Screensaver freezes on startup

Yes, I am having the same problem - the first issue, where the screensaver freezes and I have to "erase" with the pointer to get to the login buttons. I have the current generation of macbook air running OS Lion. I thought maybe it had something to do with running Parallels (Windows 7), which has been starting up automatically, which I have it set not to do as far as I know, but maybe not, if other people are having this problem without Parallels. Looks like there are some other people on this forum with the same problem - I am going to check those posts for now. I have applecare and will contact them if I don't find any answers in the forum and post the results here.

Maybe you have seen this already. There are some suggestions regarding the iphoto and screensaver preferences in your user library on this page:

http://tinyurl.com/d62785n

Has detailed instructions. I haven't tried it yet.

I'm not having the problem now, and I didn't try any of the fixes in the user library/preferences, because I don't know what I'm doing with that and I was afraid I would delete the wrong thing. One thing I did change was that I had set the energy saver preferences to put the computer to sleep - never, to turn off the hard drive - never, and to put the display to sleep - either 3 hrs or never - because of installs and backups I had been doing. I had forgotten about that. I don't need that now so I set it to put the computer to sleep after ~ 1 1/2 hrs, put the display to sleep after ~20 min, and to turn off the hard drive when possible. I also think I may have closed it and left it overnight without turning it off when I had the problem. Does any of this apply to you?

try a PRAM reset.

PRAM http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

(OT) I like your haircut!

I wonder if this has anything to do with it:

http://http://tidbits.com/article/12412

Subtle Irritations in Lion

by TidBITS Staff 17 Aug 2011

Screen Wakes Require Keyboard Access -- This is truly minor, but it threw us and several colleagues briefly. Before Lion, if your Mac’s screen had gone to sleep, you could bring it back to life by moving the mouse or touching the trackpad, as well as by pressing a key on the keyboard or clicking the mouse button. Since there was always a worry that a subsequent key press might insert a character in an unwanted location (we writers hate that), we generally opted for the mouse or trackpad. But Lion now ignores mouse or trackpad motion for waking the screen, forcing us to click the pointing device button or tap a key on the keyboard..

Nicholas Riley 2011-08-17 16:14

I can imagine why Apple made the change to waking behavior: I've got an Apple wireless mouse on my desk, and I often need to move it to make room for some papers while my Mac is asleep. It's infuriating when my Mac (still on 10.6) wakes up in that case. I have to be extremely careful to simply lift the mouse without moving it first; it'd be much easier to simply avoid clicking it.

Alan Forkosh 2011-08-17 16:29

2 notes on the waking from sleep behavior:

1) If your input devices are on a keyboard tray, just closing the tray would often waken a machine when only mouse movement was needed.

2) A safe key to hit to waken the machine is a shift key. There are 2 of them on most normal keyboards; they're pretty big, and there are no side effects.

David V 2011-08-17 19:16

Possibly, there is a power-saving motivation too. The touch-pad itself (but not the radio circuitry, in the case of the Magic Trackpad) can be powered down if touches don't need to be registered.

Tim 2011-08-17 17:59

"Screen Wakes Requires Keyboard Access"

I'm not sure what's different about my Lion installs, but my mice and magic trackpads wake my screens, I never touch the keyboard. I just did it before coming here, in fact.

Conrad Hirano 2011-08-17 18:37

You're probably just waking up the display, not the computer itself. If you put the computer to sleep, using the trackpad or mouse won't wake it up.

ccstone 2011-08-24 05:20

My year old MacBook Pro's trackpad *will* wake it from screen-sleep or full-sleep *if* I actually click it rather than tap or swipe. I haven't tried a mouse yet.

Adam Engst2011-08-24 12:09

Yes, clicks work here, too, but not taps or swipes.

Message was edited by: margaret.miz

honestly it's harmless. What it does is reset the things in the PRAM/NVRAM some you have control over, like better battery life or performance. Some are things like screen depth that might have gotten corrupted, but this resets it so it's better again. none of your data will be lost.

[OT] You look like a very young Mark Hamill. 😉 Don't appologize for that 😝. You'll probably age better then he did too. i digress.

Resetting PRAM and NVRAM

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
3. Turn on the computer.
4. Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
5. Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
6. Release the keys.

Your computer's PRAM and the NVRAM are reset to the default values. The clock settings may be reset to a default date on some models.

So you hold down Cmd+opt+P+R while youre booting up. You'll hear the chime and then it'll boot up again, keep pressing the keys and you'll hear the chime again. Now you can release it (having heard the second chime while holding down the buttons).

Message was edited by: TheSmokeMonster