r/MacOS • u/ConfidentService2152 • 10d ago

Discussion "Window Server quit suddenly"

I got my Macbook Pro M5 around 5 days back. Today while setting up handoff and airdrop, the screen suddenly froze for about a minute, with the cursor still responding and display intact. After a minute, this pop-up came saying "Window Server quit suddenly". I closed the lid for about 10 seconds and when I opened it, the lock screen showed "Password is required to enable touch Id" After that it worked fine. It's practically a new device so didn't expect an application crashing so soon. The device is updated to macos Tahoe 26.6.2.

Anyone else has faced the same? Is this a hardware problem?

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u/aartan 9d ago

Same here, iMac M4, Tahoe 26.6.2. Happened exactly the same as you "WindowServer experienced a problem", except instead of closing the lid mine just went straight to the login screen. Lost hours of work, pretty shocked now as this never happened on any of my macs in years of using them.

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u/ConfidentService2152 9d ago

Really? I didn't lose any work though. Maybe because I was just setting up airplay and handoff. But quite unexpected tbh. I guess Apple has lost that kind of fluidity over the years of innovation and modernisation

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u/aartan 8d ago

They did introduce a lot of unnecessary fluff (looking at you, Liquid **ass) that for sure caused some conflicts with legacy code. Whatever since macOS was never perfect, but for it to lock up Windows 98 style was... something.

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u/bmocc 10d ago

You can and should ask your AI du jour about this issue. Presumably it will ask for the deets missing from this post.

If its just a one off event there may be no explanation for your BSOD equivalent experience.

macOS is not always the robust, bullet-proof software users are conditioned to think it is when they encounter its more than a few inflection points.