Sonoma Aerial Screen Saver Freezing

[imjeffro]

I'm joining this thread (and this forum) for the sole reason that I also have this issue and it's been driving me nuts. I read this thread the first time I noticed this problem when I upgraded to Sonoma back in July. I can't understand why this does not work on my 2022 Mac Studio with M1 Ultra (recently updated to Sonoma as of July-2024) but works just fine on my 2021 MacBook Pro with M1 Max (Sonoma 14.6.1, and has always worked since installing Sonoma when it came out). Grrrr.

Summary of my situation:
- I have this problem only on my Mac Studio M1 Ultra that is running Sonoma 14.6.1
- I do not have this problem (and never have) on my MacBook Pro M1 Max that is also running Sonoma 14.6.1
- Both use external HDMI monitors (not the same monitor).

After reading this thread, I am going to start by trying turning off the password login requirement. I'm the only one here and I can't see another way to stop the "logout" concern. If that doesn't work I might try the locking of the files, though that didn't seem to work for folks.

I'm now following this thread here to see what may come of this issue. If someone gets it working, please let me know how you fixed it, thanks!

I just upgraded my Mac Studio M1 Ultra (1TB SSD) to Sequioa (15.0.1) and still have the screensaver freeze issue.

I’m not going to do a system wipe and clean reinstall. But at this point that seems like the only thing that could possibly fix it, and still not guaranteed at that.

 

[tonywalker23]

Here for any follow-ups

 

[imjeffro]

I reported on 7/15/24 that mine had started working correctly, seemingly at the same time that new aerials appeared in the queue. Not sure how long that lasted but before long the problem returned and persists today. Currently on MacOS 15.3.1, problem occurs regularly on my Mac Studio M1 Ultra 1TB SSD connected to Pro XDR display, has not ever occurred on my 16" MBP M1 Max 4TB that runs the same OS.

 

[JonN Pioyutuyoip Music]

Frankly I have given up on a fix. It seems obvious that Apple does not care enough to fix some obscure issue with their OS specific to Mac studios with M1 chips (these are my words for what I assume to be their thought process based on past observations of the company's priorities).

The fix that I implemented for my Mac Studio Ultra M1 is to use a different 3rd party app called Aerial screensaver. Works great on Sonoma OS 14.7.4 and I won't update to OS 15 Sequoia for a while because I use my Mac Studio for audio DAW and want it to keep working, so I wait a year or so. Fun world we live in, isn't it?

 

[KernelG]

Since my first post in this thread, I've upgraded to a Mac Studio M2 Ultra and I'm now running macOS Sequoia 15.3.1. I walked into the room last night to... a frozen screen saver. It seems to happen less often, but it still happens.

 

[jgleigh]

Mine will still freeze if I only pick one screensaver. If I let it rotate it will unfreeze when it changes the screensaver image.

 

[TheGenerous]

And still not fixed in 14.2 beta 2

not fixed in 2025 and the new macOS is around the corner

 

[thorntonp]

Yes - still freezes repeatedly in Beta 4 of macOS26 Tahoe. Happens on both my M1 Mac Studio Ultra that has had the problems since day 1 of this issue way back, and now on my M3 MacBook Air.