Mac Mini display stops working

I have a Mac Mini (Late 2014 model bought in 2016) which has a problem that the display stops working regularly.

So the Mac Mini is largely a Media Server which means it mainly needs to transcode media. Sometimes when I try to wake the display, it doesn’t seem to respond, either to a wired keyboard, or Apple Trackpad.

But if I then access the Mac Mini via VNC the Mac Mini responds and works properly, just the screen doesn’t come on. So I have to reboot to get the screen to respond.

I’ve tried different monitors and connections to the monitor, and this makes no difference.

It’s not down to a timing issue( e.g. it regularly happens after 8 days) it’s not the hardware (i’ve Had the logic board replaced twice by Apple) it’s not a particular activity i’m taking as far as I can see.

I’ve tried to use a different login profile and it doesn’t happen, but then i’m not doing anything too strenuous on a different clean profile.

I’ve backed up, set to factory and restored from backup…

Has anyone got any ideas or tips please before I bite the bullet and have to spend a weekend reinstalling this thing from scratch?

I might try this before I gave up entirely:

this tricks the Mac into thinking there is a monitor attached. For $10, it’s worth a shot.

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When accessing via VNC (“screen sharing”) that dongle makes the Mac think it has a high-res display connected. Without it it defaults to VGA or some low-res amount. I’ve been using one here for years on my headless Mac mini. I don’t see how it would help getting a directly corrected display to work.

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Oh, sorry, I misunderstood… I didn’t realize that the mini had a display attached usually. You’re right, it probably wouldn’t help.

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Do you need to reboot, or does unplugging/replugging the display bring the display to life? That works for me on my 2014 mac mini (used as a regular desktop mac).

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I’ll give that a try @funkydan2, but i’ve a vague recollection i’ve tried that before and it didn’t work.

Did you ever resolve this? I recently got a 2014 Mac mini and I can’t get the picture to show up on the only attached monitor. I’ve tried using HDMI to VGA and HDMI to DVI (the monitor is old and doesn’t have HDMI baked in I don’t think).

I suspect that it was as a result of a memory leak in iflicks which over time took more and more of the 4GB of memory, which then flooded the Swap. At this point (for some reason, maybe the lack of availability of actual non swap memory) it stopped the video card being able to output a signal (as I said in the OP, the output would work fine at first and then just stop, but then VNCing would still work.)

By regularly quitting iFlicks it never happened again on the 2014.

It’s never been a problem on the 16gb Mac mini I now have in place.

If your monitor never displays a “picture” I’d try a different monitor and a different cable, and if possible try using a display port adapter.

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Thanks! Got it working with a DisplayPort adapter instead of HDMI – from the various support forums, it looks like the 2024 had buggy HDMI support. thansk for the tip!

One advantage of putting an d computer into service: I get to use all kinds of old surplus gear I have lying around with it … adapters, monitor, keyboards…

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