Screen savers don't stop with keyboard clicks or mouse movements

I haven't tried screensavers in a while. Now, under macOS 11.6, it appears that screensavers don't stop when I press a key (any key, even Esc), or move the mouse. This happens with the built-in screensaver , such as "Flurry" and others. The only way to escape from screesavers seems to be a mouse click.

I was wondering if this is intentional by macOS or if I screwed up the settings of my Mac. If it is intentional, I was wondering what is the rationale behind that change? (it used to be the case that screensavers would stop immediately when the user pressed a key or moved the mouse). If it's my settings on my Mac, which one could it be?

Way earlier, under Catalina and before, it used to be the case that screensavers could receive keyboard events and act upon them. Did Apple bring that back?

I am asking all this because I am developing a screensaver myself.

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GabrielZ
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I was wondering if this is intentional by macOS or if I screwed up the settings of my Mac.

I don’t use screen savers day-to-day so I don’t have any practical experience with this. However, I set up a fresh macOS 11.6 install to try it out and it seems that pressing a key will dismiss the screen saver. I specifically used the command key, which is the way I used to dismiss my screen saver back when they were relevant.

Now, I was testing in a VM so it’s possible that this is a place where the VM varies from real hardware. My advice is that you set up a fresh install of macOS on real hardware and see how it behaves.

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Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
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eskimo
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Thanks a lot for your response!

I have just checked with a pristine account: screensavers quit when I press any key, just as expected.

So, I am more puzzled now: what could be causing this odd behavior with my account?

PS: my macbook is connected to one external display, with the lid closed.

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GabrielZ
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So, I am more puzzled now: what could be causing this odd behavior with my account?

That is, indeed, puzzling. I can’t think of anything that might trigger this but, then again, debugging problems like this isn’t really my forte (it falls under the purview of Apple Support).

Share and Enjoy
—
Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple
let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com"

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eskimo
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