Fingerprint keyboard detector - behaves differently on my new Macs?

[RadDave]

Hi All - for the holiday season, I replaced our Macs - I have the M2 Air & Susan now the M3 iMac - both use the fingerprint keyboard feature but are behaving differently when the computers are awaken from sleep. Invariably on my laptop when I open the lid in the morning I'm given the option to use my fingerprint (FP) or enter my password - of course the FP is the quickest. On the iMac when the screen opens her password is needed to open Sonoma and 'activate' FP use, then the feature seems to work fine. I've checked settings (i.e. Lock Screen & Touch ID) on both which are similar - in the pic below the feature related to require password is set on immediately for both computers (can go from minutes to hours to never) - maybe that would make a difference?

In doing a lot of web searching, a whole slew of potential explanations and cures are found from a bug in Sonoma to doing a variety of maneuvers - any ideas? Thanks - Dave

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[Rod]

Does your wife turn the iMac off after use? If either my M1 or I suspect your iMac are turned off then an Admin Password will be required to activate Touch ID.
If you do not turn the iMac off and you get this behavior check "Use Touch ID to unlock your Mac" is ticked as below.

 

[RadDave]

Does your wife turn the iMac off after use? If either my M1 or I suspect your iMac are turned off then an Admin Password will be required to activate Touch ID.
If you do not turn the iMac off and you get this behavior check "Use Touch ID to unlock your Mac" is ticked as below.

View attachment 39112

Hi Rod - thanks for your response - the Touch ID settings shown above are identical to the ones on both Macs, i.e. all ON - also, we just let the new iMac sleep and do not shut down, so the issue is 'rising from sleep' - again when I open the lid of my M2 laptop in the morning I'm given the option of Touch ID vs. entering my PW (same settings as above). Not a crucial issue but just curious about the difference in behavior. Dave

 

[MacInWin]

One physical difference is that the laptop has a magnetic switch that detects the opening of the lid and wakes the machine. The iMac obviously doesn't have that, so it wakes with a keypress. So maybe she should put her finger on the finger pad to wake the machine to see if that works?

 

[RadDave]

One physical difference is that the laptop has a magnetic switch that detects the opening of the lid and wakes the machine. The iMac obviously doesn't have that, so it wakes with a keypress. So maybe she should put her finger on the finger pad to wake the machine to see if that works?

Thanks Jake - easy enough to give it a try! However, the wording under her login pic (and also my second account on the iMac) is something like 'Password needed to active touch ID' - Dave

P.S. What is the status of SMC & PRAM/NVRAM on these Mx machines? I've looked at a number of 'search hits' - the one below (Source) is a concise summary - assume applies to M2 and M3 machines which I now own.

M1 Macs​

If you have an M1 Mac, you should know that they don’t need to have NVRAM cleared or the SMC rebooted. (SMC doesn’t exist on M1 Macs.) When an M1 Mac reboots, it runs a sequence to make sure the NVRAM is doing what it should do. This is the advantage of Apple making both the hardware and the software.

 

[MacInWin]

I don't have an Mx iMac to test with, so I can't really help with the fingerprint, other than that one suggestion, sorry.

On the SMC/NVRAM, the quote is mostly correct. The new Mx Macs dont have NVRAM, and the SMC system is basically reset at every cold boot, so no need, and no way, to use any key combination to force either. If either needs "repair" just shut down, power off for a few seconds and then cold boot and all will be reset.

In a nutshell, when it is installed, the OS creates a Sealed Secure Volume in a hidden area of storage, verifies through hashcodes that the system is properly installed and all is well, then creates a snapshotof that volume that is what the machine actually boots from. At each boot, the snapshot is compared to the SSV by those hashcodes, and if they don't match, the snapshot is discarded and a new one created. The snapshot is read-only. The SSV is both read-only and encrypted with a key that only Apple knows. Basically, the system is self-healing, within limits. That means a lot of what we used to do with Intel Macs is no longer appropriate or needed.