Sometimes when idle, My Macbook Starts Saying Application, Authentication

By Al puzzuoli, 11 October, 2026

Forum
macOS and Mac Apps

Hi everyone,

Basically the subject says it all. I bought a shiny new Macbook Pro several months ago and for the most part it's working great. I upgraded it to Golden Gate and recently started noticing that if I leave the machine on for extended periods of time, it will sometimes randomly start chattering. "Authentication, application", or something like that. It will start saying this every minute or so and I don't know why. Someone on Mastodon said they fixed this by setting their screen to never sleep. I haven't tried that yet because I'm not sure I want to leave the screen on all the time if I can avoid it. The odd thing is this doesn't always happen. Right now the machine has been running for several hours and it's not chattering. Does anyone know what might be causing this? I've checked the Window Chooser, and there doesn't appear to be anything in there that requires attention.

Thanks,

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Comments

By Daniel Angus MacDonald on Sunday, October 11, 2026 - 17:46

this is a bug that slipped through betas. I experienced it in developer beta 1, bur didn't report it, as I couldm't reproduce it, thus, it never was fixt. it depends which mac you've got, too. myself, i've got a 14 inch, m 5 macbook pro. .

By Al puzzuoli on Sunday, October 11, 2026 - 18:22

In reply to by Daniel Angus MacDonald

Yes. I have the 14 inch M5 Macbook Pro as well, with 24 gigs of ram.
It's a very bizarre bug. Right now the machine is sitting idle and it's quiet as a mouse. No idea what sets it off. the problem is I keep the machine in my bedroom and turned on while Codex does its work, and sometimes it starts doing this in the middle of the night for no reason. Ugg!

By Casey Reeves on Sunday, October 11, 2026 - 18:59

In reply to by Al puzzuoli

I've got this on my macbook neo. This happens when the macbook enters sleep mode/idling enough so the display turns dark and the macbook requires you to unlock your session.
It only happens when you're not entering sleep on purpose. I suspect it is the time changing every minute on that screen that make VO talk, though I have no proof of this. My only workaround is to mute VO before leaving my machine unattended, or to mute it when it starts saying this.
I got this but with macos 26 as well, so it is not new with 27.

By Al puzzuoli on Sunday, October 11, 2026 - 19:49

In reply to by Casey Reeves

Hey thanks! I never even thought about muting VO. ;) It's the simple things in life ... LOL.

By Choom on Monday, October 12, 2026 - 12:08

This bug was introduced in macOS 15, and happens if you don't force the screen to lock either by pressing the TouchID sensor or by closing the lid on laptops, and then go away until it idles out. I actually thank this bug for making me create a good security practice of always locking my computer before going away from the keyboard. Macs are so easy to unlock either by fingerprint or using Apple Watch that there's really no compelling reason to leave them unlocked when you go away. Not saying it shouldn't be fixed though. It's still an annoying bug.

By Ishkabibble on Monday, October 12, 2026 - 20:12

I've experienced this on both my Intel MacBook and for the last year or two, on my M4 Max MacBook Pro. It's jump-scared me quite a bit and has interfered during long recording sessions in the studio. I turn off speech to minimize the disruption.