mac mini (2014) displays wrong colors after wake-up

I am experiencing the exact same issue. Wake from sleep to inverted or missing colours. Tried smc and pram reset. Same thing. Only thing that works is disconnecting and reconnecting the monitor. Tried monitor with another laptop, no problem. Connected via display port. Could this be a faulty component?

Same issue here. Also noting some cracking noises coming from either the attached speakers or the mac itself (not sure which). The situation got worse yesterday when the monitor refused to turn on for more than a few milliseconds. Restarting the mac has solved the issue temporarily but I don't know when it will return. Very annoyed as the mac is less than 2 months old and this is a serious issue which affects its usage.

This seems to be a common problem, as I have been experiencing the same strange colours when waking from sleep or just when the screen goes off. Looking back though old posts it seems like we are going to be in for a long wait to get this fixed, if indeed it will be fixed.

I can report that I have the same issue; the screen looks like as if it had switched to an indexed palette and ran out of colors. Going to "Displays" and fiddling with some buttons normalizes the situation.

The issue was first observed today, after using the machine for a week. I installed Google Earth yesterday. I'm not saying that the two are necessarily related.

A Late 2014 Mac Mini, OS X 10.10.1 and using a Thunderbolt monitor (no other TB peripherals connected).

I am experiencing this behavior also. My "solution" has been to toggle invert colors in the Accessibility control panel. It's not a fix but it's easier than disconnecting the display.

My monitor is connected via the Apple thunderbolt (MiniDisplayport) to VGA adapter.

I have the same issue, brand new Mac Mini purchased last week. Very reduced color map with artifacts after waking from sleep. I'm connecting using thunderbolt to display port on my monitor. My mini has a 256G flash drive for the system drive if that makes any difference - plus a quad-bay external USB3 disk farm and time machine drive.

I'm having this problem too. Tried three different adapters, none solve the problem.

As others reported, if you invert and un-invert colors the problem goes away. Is it possible to use AppleScript or something like that to write a a little tool that inverts/un-inverts colors on wake?

I have solved my problem of colour problems after wake up by using a HDMi cable with ferrites fitted to both ends. This was purely by chance as I kept trying different leads and I got a spare one with my Tivo box and just gave it a go.

Hello everyone, it started some time in July with some new system software update of OS X, before that MacMini was performing great. After that update the color distortion problem keeps reappearing almost regularly. It seems to be a software issue. When distortion appears (and your monitor wakes from sleep - sometimes it won't) login, go to System preferences (if you can see anything) / Displays / Color as you hit Colour, the color distortion disappears. Have no idea why is this happening. Tried all restarts, hooked, unhooked everything, even tried a different monitor and a different monitor recharger (Apple Cinema 20'') with the same results. Did anyone find a solution to this? Is it a hardware problem of the built-in graphics card? Any advice is appreciated as this is starting to be ridiculous. Thanks.

I have this issue aswell. Seems to me the outputs/gpu on mini's are garbage. Had to buy an adapter (thunderbolt to dvi) because the hdmi port would refuse to wake the monitor up. Now every time I wake it I get artefacts and need to either switch ports or restart to fix it. Pretty bad considering this things 4 months old...

Hi,

got a brandnew mini 2014 this August and it has been working fine, then suddenly within the last 7 days I had the problem twice.

Waking from sleep all colours inverted.

First time I woke it from longer sleep and got the normal looking login screen. Only that within the password field I saw strange colours as if looking through a small window slit. Submitted my password and wow everything inverted - me slightly in panic just decided to restart it and that solved it.

I checked Logfiles but no kernel panic, no major looking error messages.

Second time I was less in panic and first took a screen capture with 'Preview' saved it and then just logged out the user. It took more than double the usual time for the login screen to appear but that was in normal colouring again as was the screen after logging the user back in.

The screen capture I had taken shows a completely normal screen !

And again no unusual logs, messages or such.

I'm glad I found this thread, been working with minis for years through my job but this is the first I bought new and fitted for my personal needs and it would be heartbreaking if it had serious problems in the hardware. But reading all your posts I too am beginning to think it's a software problem.

If I find the time I'll analyse the logs more maybe there is something in common to the two incidents.

My mom & sister-in-law both got new Minis last year. They are both experiencing this exact same problem: usually (not always) the display shows weird day-glo colors on wakeup. And yes, both have tried different monitors (including the ones that worked perfectly well with their old minis). And one of the monitors has been paired with a friend's Dell PC for a couple of months now with no problems whatsoever. I can only conclude the problem is the current Mac Mini. A simple 5-second "unplug & replug" solves the problem, but it's certainly annoying. Has anyone taken the problem to a Genuis Bar?

Been having the same problem with my fairly new mini. This is my third and last Apple computer, after going through hard drives and GPUs in a couple of iMacs within less than 2 years and dealing with the Genius Bar insanity I decided to try a mini, yet another bad purchase. I'm now completely done with Apple.

This worked for me. (Settings) -> (Display) -> (Color) and it goes away.

My description of the symptom is that certain colors in the rich palate are substituted by colors chosen from an 8 bit palate.

As to the cause; i have no speculation.

I'm afraid it isn't a fix. I've done that twice and it still happens.

Sometimes it's just a screen as if all the red hue is missing. Sometimes the screen just doesn't wake up and I have to force reboot.

Took one Mac mini back to the store, had the video card replaced. Took it back again a month later. Got a new Mac mini. Still have the issue.