After upgrading to macOS Big Sur Beta from Catalina and wanting to activate Night Shift «Sunset to Sunrise»-schedule again, it strangely failed with a very confusing error message:
Night Shift from sunset to sunrise requires location for time zone to be enabled.
You can turn it on in Security & Privacy Preferences.
Error in System Preferences » Display » Night Shift » Sunset to Sunrise
Required settings to successfully enable a sunset to sunrise schedule
1) Allow location access for time zone & system customisations
However, upon checking the said settings in Security & Privacy Preferences, it all looked «ok»:
- the «Time Zone & System Customisation» option is definitely enabled.
2) Change Date & Time settings to use a dynamic time zone region
After researching this problem and looking through different System Preferences, I found the culprit:in the «Time Zone» settings under «Date & Time»: I had chosen to set a fixed, specific time zone region.
Turns out this does not work with the dynamic «Night Shift» schedule from sunset to sunrise – because it relays on an automatic time zone!!
- enable «Set time tone automatically using current location»
Activating sunset to sunrise schedule in Night Shift now works
Now it’s possible – without the initial error – to activate the automated «Sunset to Sunrise» schedule in Night Shift system preferences!
