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When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
Hi Apple Community-
Recently my MacBook Air 2019's screensaver has not been initiating even though the proper settings appear to be selected. I am currently running macOS Catalina. Any tips to troubleshoot? It's driving me crazy! Many thanks in advance!
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 10.15
Thanks for the additional information and troubleshooting. Since I bought the (personal) computer, I have not changed it from "Start after 5 minutes". I was able to use "Preview" on the desired screensaver and it displays the selected screensaver. I did also change it to "Start after 1 minute", however, that did not help. What other ideas? TIA.
Thanks for the additional information and troubleshooting. Since I bought the (personal) computer, I have not changed it from "Start after 5 minutes". I was able to use "Preview" on the desired screensaver and it displays the selected screensaver. I did also change it to "Start after 1 minute", however, that did not help. What other ideas? TIA.
Hi cristobalwong,
We see your macOS screen saver doesn't seem to be starting up.
Under Apple menu () > System Preferences > Desktop & Screen Saver > Screen Saver, which screen saver have you selected in the left window? Do you get the same result if you test a few of the others?
Also, you might also test by clicking Hot Corners in the lower right and setting one of the corners to "Start Screen Saver." Are you able to manually activate the screen saver that way? Use hot corners on Mac
Let us know, and we'll go from there. Take care.
Howdy cristobalwong,
Thanks for updating us with this information!
Let's confirm what is selected as the "Start after" preference to determine how much time should pass before the Screen Saver should appear. For easy finding, you'd want to choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Desktop & Screen Saver, then click Screen Saver. In addition to checking this, are you able to click Preview on the Screen Saver to see if that pops up and displays the selected option? You can find additional information on this via the following resource. The information below covers the "Start after" preference, which is found here: Change Screen Saver preferences on Mac
Click the “Start after” pop-up menu, then choose how long your Mac can be inactive before the screen saver starts. If you don’t want a screen saver to start, choose Never.
Be sure you don't have Never selected, and adjust it to 1 minute to test this quicker on your end. If this still isn't working, is this a personal computer, or is it managed by an educational institution or workplace?
We hope this helps.
Have a great day!
Hi Ryane77-
Appreciate the quick reply! Since purchasing the computer I had been using the "Flurry" screensaver. I get the same result selecting a few of the other screensavers also.
I also tried setting up the Hot Corners and using the "Start Screen Saver" from the drop down but that doesn't seem to be working either...
What other ideas?
Thanks in advance,
Chris
Also, a couple of times today my computer randomly went into "lock-screen" mode prompting my password, either while I was on a video call or still working on my computer (and it had not been idle)...
cristobalwong,
Thanks for getting back to us. At this point, we'd suggest taking a deeper dive at Get Support.
Have a fantastic day!
Screensaver not initiating even though proper settings selected
