Apple - Screen Saver Stuck On, How To Escape?
I encountered this problem for the last two days on Catalina on my iMac. I tried some suggested methods, but lacked an Apple keyboard, and didn't restart or use SSH.
What eventually worked for me, I didn't find elsewhere:
- Ctrl+Cmd+Q
- Esc
- login
Hitting Esc makes the screen go black, which I guess cancels the screensaver.
Lock & Unlock the Mac
Use the key-combo Control+Shift+Power on MacBooks or Control+Shift+Eject on Macs with a full-sized keyboard. This will lock the computer, requiring the usual login and password authentication. After re-authenticating, the machine should be back to normal.
Source: UWGB
If you have SSH enabled on your Mac and access to another computer on the same network you can start a terminal session and kill the screensaver. For example, I would open a terminal on my Linux PC and SSH into the Mac then run the following command:
killall ScreenSaverEngine
NOTE: This will not unlock the session if the screen is also locked. It will simply dim and reappear. This solution only applies after entering the password to unlock the screen but the screensaver does not dismiss.