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Kjeldor

Q: blank screen when hdmi cable is plugged

Screen Shot 2012-09-23 at 8.49.46 PM.png

 

I get a black screen with the mouse cursor whenever I try to plug in my macbook pro with retina display to my HDMI cable tv. last week it works fine, now it doesnt.

 

I tried booting into windows 7 and it works fine there. When I boot back to Mountain Lion, and plug it in again, its the same...

 

As you can see, I get weird windows when I try right clicking on the screen, I see this both on my HDTV and on my mac. Remember, this was working fine just last week. My macbook pro is just 2 weeks old. I even used to watch HD movies here, now cant...

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 23, 2012 6:33 AM

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Q: blank screen when hdmi cable is plugged

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  • by b0dylanguage,

    b0dylanguage b0dylanguage Sep 29, 2012 10:56 AM in response to jewski32
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 29, 2012 10:56 AM in response to jewski32

    I see the "detect displays" icon pop up when I hold down the option key, but both the TV and the computer monitor are pitch black when I plug the HDMI cable in, meaning I can't now navigate the cursor to the "detect displays" button.  So frustrating!  I'm tempted to buy an AppleTV and just stream over AirPlay... But, of course, that's another $100 for a functionality that should come bundled with a $2K computer...

  • by kckaos,

    kckaos kckaos Oct 3, 2012 3:49 PM in response to Kjeldor
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 3, 2012 3:49 PM in response to Kjeldor

     

     

    PROBLEM SOLVED!!! (In my case, at least)

     

    My Apple tech support guy came back a day earlier than expected, said to remove a couple of plist files, and it now works perfectly with HDMI, my projector, my external monitor, etc.

     

    I had already removed one of the plist files a few days ago (which in itself hadn't worked), but when I removed the other, it did. I would suggest removing both.

     

    Go to Finder.

     

    In the root directory (MacBookPro or whatever your HD is called), go to Library, go to Preferences, find com.apple.windowserver.plist and put it into Trash

     

    In your own user directory, go to Library (in Finder, click Go menu and hold Option key down to get to Library), go to Preferences, go to ByHost directory, find com.apple.windowserver.OE35739etc,etcxxxxxxxxxxx.plist, and put it into Trash.

     

    You do not have to empty Trash.

     

    Reboot computer.

     

    The HDMI should be working now, and permanently so.

     

    If it isn't, post it here and I'll let the Apple tech guy know.

     

    Good luck.

  • by koppah,

    koppah koppah Oct 9, 2012 10:31 AM in response to kckaos
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 9, 2012 10:31 AM in response to kckaos

    This fixed my issue, but caused my Filevault login to then be running in low resolution. While on the phone to AppleCare, I was playing around, and simply booting up the computer with the external display plugged it seems to have forced it to recreate the settings file and fix the issue.

     

    Thanks!

  • by The_Virginian,

    The_Virginian The_Virginian Oct 9, 2012 12:56 PM in response to kckaos
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 9, 2012 12:56 PM in response to kckaos

    This deletion of the .plist preferences files solved it for me, too. Thanks.

  • by huevito,

    huevito huevito Aug 11, 2013 5:40 AM in response to Kjeldor
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 11, 2013 5:40 AM in response to Kjeldor

    This deletion of the .plist preferences files solved the problem for me, too. Thanks.

  • by koppah,

    koppah koppah Aug 11, 2013 10:53 AM in response to Kjeldor
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 11, 2013 10:53 AM in response to Kjeldor

    Resetting the PRAM fixed it for me.

  • by FodderNZ,

    FodderNZ FodderNZ Mar 10, 2015 11:41 AM in response to kckaos
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 10, 2015 11:41 AM in response to kckaos

    This fixed the same issue on my macbook - thank you so much, such an annoying thing!

     

    Yosemite v 10.10.2 (14C109)

      Model Name: MacBook Pro

      Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1

      Processor Name: Intel Core i7

      Processor Speed: 2.3 GHz

      Number of Processors: 1

      Total Number of Cores: 4

      L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

      L3 Cache: 6 MB

      Memory: 8 GB

  • by jrubins3,

    jrubins3 jrubins3 Apr 26, 2015 12:01 PM in response to Kjeldor
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Apr 26, 2015 12:01 PM in response to Kjeldor

    I found a way to fix this. Before you plug the cable in, check "Show mirroring options in the menu bar" under System Preferences>Displays. When you plug the cable in, you will find the AirPlay icon in the bar on the top right. Click on this and it will show that it is checked off as whatever device you are plugging into (ex. mine said Sony TV), but instead of this you want to check "Built-In Display."

  • by hannahflower,

    hannahflower hannahflower Oct 17, 2015 1:30 PM in response to joepl
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 17, 2015 1:30 PM in response to joepl

    System Preference----Sound----output---and select

  • by HammockRider,

    HammockRider HammockRider Sep 8, 2016 11:05 AM in response to jewski32
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Sep 8, 2016 11:05 AM in response to jewski32

    This worked for me, all these years later. Thank you

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