When we did that, the AirPlay process was automatically restarted, but when it starts running again it doesn’t interfere with the screensaver. The solution to her particular problem was to kill the AirPlay process running on her Mac. From what I can tell, after she did that AirPlay doesn’t automatically shut itself off, and it was preventing the screensaver from starting.

The short story of the problem (and solution) is that she had used Apple’s AirPlay to mirror her computer screen to her AppleTV. The same problem happened to a friend, and after a LOT of research, we were able to work through it to get her Mac screensaver working again. Does the Mac go to sleep under that account? If yes, then under your normal account you have some start-up items that prevent the sleep.If you have a problem where your Mac/ macOS screensaver won’t start, I hope to be able to help you in this article.

Create a new temporary account, log out of your account and log in to that new account.

You can download the free edition of StarMessage on your Mac, without giving a credit card, nor passing through registrations.

Now that you have fixed the problem of the non-starting screensaver, why not go a bit further and see the unique features of our MacOS screensaver, 'StarMessage'?.

If this worked with the standard built-in Apple screensavers of your Mac, repeat steps 4 and 5 to select your preferred third-party screensaver.

Close all running applications (in case one of them prevents the sleep) and wait for the idle minute to pass (do not move the mouse or press any key).

Otherwise, your screen will turn off before you have the chance to see the screensaver starting. The screen's power settings timeout should be bigger than the screen saver's timeout.

Verify that the power settings for the screen do not power off the screen before the screen saver starts.

After 1 minute of inactivity, the screen saver should start. (The screenshot below shows our own screensaver, 'StarMessage' being selected)

Verify that you have selected a screen saver.įor this troubleshooting, select one of the Apple built-in screensavers to eliminate the chance that your specific screensaver is to be blamed for not starting.

How to get screensaver to work on mac