User profile for user: mudbucker
mudbucker Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Purple Screen when attempting to export images

2020 M1 MacBook Air, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD, MacOS 14.7.4 (Sonoma)


The last two days I started having a weird problem when attempting to export images. It has happened in Preview as well as Graphic Converter 8. When I click on the export button, the screen goes purple. I took a screenshot and instead of getting a purple image, I saw a totally normal open finder window waiting for me to click on Save. If I pressed Esc, the purple screen went away and I saw the Preview window again. I tried the export a second time and when I got the purple screen, I simply hit return and the file was exported.


I just tried to run EtreCheck and it told me I was running on a Beta version of MacOS !!??!!??


I have attached a picture of the purple screen I took with my phone and also screenshots of About This Mac.








[Edited by Moderator]

MacBook Air 13″, macOS 14.7

Posted on Mar 19, 2025 11:49 AM

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User profile for user: mudbucker
mudbucker Author
User level: Level 1
25 points

Mar 19, 2025 4:08 PM in response to mudbucker

I have discovered what is causing the problem. The purple screen happens in the following situation:


— External monitor defaults to mirroring laptop


— Laptop is opened


— Select Export from the File pulldown menu in Preview !!!!!!!!!


Result:


— Monitor goes completely purple


— Laptop screen opens a window to choose where to export the image


— Either closing the laptop or typing ESC causes the monitor to return to normal, but the export window has closed


I also tried this with screen mirroring to an Apple TV box and 4KTV. In this case, the laptop screen turned purple and the 4KTV screen remained normal. Closing the laptop or typing ESC again return the screen to normal.


I’m not sure I even care why exporting an image file would cause this, but I know what to avoid.



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User profile for user: Luis Sequeira1
Luis Sequeira1
User level: Level 9
69,438 points

Mar 20, 2025 3:09 AM in response to mudbucker

Just another data point: I suppose that if you try this with only the laptop, not attached to another display, and not using Airplay, it all works normally?


This is a head scratcher.


I see that you have some old stuff, suggesting you migrated everything from a previous intel mac (the old and great Soundflower has not worked for a few years now).

This probably does not harm anything since it does not run, but there could be other stuff. It is always recommendable, when switching to a new mac, to migrate only the user accounts, for this reason - old stuff, often things that were installed years ago, may break, and you may not even realize you have it.


A few more tests:


1) Does the same issue occur when in Safe Mode?


2) Does the same issue occur if booted normally, and logged in to a new user account?

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Purple Screen when attempting to export images

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