Safari without crashing my own machine.
Please, the machine was a lemon. Unlike these folks I didn't troubleshoot it, I sent it back to Apple as a return.
It either works, or it doesn't - simple as that.
Guys, I've been experiencing at least one time per day this issue, and this morning it happened again but this time I found a way to keep using the MacBook without making a hard power reset.
I pressed the Touch Bar and it stopped freezing. You should try when it freezes, it's working for me for now.
Hope Apple fix-it or at least recognize that bug.
Daniel.
I have noticed the same thing in Excel, Safari, and Firefox with M1 MacBook Pro. It is strange because you can still scroll through things but the keyboard and mouse input (clicking) does not work in the main body of the application. Activity Monitor does not show increased CPU or memory usage and does not show the application as frozen. The menu bar works. This allows me to save, quit, and relaunch the application. I am still in the return period so I may sent it back.
I restarted in safe mode and that seemed to resolve it at first, but there is still freezing and crashing although less frequent (I did a clean install to begin with, so there was no migration process).
It just seems that the computer gets overwhelmed when performing some tasks. I can't pin it to a particular software, it can be Mail, Safari, whatever...
For instance, although InDesign and Zoom seem to work fine on their own, when I am doing a screen share on Zoom to show my InDesign document it can freeze. The person I'm talking to can still see my cursor move but for me the screen is frozen and it remains frozen no matter how long I wait for. Only a forced restart will do.
So there are lots of stressful things like that, especially if you're using it as a work computer... I have very fond memories of my 2014 MacBook Air now :{
Reinstalling is not the answer, I specifically did a clean install on a brand new M1 mini and it has been constantly crashing. It is either a hardware fault or a software issue, but radio silence from Apple is less than impressive.
I am also at my wit's end with the new Macbook Air and M1 chip (16 GB Ram, 1TB storage)! Apple should not have released this product with so many problems. I've spent days over the past month contacting Apple support for help - Apple even replaced my new laptop with another new laptop and the problems persist! At first, it seemed like Time Machine might have been causing an issue. I set up my computer with a Time Machine backup of my old MacBook air, and that was definitely problematic. After doing 2 factory resets (because the support technician who walked me through the first one wasn't updated on the new protocol for the M1 chip), I set up my mac manually - which at first seemed to help. The computer was running much more quickly than with the Time Machine setup. However, after a week, it began randomly crashing again! I use Microsoft office and Onedrive regularly (thank god, because every time this machine has crashed, at least my work has been saved!). However, I wonder if that's causing the issue? I know Microsoft released a new office suite designed specifically for the M1 chip, but I have not seen an update with the Onedrive. Does anyone have any information about this? I sincerely regret trading in my 2015 MacBook air, as I have no other computer to work with. This has been a nightmare and has caused much emotional distress and loss of productivity.
I've got the M1 MacBook Air and the OS went down Tuesday night. Black screen. A restart took me to two icons - the hard drive and settings. From there I tried several times to reinstall Sur. No go as it kept crashing and restarting to the two icons. I contacted the support centre and with their assistance wiped the hard drive and started from scratch. Still didn't work. Ended up taking the 'puta into the Apple store where they treated the laptop as if it was new. Wiped the hard drive, reinstalled the OS and software as well as Sur. I had to re-set up everything and it was working fine until just now. It's crashed several times as I've tried to log into this page for support/feedback. It still intermittently recognises my finger print. Really frustrating and irritating! It's back to Customer Support to see WTH is going on.
New MacBook Air (M1, 2020) crashing all the time!
