Big Sur (11.1) returns to Login screen

Hello Mark,

Thank you for using Apple Support Communities.

We’ll be happy to look into this with you and see what we can find out together.

Have you seen and tried any of the steps found in If your Mac restarted because of a problem?

What about How to reset the SMC of your Mac? Have you tried that step?

Have you tried testing in safe mode to see if you get the same behavior? How to use safe mode on your Mac if you need it.

What about setting up a test user account to see if you get the same results when leaving the Mac for a while. See Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac if you should happen to need it.

Let us know how it goes trying those steps, and if we can help further.

Take care!

is it possible that since the upgrade it's now asking for a password? if so, go into System Preferences>Security & Privacy in the "general" tab, and see if "require password" is checkmarked. if it is, uncheck it. it will then stop asking for your password.

Hi Mark, 

Thank you for sharing that information. To make sure we understand from your first message, did you do a fresh reinstall of Big Sur since this began? 

When you leave the Mac unattended, are you placing in Sleep mode?

Thanks!

Hello Mark,

You are very welcome!

Since this is intermittent, we understand wanting to have the logs examined. Apple Support Communities is a community of Apple users reaching out to help one another. For assistance with Apple Support Advisors, click on Get Support. 

If you would like to continue here, we will certainly do our best to try and narrow down what might be causing the behavior.

Cheers!

Hi Mark, 

While there are some users here in the community that is well versed in reading the logs you have shared, this is not something we would be comfortable trying to diagnose by reviewing the logs.

For further assistance, you can contact Apple Support here: Get Support.

Take care!

screenshot added to above post.