Multimonitor Screensaver bug in Ventura 13.3

[XMI]

There is a serious bug with screensavers on macOS Ventura 13.3:

If you have two monitors on your mac, when the screensaver starts, the content of the main screen will show on the second screen, and the content of the second screen will be missing completely.

• The bug affects third-party screensavers (such as iScreensaver and Aerial )
• it also affects some (but not all) Apple screensavers: for example, Apple's "Hello" screensaver is not affected, but the "Message" screensaver is affected
• the bug is random, so if you test, be sure to test multiple times -- we are seeing failure rates of between 10% and 90%.
• This has been reported multiple times to Apple (Feedback cases FB12023530 and FB12007471 )

We are seeing it with yesterday's RC release (13.3 22E252) and are worried this will make it into the public release.

Unknowns:

1. does it happen on systems with 3 or more monitors?
2. does it happen on Intel or is it an Apple Silicon bug only?

 

[XMI]

It's been reported on the Apple Devforums as well, hoping it gets some attention somewhere? See https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/727168

 

[galad]

The Apple Devforums is not the right place at all to report bugs.

 

[adam-stark]

I raised a feedback ticket (FB12040070) for this very issue, still seeing it on the RC release (using saveforhollywoood).

A.

 

[XMI]

The Apple Devforums is not the right place at all to report bugs

It's not the right place to report bugs (use Feedback Assistant for that) but the DevForums can be a good place to raise awareness of the issue - sometimes an Apple employee will join the thread...

 

[adam-stark]

Some progress on my ticket...... fingers crossed..

 

[XMI]

Initial testing with 13.4 beta 1 (22F50271) looks like the bug is fixed. I wonder how long until 13.4 gets a public release?

We reported this bug initially to Apple in the 13.3 beta series March 1st, it's a shame they couldn't get it fixed in the 26 days before 13.3 was released officially.

Happy to see the fix seems to be coming for 13.4, but man, these sorts of software regressions really should not be happening for a Trillion dollar company...

 

[0xB0BACAFE]

Happy to see the fix seems to be coming for 13.4, but man, these sorts of software regressions really should not be happening for a Trillion dollar company...

I don't understand this logic by Apple either. I know Apple has always run lean, but their excuses for forcing some iOS UI behaviors onto macOS because of a lack of resources seems insincere. They are related interfaces, but their UIs have their own idiosyncrasies and they need to be respected; a mouse/trackpad is not a finger.

Ultimately, it feels like they've cut things too lean with their questionable yearly rollout schedule and their clear prioritization of other parts of the business. It looks like 13.3 did a fair amount of under the hood changes, but they weren't adequately tested.

I'm sure the internal numbers still look "good" and so, the Mac will suffer until this parade of bugs starts to affect the metrics that the execs are looking at.

 

[XMI]

It looks like 13.3 did a fair amount of under the hood changes, but they weren't adequately tested.

Yep. Another major frustration is that the "Release Notes" typically include just a tiny portion of the actual changes, bug-fixes, and regressions that Apple has done.

For example, neither 13.3 nor 13.4 release notes make any mention about the screen saver libraries having changed, don't mention the regression bug, nor do they mention the bug fix.

I'm pretty sure the internal Apple Emoji group is paying off all the other groups to keep quiet about their bugs. (this is a joke, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is some ridiculous office politics going on with the Release Notes)

 

[Peter Hunter]

I faced the same issue. Hope we can get update asap.

 

[XMI]

Update: 13.4 does not actually fix all the problems - there are still bugs with screensavers in 13.4 beta 1 - monitor rotation is not working with 2 monitors, and with 3+ monitors there are still problem with blank screens / wrong sized content. See https://github.com/JohnCoates/Aerial/issues/1286#issuecomment-1487939028

 

[BobSc]

Initial testing with 13.4 beta 1 (22F50271) looks like the bug is fixed. I wonder how long until 13.4 gets a public release?

We reported this bug initially to Apple in the 13.3 beta series March 1st, it's a shame they couldn't get it fixed in the 26 days before 13.3 was released officially.

Happy to see the fix seems to be coming for 13.4, but man, these sorts of software regressions really should not be happening for a Trillion dollar company...

I discovered this last night and wasted a few hours of my time exploring the bug (unfortunately before I found this thread) on two different Mac Studios, both with an Apple Display monitor and a 2nd monitor.

I've alway been a big Mac supporter, but I'm losing faith and confidence. Especially when I read that this bug was reported a month ago and Apple refused to fix it, causing lots on consternation and wasted time amongst Mac enthusiasts. I no longer trust Apple software. I blame this on Apple's insanity of producing software releases on a specific timetable instead of reasonable perfecting software before release. Shame on Apple and shame on Tim Cook for allowing this to happen!

I have to wonder who the incompetent software engineer was who took perfectly functioning screen saver functionality in Ventura 13.2 and demolished it in Ventura 13.3.

 

[w3geek]

Yep, I found this thread and one over on Apple's forums after 13.3 broke my screensaver setup with 2 external monitors. I know, first world problems, but still... I just want it to work like it did a couple of hours ago on 13.2

 

[CNiles38006]

SMH, amazing how a basic feature like your screen saver working on your multi-displays can be broken in an update. I ran into this issue as soon as I updated to 13.3 today. Now we wait to see how long before they actually fix it.

 

[tc46wine]

Just updated to 13.3 --- now screen saver works on ONLY secondary display --- NOT primary display. Major pain!

 

[tc46wine]

I discovered this last night and wasted a few hours of my time exploring the bug (unfortunately before I found this thread) on two different Mac Studios, both with an Apple Display monitor and a 2nd monitor.

I've alway been a big Mac supporter, but I'm losing faith and confidence. Especially when I read that this bug was reported a month ago and Apple refused to fix it, causing lots on consternation and wasted time amongst Mac enthusiasts. I no longer trust Apple software. I blame this on Apple's insanity of producing software releases on a specific timetable instead of reasonable perfecting software before release. Shame on Apple and shame on Tim Cook for allowing this to happen!

I have to wonder who the incompetent software engineer was who took perfectly functioning screen saver functionality in Ventura 13.2 and demolished it in Ventura 13.3.

Just updated to 13.3 --- now screen saver works on ONLY secondary display --- NOT primary display. Major pain!

 

[XMI]

Just tested, and Ventura 13.3.1 does not fix the screensaver issues.

 

[Buadhai]

Just updated to 13.3 --- now screen saver works on ONLY secondary display --- NOT primary display. Major pain!

This happened to me after I updated to 13.3.1 (22E261). The secondary display shows the photos, the primary display just says "No Photos".

Also, sometimes when I access Screen Saver in System Settings, the [Options] button is greyed out. Sometimes this can be fixed by disconnecting the external display.

 

[Stealthgyro]

I was wondering what was happening with my Pong Screensaver https://mikeash.com/software/pongsaver/ Hopefully FB12023530 will be fixed and I can get my Pong clock back.

 

[XMI]

Just tested, and Ventura 13.4 beta 3 does not fix the screensaver issues; to be clear: if you are only running 2 monitors, it seems to work most of the time. But I still see occasional failures (perhaps 5% of the launches) in which you end up with 1st monitor blank and the the contents of the 2nd monitor showing what should be on the first monitor.

Reportedly, using screensavers on 3+ monitors is still broken in 13.4 beta 3.

 

[Biffs]

In my case it seems to work only 5% of the time and every other time first screen is blank. So annoying.

 

[jasnw]

I'm running just two identical monitors (BenQ 27") on an M2Pro Mini, and I get about the same 5% (or less) success rate in getting the screensaver to work on both. Running Ventura 13.3.1(a).

 

[Eduardot]

I'm running 3 monitors on my Mac mini m1, with a wavelink hardware. Since 13.3 had a nice flip clock screensaver that now does not work, when I start it, all 3 screens are blank.

 

[XMI]

Sadly, we just tested today's 13.4 (22F62) and it's showing pretty much the same behavior as before:
* on a 2 monitor system, third-party screensavers work about 95% of the time.
* on a 3 (or more) monitor system, third-party screensavers fail 100% of the time.

 

[Biffs]

Sadly, we just tested today's 13.4 (22F62) and it's showing pretty much the same behavior as before:
* on a 2 monitor system, third-party screensavers work about 95% of the time.
* on a 3 (or more) monitor system, third-party screensavers fail 100% of the time.

Thing is, I'm not using a third-party screensaver. I'm using shifting tiles from the standard set, on a two monitor system, and it only works 5% of the time ...