There’s no doubt that Apple’s M1 Chip has propelled the MacBook range far in front of the competition, but recently M1 MacBook Air users have been facing random reboot issues on macOS 11.1. In this article, we’ll take a look at possible reasons for this, and potential solutions.
Overview
Over the past few days, M1 MacBook Air users have been taking to online forums to report an issue that does not appear to be isolated: their macOS is rebooting without reason, seemingly at random. The issue was present in the macOS 11.1 beta, and for some reason is still present. The fact that why Apple did not fix such a problematic issue is anyone’s guess, but it is certainly something that should have been rectified before the full version was rolled out to the masses.
One Reddit user is quoted as saying:
Brand new MacBook Air here had it since last Tuesday and immediately updated to 11.1B. Over the course of the day I’m experiencing lockups and reboots which is not exactly making me love this machine at times. I could restore back to 11.0.1 but I was wondering if anybody running 11.1B on M1 was experiencing the same reboots first.
While another user on the MacRumors forum said:
“I’ve hit this issue a few times with my M1 [MacBook Air] on the latest Big Sur where randomly the screensaver will turn on. Then, tapping the touch ID will just toggle between the screensaver and the login screen, but the touch ID will ever unlock the computer. Even if I type my password, it will just go from the login back to the screensaver. The only fix is to close the screen and reopen it and then it will work. Has anyone seen this? I haven’t run into this issue on my 2017 [MacBook Pro] with the same Big Sur version.”
It seems that the M1 MacBook Air is not the only device that is being affected by these issues, either. Both the M1 MacBook Mini and the M1 MacBook Pro users have also reported similar issues, which has led people to believe it is an issue with macOS 11.1 rather than the MacBook Air itself. To be more precise, the issue is thought to be directly caused by BigSur.
Upon further investigation, it has come to light that even the older versions of the MacBook Air, MacBook Mini, and MacBook Pro are also suffering from the same issue. Although it is expected that Apple will come out with a patch to fix these issues sometime in the near future, we will now take a look and see if there is anything you can do to help rectify it in the meantime.
M1 MacBook Air Users are facing macOS 11.1 Random Reboot Issue – Possible Fixes
As previously mentioned, there is no concrete fix for this issue at the time of writing. However, through comparing experiences, users have been able to work out that the random reboot issue happens most often when the user has their MacBook hooked up to an external device such as a television or a hub.
Some users have even reported that connecting any USB device at all will cause your MacBook to be far more susceptible to random rebooting. For now, we would suggest you try to avoid connecting USB devices to your MacBook Air (or other model) until Apple has come out with an official fix.
M1 MacBook Air Users are facing macOS 11.1 Random Reboot Issue – The Bottom Line
This is not the first time there have been issues when Apple releases a new macOS update, which may be the reason that many people simply choose not to update until they can be totally certain that all of the kinks have been ironed out. If you are one of those people this time around, kudos! It looks as if you made the right decision. If not, and you’re in the same boat as the rest of us, there is unfortunately not a lot we can do about it until Apple sorts it out at their end other than avoid using the USB ports.
Apple is usually very quick at coming out with patches for errors, especially when dealing with one as widespread and problematic as this. But the question remains: why was macOS 11.1 not delayed until they had sorted this out? They would have known about it before releasing it. As for now, all we can do is speculate and twiddle our thumbs as we wait for that update message to pop up.
