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Black screen, requires restart
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Nov 19, 2009 3:33 PM
by: lutherfan
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From:
Boston
Registered:
Aug 29, 2009
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Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Aug 29, 2009 1:13 PM
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Since installing Snow Leopard, my computer—when idle for more than a few minutes—seems to go to sleep and presents a black screen that I can't change.
After messing with the mouse, I've found that the black screen acts as almost another window, because if I activate exposé (all windows), I can see all the windows I have open, but as soon as I choose one to be my active one, the black screen returns. I can even activate "show desktop" and do minimal things like move files around on the desktop, but that's about it.
I've resetted the SMC (to no avail) and the problem has only started upon my installation of Snow Leopard, so I don't see how that couldn't be the cause. Upon clicking my battery indicator in the menu bar, I get a notice that says "Service battery," so it's possible my battery could be affecting it but I'm not sure. Help?
Macbook Pro 15" 2.16GHz
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
12,300
From:
Renton, Washington (near Seattle)
Registered:
Aug 10, 2000
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Aug 29, 2009 1:36 PM
in response to: poordevils
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Hello poor:
We have different configurations.
However this:
"Service battery,"
should be the first thing for you to address.
Barry
iMac 20" 2.4 Ghz Intel-based/2 GB, iMac 17" 1.8 Ghz G5/1 GB, DSL, Firewire HDs
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
2
From:
Germany
Registered:
Aug 29, 2009
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Aug 29, 2009 2:02 PM
in response to: poordevils
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Helpful
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Same problem here. It's not a battery issue. But after disabling screensaver it seems to be gone. If this won't work try this (worked for me, too before I shut off screensaver): define an active corner for enabling display sleep mode (maybe screensaver works, too). If the black screen occurs move the mouse into that corner, wait a moment until the screen shuts off and then wake it again by moving the mouse cursor. This will bring back the OS for further work. No restart required.
Message was edited by: dmkrull
MacBook Pro 17"
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
3
From:
Nashville, TN
Registered:
Aug 29, 2009
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Aug 29, 2009 5:28 PM
in response to: poordevils
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Solved
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I had the exact same issue after installing 10.6. I disabled screen saver ect... to no avail. I could ssh in and everything looked ok, ie. no rouge processes eating up memory and the log files told me nothing. So I logged in with a different account and no problem, did not go black. so I went through the login items of the problem account and got rid of everything that was either not needed or had issues when I tried to launch it or it's prefs. panel. since then I have not had any issues. I have my suspicions about a few apps that were "servers" for some iphone apps I have.
Mac book Pro 17
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
2
From:
Australia
Registered:
Dec 9, 2007
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Aug 29, 2009 8:46 PM
in response to: poordevils
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Same for me after upgrade: black screen after wake up, expose works, need to restart.
Have it both in 32-bit kernel and 64-bit kernel.
MacBookPro5,1 2.53GHz
Mac OS X (10.6)
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2
From:
Germany
Registered:
Aug 29, 2009
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Aug 30, 2009 5:15 AM
in response to: poordevils
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Update: Turning off the screensaver does not solve the problem. Black screen returns every now and then. Gone back to the earlier described workaround to make the whole UI visible again. That 'black evil' seems to be a full screen program window (but don't know its parent application).
MacBook Pro 17"
Mac OS X (10.6)
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3
From:
Boston
Registered:
Aug 29, 2009
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Aug 30, 2009 8:36 AM
in response to: CodeMonkey65
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Great! That seemed to work for me. I pretty much deleted all of my login items that I deemed unnecessary and I was able to re-enable my screensaver. Thanks a lot!
I wonder if this would help anyone else with the same problem?
Macbook Pro 15"
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
3
From:
Nashville, TN
Registered:
Aug 29, 2009
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Aug 31, 2009 2:36 PM
in response to: poordevils
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I think I track my issue down specifically to an app called proximity. not sure yet if it was the app itself of one of the apple scripts it called, but I am curious if anyone else has proximity installed and/or any applescripts that are called in an automated fashion.
Mac book Pro 17
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
30
Registered:
Dec 30, 2003
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Sep 1, 2009 6:17 AM
in response to: poordevils
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Turning off screen saver does not help. Disabling download helper in Firefox does not help (I read that it might.) I have nothing called "proximity." This problem is not solved
MacBook Pro
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
9
From:
UK
Registered:
Aug 16, 2007
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Sep 1, 2009 7:01 AM
in response to: poordevils
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Try using a small app called Caffeine - effectivly stops your mac from activating the screensaver/going to sleep - also good if you are uploading a file overnight or displaying a slideshow
Mac Book 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Mac OS X (10.6)
Ram upgrade - 2GB
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6
Registered:
Apr 6, 2008
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Sep 1, 2009 9:04 AM
in response to: poordevils
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I have the same problem, it doesn't seem to have anything to do with screensaver etc. If the proximity app has anything to do with it this gets interesting! It might be some future feature for "tablet mac" etc.
Only "easy" workaround I have thought of is activating the FrontRow and exiting it right away. (FrontRow = Apple key + esc).
UPDATE: It seems that the Firefox downloading might have something to do with the problem... Might be DownloadHelper etc.
Message was edited by: marcoboy
Mac OS X (10.6)
Mac Pro 8 core 2008, 16GB RAM
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Posts:
3
From:
Nashville, TN
Registered:
Aug 29, 2009
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Sep 1, 2009 2:39 PM
in response to: poordevils
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Since installing Snow Leopard, my computer—when idle for more than a few minutes—seems to go to sleep and presents a black screen that I can't change.
After messing with the mouse, I've found that the black screen acts as almost another window, because if I activate exposé (all windows), I can see all the windows I have open, but as soon as I choose one to be my active one, the black screen returns. I can even activate "show desktop" and do minimal things like move files around on the desktop, but that's about it.
I've resetted the SMC (to no avail) and the problem has only started upon my installation of Snow Leopard, so I don't see how that couldn't be the cause. Upon clicking my battery indicator in the menu bar, I get a notice that says "Service battery," so it's possible my battery could be affecting it but I'm not sure. Help?
I think this issue may have several causes. I have track mine problem down to a specific applescript that was being called by proximity.app I have two, one that starts the screen saver and locks the screen when it no longer detects my iphone nearby via bluetooth. the other script does the opposite, unlocks and turns off screen saver. work great under 10.5 but there is something about the second script that Snow Leopard does not like. I can ssh in to my mac and run the scripts command line. first one works great, locks the screen and activates the screensaver, when I run the second script, screen goes black. I can run the first script again to turn the screen save back on and then move the mouse and it will let me back in.
apple scripting is not my forte' so maybe some of you can take a look at these and see if there is anything that could cause it. FYI, "notif" is a c-compile code that tells preferences to refresh loginwindow.
Leaving Proximity.scpt:
do shell script "defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -int 1"
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/notif"
tell application "ScreenSaverEngine" to activate
Entering Proximity.scpt:
do shell script "defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -int 0"
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/notif"
tell application "ScreenSaverEngine" to quit
delay 5
do shell script "defaults -currentHost write com.apple.screensaver askForPassword -int 1"
do shell script "/usr/local/bin/notif"
Mac book Pro 17
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
29
From:
Sweden
Registered:
Feb 12, 2009
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Sep 3, 2009 12:54 PM
in response to: poordevils
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I would like to know what was wrong. Had been using SL for two days and no problem at all. Today a do a clean install to update to CS4 (that I haven't even installed yet) and black screen while just using Finder and Safari...
That's scary... :/
MBP
Mac OS X (10.6)
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Posts:
14
Registered:
May 14, 2006
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Sep 6, 2009 8:48 PM
in response to: poordevils
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Same issues here. Whenever I put a movie in Frontrow to pause, walk away, when I get back I have the unmanageable black screen. Sometimes I can force a shutdown via keyboard. Just now, I got the rainbox ball in the black screen.
Mac Mini Duo, Mac Book Pro, iMac 24
Mac OS X (10.6)
RAM, RAM, RAM, USB & Firewire HDs...
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Posts:
1
From:
Chicago
Registered:
Sep 9, 2009
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Re: Black screen, requires restart
Posted:
Sep 9, 2009 5:51 AM
in response to: fxstein
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As far as I can tell, the problem seems to stem from the fact that the "Security" pane in the System Preferences now needs to be unlocked / authenticated before changes are made. I've found that, at the black screen, if I type my password and hit "return," the Mac unlocks properly -- and the screen-saver password is then set to disabled. My guess, then, would be that when the change is applied, the system is coming up and prompting for a password for the change. Since it's behind the screen-saver window, we never see it. The trick, then, would be to find a way to either leave the pane unlocked by default or send the equivalent of a sudo along with the script-commands. Any thoughts from the smart folks out there?
Mac OS X (10.6)
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