I picked up a new MacBook Air with Apple’s M1 chip, and I’ve absolutely loved it so far. It’s really speedy and the battery is fantastic. But I’ve been dealing with one nagging issue. Every once in a while, for reasons that I haven’t been able to figure out, a screensaver will suddenly take over the entire computer — despite the fact that I never use a screensaver. And frustratingly, the screensaver renders my laptop inoperable until I completely close the screen and reopen it.
It seems I’m not the only one seeing this bug, according to this MacRumors article. Others have shared similar issues with M1-equipped MacBook Airs, Pros, and Minis on MacRumors’ forums, Reddit (in a few threads), and Apple’s support forums. And one user on MacRumors said they’ve seen the bug on their 16-inch MacBook Pro, which has an Intel chip, so perhaps this is a problem with macOS Big Sur.
Here’s a video of the bug, shared by MacRumors forum member dawideksl:
Many people reporting the issue in this Reddit thread say they have multiple accounts on the same computer. And for what it’s worth, I’ve set up two accounts on my MacBook Air. One user on Apple’s support forums disabled Fast User Switching and said they weren’t seeing the screensaver, so perhaps that’s a workaround until Apple addresses the bug.
Apple didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
