MacBook Air Black Screen after macOS Catalina Update

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 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.

I had the same problem on an iMac. It’s only 4 years old. Black screen. Tech support didn’t help nor did Genius Bar. They brushed me off offered no help. They broke my iMac and there is nothing I can do. I won’t be buying Apple again. To get 4 years out of a brand new iMac is now worth the money to be honest.

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.

Without having my MacBook in front of me, I can't remember. But this link might help:

http://osxdaily.com/2012/01/12/how-to-manually-install-kernel-extensions-in-mac-os-x/

I think it's in the Library/Extensions folder. And you should be able to sort by author. Apple will be the vast majority of them. But there may be some 3rd party extensions for you to check on.

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.

thanks. It starts up but stops in the logo with an empty progress bar. That’s how far it goes. I am also considering switching to something cheaper it is definitively not worth the money you pay for it if you get only four years out of it and all these problems. Good luck

Good news, so far. After successfully reverting to Mojave, I ”cleaned up” my MBA by uninstalling all 32-bit apps, disabled unnecessary extensions, removed leftover remmenants of apps, etc., etc., using CleanMyMac. Then, after completing a “just in case” TimeMachine backup, I installed Catalina again, and so far I have been able to put the MBA to sleep and wake it up normally after several minutes, and I have left it to go to sleep, left it for half an hour, and woke it up normally.

Clearly, my mid-2012 MBA was not obsolete, nor did it have any hardware issues or midi factions that could be blamed for the weird behavior.

But why doesn’t Apple monitor these forums and provide help when a flagship product decides it won’t work on a previously working machine?

If I have problems after a much longer “sleep,” I will post here.

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.

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.

After updating my 2015 MacBook a few days ago (which took about 12 hours), everything seemed to be working fine. Then yesterday, after using it and it working normally, I connected it to the charger. When I went to use it again a couple hours later, the screen was dark. The keyboard was still lighting up though so I knew it was on. When I tried holding it under light, I could faintly see the desktop. I called Apple support and they had me do the run of the mill resets but nothing changed and I was told I would have to bring it in for repair. So today I scheduled my Genius Bar appointment and was simply told I would need to shell out $475 plus tax to replace the display. I have not had any problems with this laptop for the four years I have owned it, and the fact that it went from functioning normally to unusable from sitting on my dining room table for two hours seems more like a software malfunction than a $500+ hardware issue.

This was a garbage response form Apple. I had the same experience. I reverted to Mojave (not easy) and after doing some clean up to simplify my system, reinstalled Catalina and it has been generally okay since. I have a macbook Air 2012 edition.

The apple technician doesn't know what he is taking about.

Similar issue happening with me and my Mid 2013 Macbook Air. I did the Catalina update as it was charging and forgot about it for a couple hours. When i came back the macbook was just on a black screen.

I've tried the SMC and NVRAM resets, i've tried booting into recovery mode and even burning an external OS to a usb but it never boots to anything other than the black screen. I've tried typing my password as some people have reported works but that didn't work in my case.

I've tried plugging it into an external monitor and that failed too. I literally can not get it to do anything besides boot to a black screen. There is no keyboard light or chime. When i close the lids, the screen turns off but it turns back on when i open it. Having it on charger vs not doesn't make a difference. I don't need any data off it and hoped i could boot into recovery mode but even CMD + R doesn't seem to do anything.

I'm pretty sure i've tried everything and i guess my next step would be to take out the SSD and Battery in hopes of getting it to boot