M1 Mac mini keep crashing and then restart.

[Mdmr]

My 16gb mini crashed 2 times back to back today.

I updated to 11.6 3 days,ago restarted and left it to sleep.

I came home after work,resumed from sleep, opened Lightroom and I got the pink screen the moment Lightroom started loading the photos. This happens only after the ui is fully loaded. The photos are on external drive.

Rebooted, choose to restore open programs and it crushed after Lightroom opened , identical to the first time.

I ve managed to crash it again after several attempts by putting it to sleep and opening Lightroom afterwards. So 3 times in one day.

I don't know if it's related to the big sir update. The hard disk in on its own power connected directly to USB in the back of the mini. It has no smart errors,used to work fine just days ago.

It seems that the crash occurs immediately or a short while after resuming from sleep and it's USB related.

 

[GoPackGo69]

Glad to see I am not the only one having this issue.

M1 iMac bought when they came out. Haven't had any issues with this thing until yesterday.

All of a sudden whenever I would try and upload to Google drive using either Brave or Safari, it would lockup, pinwheel and APPLICATION NOT RESPONDING the browser.

So I went to reboot and realized that Big Sur 11.6 was available, so figured I would go ahead and update that as well. Well that turned into a huge debacle.

After updating to the new Big Sur, whenever I would boot the computer and log in, within a few minutes at most all of a sudden it would lock up and reboot itself. Attempted a ton of troubleshooting, but all the same results.

When I attempted to boot into safe/recovery mode, it would not load the HD or Options icon if I had my external drive (time machine) plugged in. Was going to ATTEMPT to reinstall OS from a time machine backup, but obviously that was impossible to do since it was INOP when connected.

Anyways, wound up yesterday afternoon (after spending a ton of time talking to apple who provided basically zero support) reinstalling the OS. Once that was finished, it did do a freak out and lock up and reboot once, but I figured disconnect power for 30 seconds and reboot. Then it appeared to be working fine.

Until this morning.

Came downstairs to get my day started and within 30 seconds the unit locked up and rebooted. I had been getting at random a media panic kernel alert. (Which searching led me here).

Tried some more troubleshooting but nada - still couldn't boot again to recovery with external drive attached, blah blah blah. So called Apple (again) and set up an appointment for Thursday morning (2 hours away is my closest Apple store) since the other option is going to be to mail it and wait. (even though I may be in the same situation if I take it to an Apple store).

So for the hell of it I reloaded the 11.6 AGAIN today and so far it's been fine with no crashes, but guess what we will see what the next few hours and days bring. I really hope it's fixed now somehow, because I've already spent 1 full day dealing with this issue to no avail and who knows how long I may be down if I have to take another day and go to the Apple store.

But anyways, this unit was PERFECT before the 11.6 Big Sur update that's FUBAR'd it, so I am pretty irritated at the moment. According to Apple, there's really no way to "roll back" to a previous version, of which I wasn't having any issues with.

For what it's worth, I have a LACIE 4TB drive connected and an external LG 34" widescreen with an HDMI/Thunerbolt adapter.

Will update when/if something happens again or more info becomes available, but wanted to share my experience as well since mine out of the blue is doing the exact same thing.

 

[lcubed]

are you using version 50 of google drive?

 

[GoPackGo69]

are you using version 50 of google drive?

I access drive through the browser (Brave). Admittedly I don’t know if it was just coincidence that it was locking up and not responding but the os lock up and freeze and continual reboot stared after the 11.6 update.

 

[PolarShadow]

Hi GoPackGo69 ... I posted with my problems from a few weeks ago. No issues since with my set up as quoted previously ... Until today ! Just now. Screen went black ... mac m1 mini rebooted. And guess what - I updated to 11.6 yesterday. This really sucks. For 11 years I've used my iMac Intel 27" mid 2010 - zero issues - none, but decided to upgrade as obviously OS on that iMac is out to date. But it still works! Something's not right with these M1 macs. My mid 2010 mac is sitting next to me and if this doesn't get sorted the mac mini is getting shipped back - no one can work with a machine that suddenly quits mid way through work flows - that's back to the dark ages of computing ...

 

[GoPackGo69]

Hi GoPackGo69 ... I posted with my problems from a few weeks ago. No issues since with my set up as quoted previously ... Until today ! Just now. Screen went black ... mac m1 mini rebooted. And guess what - I updated to 11.6 yesterday. This really sucks. For 11 years I've used my iMac Intel 27" mid 2010 - zero issues - none, but decided to upgrade as obviously OS on that iMac is out to date. But it still works! Something's not right with these M1 macs. My mid 2010 mac is sitting next to me and if this doesn't get sorted the mac mini is getting shipped back - no one can work with a machine that suddenly quits mid way through work flows - that's back to the dark ages of computing ...

So far I am still going good after the "reflash" of the OS this morning, so keeping fingers crossed. Guess the real test will be tomorrow morning after letting it sit over night.
I think it's kind of crazy that Apple can't pull these logs and go "oh, here's what it is" as it sounds like all these are the same issues.
I wish you luck. Best advice that I can give is what I did and reinstall the OS and hope for the best. This is definitely frustrating though. We pay a "premium" for OS X and Apple because they just work and aren't constantly locking up or have issues which should have been caught in BETA testing prior to public release.

 

[JamesPTownsend]

In the last week my M1 mini has rebooted 4 times.It started rebooting in June, screen turns green then reboot's. I keep sending Apple reports after it happens, so far no reply or fix. Also the M1 has a problem with external card readers, I take photos for my business reports & the M1 never see's the SD card so I have to restart, then the SD card appears on the desk top. I thought it was dud readers at first but its the M1. There is also an M1 problem when using Preview to merge PDF files, the beach ball spins & I have to force quit. So to merge pdf's I revert to a 2012 i7 Mini server which was retired for the M1. With the M1 am constantly having issues where finder bog's down & has to be forced to quit. I have reinstalled the system & there has been no change.
My opinion after 5 months with the M1 chip is there are hardware issues of which Apple are aware & they can't fix or dont care. I am currently looking for a recent Intel Mac to replace the M1 & wont be buying another M series machine for a few years when the bugs are sorted out.

 

[tryptic]

I just returned my three week old M1 Mac Mini, about a week and change into owning it started randomly rebooting, usually when I wasn't there. I'd wake from sleep, log in and get the notification that it had restarted due to a failure. Eventually it happened while playing CIV VI via rosseta. Pink Flash, the reboot, but then It would go back to working ok. One day a week ago it wouldn't boot to the OS, only recovery mode. I reinstalled the OS, that didn't help, finally I DFU'd the mac and recovered using another mac using apple configurator. With a fresh OS install I migrated ONLY my user data from the backup and manually redownloaded and installed the apps I used. It was stable for a week. This morning, again random reboots, I went into recovery mode, ran first aid on the OS partition, rebooted but would only stay in the Os for a few mins before crashing. After the 6th crash it refused to boot into the OS and asked I reinstall the OS AGAIN. Fortunately I am withing the return window for defective computers so I am sending it back. I'm lucky because I have a gaming laptop that I can work on but this is just horrendous first generation product hell from Apple.
Not sure if any of the other m1 macs have faired better. Should i get a macbook air or pro? Any advice?

 

[GoPackGo69]

Follow up from Tuesday OS reinstall - haven't ran into any issues *yet*. I don't shut it off, only put it into sleep/standby mode whenever I am finished for the day. It's made it about 3 days now without any issues, so guess we will see. Still on 11.6 Big Sur. Really wish there was a way that I could "roll back" to whatever version I was on before, as had zero issues until the 11.6 update.

 

[JV8]

Glad to see I am not the only one having this issue.

M1 iMac bought when they came out. Haven't had any issues with this thing until yesterday.

All of a sudden whenever I would try and upload to Google drive using either Brave or Safari, it would lockup, pinwheel and APPLICATION NOT RESPONDING the browser.

So I went to reboot and realized that Big Sur 11.6 was available, so figured I would go ahead and update that as well. Well that turned into a huge debacle.

After updating to the new Big Sur, whenever I would boot the computer and log in, within a few minutes at most all of a sudden it would lock up and reboot itself. Attempted a ton of troubleshooting, but all the same results.

When I attempted to boot into safe/recovery mode, it would not load the HD or Options icon if I had my external drive (time machine) plugged in. Was going to ATTEMPT to reinstall OS from a time machine backup, but obviously that was impossible to do since it was INOP when connected.

Anyways, wound up yesterday afternoon (after spending a ton of time talking to apple who provided basically zero support) reinstalling the OS. Once that was finished, it did do a freak out and lock up and reboot once, but I figured disconnect power for 30 seconds and reboot. Then it appeared to be working fine.

Until this morning.

Came downstairs to get my day started and within 30 seconds the unit locked up and rebooted. I had been getting at random a media panic kernel alert. (Which searching led me here).

Tried some more troubleshooting but nada - still couldn't boot again to recovery with external drive attached, blah blah blah. So called Apple (again) and set up an appointment for Thursday morning (2 hours away is my closest Apple store) since the other option is going to be to mail it and wait. (even though I may be in the same situation if I take it to an Apple store).

So for the hell of it I reloaded the 11.6 AGAIN today and so far it's been fine with no crashes, but guess what we will see what the next few hours and days bring. I really hope it's fixed now somehow, because I've already spent 1 full day dealing with this issue to no avail and who knows how long I may be down if I have to take another day and go to the Apple store.

But anyways, this unit was PERFECT before the 11.6 Big Sur update that's FUBAR'd it, so I am pretty irritated at the moment. According to Apple, there's really no way to "roll back" to a previous version, of which I wasn't having any issues with.

For what it's worth, I have a LACIE 4TB drive connected and an external LG 34" widescreen with an HDMI/Thunerbolt adapter.

Will update when/if something happens again or more info becomes available, but wanted to share my experience as well since mine out of the blue is doing the exact same thing.

My M1 MacBook Air is having similar issues. And this Mac replaced the 1st one I bought at the beginning of the year, which I had to send to Apple twice due to hardware issues which I discovered when running the Apple Hardware diagnostics test.

 

[sunny5]

Did anyone tested with macOS Monterey and HDMI port? If they didnt fix it yet, then it's such a bummer and it would be still bad to use 14/16 inch MBP with HDMI port.

 

[RichMacApple]

My 16GB M1 MacMini is starting to show the reboot problem after several months of usage, (spoiler alert) my solutions was to switch the connection to: USB-C -> HDMI.

Originally connected via the computer's HDMI port to the HDMI port on a 4K HDMI monitor, and after about 4 minutes of transferring files to an external USB-C 2TB GDrive... the problem showed up...MacMini shutdown/reboot.

When the monitor was connected HDMI (computer) -> HDMI (monitor), during extensive coding operations, it would occasionally flicker...but
...when a long transfer of data (i.e. the entire Xcode.app ) to the external drive, after 4-5 minutes, the my M1 MacMini rebooted.

Attempted this file transfer 3 more times...each time, reboot would occur after about 4 - 5 minutes.
-----------
As per suggestion in previous posts, I then connected to the monitor via USB-C (computer port) -> HDMI (monitor port)
This attempt succeeded. I tend to agree with the premise that the HDMI port output is the culprit. USB-C output did not show the same problem, even though the destination HDMI port was the same.
----------
It would be interesting to try the connection via a USB-C dock.. but for now, looks like driving my big monitor off of the USB-C port is the solution.

Note: Earlier in the month I had a hint of the problem, but was not doing large file transfers. I run dual monitors (HDMI and USB-C out ports to a 4K and 2K respectively) ...and I did see the occasional flicker out on the HDMI monitor...with occassional 'odd' connection sequences, didn't get a full shutdown/reboot until I started doing the larger ...lengthy file transfers. Simple coding would cause flickers but not reboots..and until now, it was an annoyance but not the major critical problem this now shows.

 

[sunny5]

An update with macOS Monterey:

I dont have any issues with the latest version even if I use HDMI port so far.

 

[Majamaki]

This may have been mentioned already, but...
Download "EtreCheck" and run it. See what it reports.

What "login items" do you have?
Check your "users and groups" preference pane.

I'm wondering if the "Huion Tablet app" could have something to do with it?

This is a great suggestion. I've been having a similar issue with the pink screen crash. After running EtreCheck it was able to show me that 28 crashes were caused by the KensingtonWorksHelper.app that I use for the trackball. Ran the update to the latest version, hopefully, it fixes the issue. Great tip on the app, thank you!

 

[Gofu]

Hi all. Just wanted to chip in here. I have a bottom end 8Gb 256Gb M1 mini which was doing the pink screen thing on and off since I got it (on release day!). Since I put Monterey on it I haven’t had a single problem. YMMV but this feels like a GPU/software issue.

My display (IIyama 4k 27” job) is connected via Warrky cheap ass USB-C to DisplayPort from Amazon. Only other peripherals are magic keyboard and magic touchpad. I haven’t installed anything other than the default apple apps, VSCode, Go, XCode tools and GoodNotes 5.

I occasionally still get Bluetooth dropout but this is a local RF issue as it also occurs on XBox at exactly the same time.

 

[mikecalderone]

Satech Hub has been replace with a new one, and the problem has not happened anymore, it was a bad Hub.

 

[CASMAS]

Still happening on M1 Max with 12.1

 

[satcomer]

Why you don't launch /Applications/Utilities/Console.app and see why it rebooted! Do this just after reboot to see what causes the cause it, hardware or software!

 

[CASMAS]

Why you don't launch /Applications/Utilities/Console.app and see why it rebooted! Do this just after reboot to see what causes the cause it, hardware or software!

The console doesn't really prove anything. Then how come it never shows anything on the console right after M1 Max crashed with pink screen? The pink screen is still an issue that Apple needs to deal with.

 

[sunny5]

Why you don't launch /Applications/Utilities/Console.app and see why it rebooted! Do this just after reboot to see what causes the cause it, hardware or software!

With my own experiences, the console is useless to check the problem. M1 Mac crashed multiple times but it never shows up OR it didnt crash but it saying that it did. Am I suppose to trust it?

 

[CASMAS]

My M1 Max just crashed with a pink screen! Gosh.

 

[mrdoodle]

For anyone else experiencing this problem, I think I found a possible culprit for some cases: rsync

rsync is a popular tool used to synchronize files from one location to another. There are many applications that use it behind the scenes.

I was using a newer version (3.2.3) installed via homebrew to synchronize photos between my M1 Mac mini and my NAS. This caused my system to start to slow down, freeze, beach ball, and eventually crash/reboot with a pink screen.

I've filed a bug report here
And another thread on the Apple Stack Exchange can be found here

In my case, I just uninstalled the homebrew version, and used the one included in macOS. No more crashing for me. There's a possibility that some applications use a newer version (or one not compiled for M1) that might not be fully compatible with the M1 and might be causing problems. Just a theory.

 

[CASMAS]

For anyone else experiencing this problem, I think I found a possible culprit for some cases: rsync

rsync is a popular tool used to synchronize files from one location to another. There are many applications that use it behind the scenes.

I was using a newer version (3.2.3) installed via homebrew to synchronize photos between my M1 Mac mini and my NAS. This caused my system to start to slow down, freeze, beach ball, and eventually crash/reboot with a pink screen.

I've filed a bug report here
And another thread on the Apple Stack Exchange can be found here

In my case, I just uninstalled the homebrew version, and used the one included in macOS. No more crashing for me. There's a possibility that some applications use a newer version (or one not compiled for M1) that might not be fully compatible with the M1 and might be causing problems. Just a theory.

I think macOS is still having problem with external products such as monitor. It never happen with M1 MBP until I start using with monitor and HDD enclosure. Maybe they made this issue intentionally in order to sell their own monitor in future? lol.

So far, this issue still happening since 2020 so something isn't right. Apple should investigate this issue asap.

 

[CASMAS]

Just got a pink screen crash and yet nothing showed up on the console. The console is useless for this issue.

 

[sunny5]

M1 Max MBP keep crashing with a pink screen. It happens randomly on 12.2.1 so I have no idea what to say. Damn you, Apple.