MacBook Air Black Screen after macOS Catalina Update

I just had this exact problem and I fixed it by following these steps:

1. Disconnect power supply and open bottom of Macbook Air
2. Locate the battery connector and unplug it, leaving it unplugged
3. Put the cover back on and flip the Macbook over, connect it to your power supply like normal, then press the power button
4. Wait for startup, sign in, make sure everything seems fine, then shut off Macbook
5. Remove power supply and reconnect battery connector
6. Screw the cover back on and your Macbook should effectively be reverted to its state before installing Catalina

I'm not sure why Catalina messes everything up, and the same issue occurred after trying to download Catalina again, so I would just refrain from installing Catalina until a solution for the issue is found.

For anyone who is clueless about technology as I was before I researched, a picture of the battery connector can be found by looking up "Grab the clear plastic pull tab attached to the battery connector and pull it toward the front edge of the Air to disconnect the battery from the logic board." on a search engine and going to step 3 on the first result page. Note that this image matched my Macbook Air (2015) and that it could be different from other Macbook models.

I use a j5create dock. I removed their extensions and that seems to have solved my problems. They also have posted on their website to not download their drivers if you've upgraded to Catalina. I think their products are great and their customer service is really good. Incredibly knowledgeable and helpful. Will wait for the updated drivers.

Hello Everyone,

This may help everyone.

1. Please connect your Mac to external screen and check if the display is working. If so then immediately take a back up of it ( In my case I could not do this as the great apple tech bar guy had already formatted my laptop)
2. If the step 1 works then you are lucky. Then go and visit apple tech bar
3. Apple Tech Bar if they state that this is an issue with the display and it would cost you money to fix. Please be extra careful and do not agree as the apple support folks have no clue in the first level of diagnosis . This was an issue with Catalina and Apple may/will not agree with that. They have released a patch recently which has fixed the issue.
4. But if you have already encountered the issue, go to apple tech bar and ask about the “Apple Quality Program (E1)” which I personally believe apple is secretly doing to fix this issue. The reason I feel this is because , My laptop was fixed recently under the same program.

Hopefully this helps

As I posted elsewhere on this thread, I ran into the Catalina-update-sleep-black-screen problem. I reverted to Mohave, backup up from Time Machine, and “simplified” my system by removing all 32-bit app, extensions, old unnecessarily junk, etc. Then reinstalled Catalina, and it has been working okay for a couple of days now (just a few little glitches with a temporarily disappearing dock). So my 2012 MBA is working okay now. So much for it being hardware related.

Apple had to replace my entire display - and charged me for it.

Try this: turn your laptop on. Wait 10 seconds. Press down your cap locks key and see if the little light on the key lights up. If it lights up, then the update screwed your display.

To test that, close the display about 75% and peek to see if it comes on. If it does, you have the same problem I had and need a new display, and apple will charge you for it.

I had this same issue but on start up. It will get through the load screen and go black. If it does start and goes to sleep it will not wake.

For me it was an outdated extension.

Shift + S on start up will confirm if it's in the system or hardware. If you can boot in safe mode then we know it's something in the OS and not hardware related.

I like a user above went into library>extensions and deleted anything before 2019. this resolved the issue for me. Im really confused how any of it got in there because this was a fresh install with a clean drive for me. But that's what solved it.

Is this the same issue that’s being discussed here? If so, I’d strongly urge you to get in contact with Apple Support’s tier 2 level of support. The tier 1 folks won’t be able to help much other than run you through the gamut of resets that you can Google search yourself online. Tier 2 support helped me track down the actual kernel extensions that supposedly caused my black screen after wake-up after I installed Catalina.

Call them. Be persistent. I’m sure your machine is not trashed after this upgrade.

As I posted earlier in this thread, I had the problem where once the MacBook Air (2012) went to sleep, I was stuck with the black screen and had to crash out to restart. I was able to wipe it clean, reinstall Mojave, clean out the extensions and the 32-bit apps and re-install Catalina. That was successful, and it has been working okay ever since. If you can’t crash/restart by holding down the power button, have you tried draining the battery to see if you can restart that way? Then you could follow my path.

Really, this “logic board” excuse doesn’t hold water. How come so many people’s motherboards “failed” in the same week, after just coincidentally upgrading to Catalina?

Were you able to get through to tier 2 Apple Support? They were by far the most helpful to me.

The agent was also able to remote into my computer so he could personally walk me through the steps of what he wanted me to do. So it was essentially like having the support agent work on my computer in person.

However, if it's not turning on at all, then your best bet might still be to go to the physical store.

So I think I found a fix, at least to my issue with the black screen after waking up.

I had to be escalated to a Level 2 Apple Support specialist to get this done.

Essentially there were some kernel extensions that appear to have disrupted my MacBook's ability to "wake up" properly post-Catalina upgrade.

We found the potential culprits in the extensions directory, and there were five from "Unidentified Authors" that appear to have been loaded on during the manufacturing of my machine back in 2017 (I bought it in winter of 2018, so it wasn't anything I installed).

After we found those extensions and moved them to the Trash, my MacBook appears to be able to properly wake up from Sleep mode with the monitor turning on as well.

Hope this helps!

How did you / they locate the extensions? Where are they located?

I spent yesterday cleaning Catalina off my MacBook Air and reinstalling Mojave and bringing back my data from Time Machine (which wasn’t easy because Catalina Time Machine removed old backups). My MacBook Air is back to normal now on Mojave.

I update to Catalina a day before and yesterday I was not able to access the laptop. The screen flashes and goes off. But my touch bar is working fine and the voice commands are working fine. I took my laptop to the Apple center and they are stating that its an Screen Back light issue and the entire screen needs to be replaced which is 650$+ taxes. I did all the preliminary tests which I am aware of. And when I told them many have similar issue, they are stating they are not aware of any such issues from Apple and the OS is all fine. I had a small dent which happened in March 2018 and they are stating due to that dent the laptop is not working. I told them its been 2 years I have had that dent and it was working perfectly fine until I updated the software. And they are not in a position to accept that and they are saying it might be a coincident. So far I just asked them to restore to the old OS version and give it a try. Hopefully that should work as I have seen it many other Apple Community forums. I just need to wait now. If anyone have solved this issue, kindly enlighten!

Mine is a MBP 13" mid-2019, 4 USB-C model and it went to black screen of death just now when trying to update to the latest Catalina (from only one rev behind). I unplugged the power and plugged it back in, heard the noise that acknowledges power is applied, so I know it isn't dead. I held the power button a long time and eventually the Apple logo came, as well as the progress indicator for the macOS update in progress.

Try draining the battery (waiting till the fan uses all the charge) and then plug in to do a complete factory reset, downloading in the OS by WiFi - if that is still an option.

I don't have my MacBook in front of me now, but it's somewhere in the Library folder. We found them by looking at a setting in System Preferences, which shows all the kernel extensions that are installed on the machine. For mine, it was about 90% Apple extensions installed, and the rest were from Unidentified Authors. The Level 2 support agent had to do some quick research into those extensions and identified a few that may have been causing the issue. After we moved those to the trash, my MacBook started waking up from Sleep normally.