Macbook Pro crashes when connected to external display with HDMI

How are you hooking up via HDMI. Does your Mac have built-in HDMI, or are you using some form of hub that supports HDMI?

If a hub, is it powered by the AC adapter for the Mac?

If no hub, is the lid of the Mac open, that you can try to see if you can get the image back up on the Mac?

Have you tried hooking up the Mac to another display via HDMI to see if the display itself is the problem, or the HDMI cable is the problem?

Same problem, began with a Sonoma update in the fall 2023. Direct connection between MacBook & External Display (LG Ultrafine 5K) via USB-C ports - Using a 2021 M1 Pro MacBookPro 14" (currently on MacOS v14.4.1) - Occurs mostly on video content played through Safari, triggered (semi-consistently) after switching videos to full screen mode. Causes full system crashes (that haven't occurred in MacOS in over a decade). Video sound will continue for a while but screen/mouse/system is fully frozen otherwise. Only fix is a power button reset. Was considering a full system rebuild but sounds like this really is a MacOS wide bug, not limited to my installation of MacOS.

I've experienced the same crashes when connected to external displays on my M1 MBP 14, using both USB-C and HDMI (HDMI is even flakier). I've found that if I unplug the cable, it unfreezes, then I can plug back in and everything is fine. That is, until a few minutes later when it freezes again. Rinse and repeat.

Is Energy Saver set to put hard drives to sleep?

Does it work better when that is not set?

Update:

Repair changed the logic board and everything else that is attached (or soldered) to it, which is a lot of the machine nowadays. The problem persists. It's important to notice that it happens on the HDMI or the USB-C port, all of them, on any monitor I tested (Samsung, LG and a brand new Apple Studio Display).

I took the computer on the main official repair shop, the main Apple shop in the state. I reproduced the error with the crew. They took notes, tested for a few days and gave me back saying that it passed all tests, including the one I showed them that it did not. Shamelessly, I showed them that the problem persisted. They gave up and told me to call Apple by phone (yes, you read it right, Apple recommended me to call them by phone).

I called them and they admitted that they've similar reports and are working on the issue. After two calls, they asked me for the external monitors specifications in order to reproduce the problem. I sent them but already told that, obviously it would not fix the problem and I wouldn't wait much longer.

It's messing with my workflow and I demanded a fix ASAP. It's completely frustrating. I'm on Apple Care. If I wasn't, I'd have already gave up the machine.

I hope some Apple employee read this here too.

Original/basic M1 macBook over the past month or so SCREEN FREEZES w/audio playback:

• multiple browsers: Chome/Safari/Edge
• multiple services: Hulu, Netflix, Crunchyroll, Paramount+, etc.

About the only site that doesn't fail within 40 minutes of continuous full screen playback is YouTube. All others HANG when I use the touchpad, bringing up the overlay interface. Just let it play a while, then try to pause or interact in any way, and the screen freezes, leaving audio playing...

Safari recovers best, as it CRASHES to a logon screen. For the other browsers I must close the lid and WAIT quite a while for the logon session to exit.

Been going on for about 6 weeks, easily repeatable and very annoying.

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Err, should have mentioned I'm playing back on a duplicated 4k screen with settings to optimize for the external screen via usbc -> Lenova Hub -> HDMI

The laptop freezes even worse than the external, as after some time a new frame is often rendered on the external - mind you, not animated, just a freeze frame - while the laptop screen never changes - mirrored screen shouldn't do that

The app 4K Videodownloader is known to cause issues.

This problem is happening on all MacBook Pro M1. Ask for immediate replacement. Apple is ignoring consumer rights.

Hi AJSP,

Bring your monitors to the shop when they say it is repaired.

Alternatively you can call AppleCare and ask them to repair it through mail in.

I find calling AppleCare is typically faster since they usually have better availability of parts.

Request a case number before you hang up.

Follow up on it. This is just a user to user forum with Apple moderation. If no solution appears to be present, please start a new topic thread. Long threads are difficult to find the right answer. Please share the link to start a new topic, if you get another person replying to the thread who isn't giving you an answer and is just saying me too.

AJSP wrote:

Did you solve it? I have the same issue. The local assistance said that they would replace the main board but I'm not sure if it will solve it.

I have exactly the same problem. I have a 2021 MacBook Pro M1 (Sonoma 14.2.1) . When I plug my computer into HDMI, it freezes after some time and I have to hard reboot. The system usually crashes when I move the mouse (Bluetooth Logitech Mouse) when playing a QT-Movie but sometimes it just crashes without mouse movement. Because of this I can't use my MacBook Pro for professional presentations. This is not up to the Apple standards I'm used to for the last 20 years...

I thought it was a software issue but even after all the system updates the problem keeps persisting. I'm thinking that it's a hardware problem but it seems that's affecting a lot of users...

Please resolve this Apple!

I have the exact same issue with my MacBook M1 MAX. I bought it refurbished off of eBay 2 weeks ago. When I turned off mirroring it stopped. I am still a bit worried that my 2k (originally 4k) machine was crashing like this.

I could still return it in the next week as per their policy. Should I? Help, please! Any input is greatly appreciated.

I've been experiencing this issue too ever since I hooked up my new OLED (120hz) monitor to my M3 Max Mac Studio via HDMI. Whenever I return to my computer after it's been asleep, I get this crashing warning prompting a restart. Oddly, it doesn't happen every time, just occasionally. I never encountered this problem with other monitors connected via Thunderbolt before.

Oh! before that I also had the LG C2 at 120hz but it never happened with that tv. My guess is that Apple messed it up on the latest update.

This really does appear to be related to the M1 hardware and Sonoma as it doesn’t seem to happen on the M2 or later. Currently I am unable to use my M1 for presentations that include QuickTime. It used to be fine on previous OS but now it’s very broken.

Same problem here using an expensive usb-c to vga adapter - when connected to a beamer and playing a quicktime video it freezes. Tried varous adapters. Screen gets stuck - had to do hard reset. Saw this the last thime with old mbps that had gpu problems. Never had this problem before updating to Sonoma. Very anoying with 30 kids in class trying to explain them something and rebooting all the time. Solution was switching to an old School iMac i5 -> there it worked without problems ... a shame Apple.

MBP 16" M1 Max 32GB - > Sonoma 14.5 (23F79)

Have you received help with the problem?

I am currently teaching a summer class in Sweden and have the same problem. The only solution I've come up with is to insert the videos I want to show into PowerPoint and play them from there. That way, the computer doesn't crash. But it's quite a cumbersome method considering how it should actually work.