M1 Mac Mini will not wake up the connected screens, some owners complain

Some customers who have purchased a Mac mini M1 have had a problem that prevents the machine from waking up a third-party screen connected from sleep mode.

This is not a problem that affects all owners of ‌M1‌ ‌Mac mini‌, but there are numerous complaints about MacRumors Apple’s forums and support communities dating back to November, when the “Mac mini” was first launched MacRumors gooimac reader explains:

My ‌M1‌ (8gb / 256) ‌Mac mini‌ seems to not want to wake up my screens after sleeping. I tried 2 different screens with 2 different HDMI cables with the same thing happening in each. Currently, I only use one at a time. I also noticed some pink graphics and square issues on the Big Sur boot / login screen (with colored background, not black and white boot)

MacRumors reader Mike, who emailed us on the subject, has seen the same problems.

I have a new Mac Mini ‌M1‌ with 16GB of RAM with Big Sur 11.2.3 and every time the computer and screen go idle, the computer will not be able to wake up the screen.

“No signal” actually appears on the screen after the Mini wakes up, so technically the computer wakes up the monitor, but doesn’t send any video signal. The screen is a 34-inch LG Ultrawide 4K Thunderbolt. It activates well with the 2018 MacBook Pro, so there’s nothing wrong with the screen.

The only way I can get the Mini to send a signal to the screen is to disconnect and reconnect the Thunderbolt cable. Sometimes repeatedly. Viously, obviously, this is not an ideal solution.

This problem seems to affect a wide range of screens that are connected via Thunderbolt, HDMI and DisplayPort adapters, but there are also many people who have no problems.

It’s not clear what the problem is, but Apple has been studying a ‌M1‌ ‌Mac mini‌ display problem that causes strange pink squares to appear on screens connected to one of the machines.

Apple is aware of the problem and there could be a solution in the works that will come in a future update. One solution for now might be to turn off the ‌Mac mini‌’s sleep feature, but that’s not ideal. The other solution is to disconnect and reconnect a screen that does not respond after a acMac mini‌ wakes up from sleep, but it is also an inelegant solution. No other fixes appear to be available at this time.