We have a new M1 Mac Mini that crashes daily.
Sometimes when you are the first to buy a new Apple product you get burned. The promises of huge speed improvements for video editing and other work here convinced us to go all in on the trade in program. We didn’t want a mix of software versions. The Mac’s with M1 run different software.
The M1 comes preloaded with an app called “Rosetta” so that it can run the old software designed for the iNtel chips. So far I am not impressed. I have had the M1 for almost two weeks and was hoping for a couple of bug fixes a little faster. The other thing is that I sent in my trade in and haven’t heard a thing. The idea that they could suddenly drop my trade in value or I could miss the return window isn’t making me less anxious.
The Swaps
The first trade in was my new 2020 intel MacBook Air for the M1 Mac mini. I really didn’t need two laptops. Next was an M1 MacBook Air to replace a 2015 MacBook Pro. The final swap I am still waiting on is the top of the Line M1 MacBook to replace my 2019 i9 MacBook Pro. Both of the M1 based Macs that we received so far have one major issue. They don’t wake easily when using aftermarket bluetooth keyboards. My mini has a new Magic Mouse 2 and it still takes it’s time.
The M1 Mac Mini daily crashes started on day 2. The early morning shock started after I finally got the Mac mini to wake up. That alone is a process. Next I was (and am) greeted with a notice that my mini has rebooted due to a problem. I of course send the error reports for each of the Mac mini daily crashes and reboots. I’ve included one below.
The M1 Mac Mini daily crashes are making me a little anxious. Since I am scheduled to turn in my $5000 2019 MacBook Pro and get the new MacBook Air M1 the daily restarts are worrisome. Speed is important, but reliability more so. The $1600 Apple offered for my MacBook Pro on trade in is starting to make me rethink the trade. I might want to wait for M1 Gen 2.
The Setup
I have a 40″ Vizio 4K TV as the monitor on the Mac Mini. There is a 28″ Samsung FHD monitor on the first M1 MacBook Air that arrived. Both monitors go to sleep just fine. Who wake up is hit or miss. It almost looks like the HDMI key is dropped. Open the M1 Air and it works fine. The Samsung has about a 50% wake up rate. The Vizio says no signal for up to 10 minutes while I sit jiggling the mouse.
I have a Vizio 50″ 4K on my 2019 intel based MacBook Pro and it hasn’t blinked once. Every problem has been the data cable on the port replicator. I have replaced it twice, now the USB-C port on the front of the Wavlink feels loose.
Admittedly there is a Port replicator on the Air that could be part of the issue. The old reliable Thunderbolt 2 port replicator that was connected to the 2015 MacBook Pro didn’t support the speeds that I needed. I have a OWC Thunderbolt 3 port replicator and a Wavlink. I also have the Hyperdrive USB-C replicator. They all appear to have the same problems. The Hyperlink made the cable on the port replicator side permanent which I think is the right way to go.
Scrolling the forums there appear to be a couple of thoughts on the crashing being related to bluetooth. This makes sense when you consider that the bluetooth mouse has a hard time waking up the computer. Why the Magic Mouse two doesn’t support wireless charging and have an easy dock is beyond me. I did complain when Apple changed the connector on the iPhone so maybe this is payback.
Let us know how your M1 is doing and as we see fixes or improvements, I’ll be sure to post there here on Beach Street News.
M1 Mac mini daily Crashes – The crash report.
MacBook Air M1 Crash Report Jan 7th 2020
Now one of the MacBook Air crashed on wake, different crash log. I made this one a pdf to save space
Update Jan 7th 2020. One MacBook Air, still operating flawlessly. Second one crashed this morning giving above report. Mac mini did not crash, Fix appears to be not allowing computer to sleep when monitor sleeps. Not energy saving but it worked at least today.
Update Jan 8th – Mac Mini M1 – Normal start still in “prevent sleep” mode. MacBook Air – Both Normal starts
My M1 Mac Mini (base; 8GB / 256GB / HDMI video) is a much simpler set-up than yours, however I had the *exact* same nightly crashing experience as you’re having. In my case I kept seeing “USB Driver” again & again in the crash logs. I have a new Orico USB-3.1 Type-C NVMe external SSD and the crashes only occurred when it was connected. Unplug it for the night and everything was fine. Did a little research and discovered that although it was brand-new, it shipped with outdated RealTek firmware. Found a RealTek firmware updater app (for Windows 10), ran it no issues, and the external SSD has been absolutely perfect ever since. Not a single problem. YMMV.
New crash this morning and the last start was USB, so there may be something there, but this was the M1 MacBook Air connected to the OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock, Logitech USB keyboard and trackball. I am going to wait on apple support to help fix this. We have always known that being the first to buy anything at Apple will have a challenge or two. It was that way when I worked there… But wait, the powerbook 100 worked fine after we used the IBM hard drive instead of XX brand. It looks like the M1 Launch and Big Sur Launch was a little too much at once even for Apple. We’ll see.
Jan 8th update – M1 Mac Mini no crash, but still in “prevent sleep” mode wasting energy. The #RWTH down the hall can’t be happy. M1 MacBook Air 9both) normal start up today.