Screen constantly goes black with M1 Mini

[jpdemersPatries]

Finally solved this with a VESA-certified high-quality USB-C to DisplayPort cable. Those are hard to find; Moshi makes one that Apple sells for $60; I found it on eBay for about $50. (Most monitors have a DisplayPort input; ymmv.)

Amazon sells a raft of cheap Chinese crap, like the cables I had been using; some claim to be VESA certified but as far as I can tell they're all lying. (I flagged the listings to Amazon, and they went away, but they'll be back under a different name in no time.) I strongly recommend going to the VESA.com website to check out anything you're thinking of buying.

Yes, $50 is steep for a cable, but by the time you've run though a bunch of crap cables, you'll have spent that much anyhow ... and you'll still need to buy the real deal on top of that. Moshi gives a 10-year warranty, which sure beats Amazon's 30 days.

There is one caveat: I can't say whether the secret sauce was in the quality of the cable, or in the switch from HDMI to DisplayPort. All I know is that I no longer have the problem!

 

[avz]

I don’t think this is a hardware issue. I believe it’s the OS, as the black screen issue/complaints have been occurring since Catalina was introduced.

I have the 2018 and 2012 (both Intel) and both are running into the black screen over screen share.

Neither had them previously. If you Google it, the complaints are everywhere and we’ll before the M1.

Yes I also think that it has something to do with macOS Catalina(perhaps Big Sur and Monterey suffer from it as well) as I experience this issue with my Mid 2012 13" MacBook Pro.

 

[tracker_oz]

I have an M1 mini with Apple TB 27" and a 4K external monitor on HDMI. Started acting funky two weeks ago. Tried many things on both the monitor settings and the M1. Nothing helped. Then I tried Artiste212's suggestion about the screen-saver. Mine was a photo album, not aerial. But the machine no longer had access to the photos that fed it. Disabled the screen-saver and voilà! All good for the entire day now.

​

 

[George Dawes]

I've got an LCD tv so I won't bother with a screen saver , only realy need them for oled

 

[JHCR]

Finally solved this with a VESA-certified high-quality USB-C to DisplayPort cable. Those are hard to find; Moshi makes one that Apple sells for $60; I found it on eBay for about $50. (Most monitors have a DisplayPort input; ymmv.)

Amazon sells a raft of cheap Chinese crap, like the cables I had been using; some claim to be VESA certified but as far as I can tell they're all lying. (I flagged the listings to Amazon, and they went away, but they'll be back under a different name in no time.) I strongly recommend going to the VESA.com website to check out anything you're thinking of buying.

Yes, $50 is steep for a cable, but by the time you've run though a bunch of crap cables, you'll have spent that much anyhow ... and you'll still need to buy the real deal on top of that. Moshi gives a 10-year warranty, which sure beats Amazon's 30 days.

There is one caveat: I can't say whether the secret sauce was in the quality of the cable, or in the switch from HDMI to DisplayPort. All I know is that I no longer have the problem!

"I can't say whether the secret sauce was in the quality of the cable, or in the switch from HDMI to DisplayPort."
It's the switch - and thanks for THE solution! My work day is much happier now!

 

[theOzarker]

I just bought an used late`14 Mac Mini from OWC a few weeks ago and had this "blacking out" issue. I was using an HDMI cable I bought at WalMart years ago. The Mac Mini came with a cable so I used it and the issue has gone away.

 

[pshufd]

I had this problem last year and solved it with better cables. My M1 mini was driving 2 4k monitors back then. It's driving 2 4k and 1 2k monitors these days.

 

[bobsil1]

Connected the unit via an HDMI 2.0 cable to my 82" Samsung TV and for 3+ weeks had no problems with it. Loved watching movies in 4k. Last week the screen simply went black and the sound cut out for a second while watching something. Problem persisted until it was happening around once a minute. Upgraded to a shorter higher quality cable, as well as upgraded to Big Sur 11.1 and the problem persists, it's actually getting worse. Changing the resolution doesn't make a difference, problem occurs no matter what. Any ideas?

Fixed my M1 Mini by switching from HDMI to a USB-C → DisplayPort cable. $17 Maxonar braided cable worked fine.

Effects:

• Doesn't go blank on wake from sleep
• Doesn't go blank randomly
• Wake takes ~1 sec rather than ~5
• Full-screen Reddit videos now work