black screen in Catalina

This appears to work as a solution.

This was NOT my idea, but from another Black Screen thread but I can't get the link thread to work.

Restart your computers in SAFE MODE (hold down the shift key during the reboot)

You will know if you have correctly entered SAFE mode because it appears in RED in the menu bar

In SAFE MODE my laptop returned to normal Wake / Sleep behaviour including closing and opening the lid.

Then RESTART as normal (literally make no other change, just restart SAFE restart normal) and it seems to be FIXED !!!

• There is no explanation for why this makes a difference it just works.

I just came up with a workaround where I DID NOT get the black screen after locking and walking away for a long time. I went into Energy Saver in Preferences and turned off Automatic graphics switching, and checked Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off. Screenshot of my settings attached.

I have to do the same thing too - turns out the MCTTriggerGraphics.plugin and Trigger5Core.kext are the culprit, and I can even put them back after restarting - the moment I put the back the issue came back.

I remembered at some stage I used a USB Video Graphics adapter from j5create and must have installed one of their drivers then. A search on their website indicated that their Mac drivers are not fully compatible with Catalina yet and they are asking people to delay upgrading to Catalina.

As I don't use either of those devices now I am happy to remove those drivers.

Hopefully my MBP would now stay this way and all will be OK...

Thank you to whoever found this solution/workaround.

Well everyone, if you need the solution, it's possible. It's just worst-case scenario.

I can confirm that IF YOU HAVE A CURRENT TIME MACHINE BACKUP from pre-Catalina install, this problem can be fixed by doing a clean install of macOS 10.15 Catalina on a freshly formatted drive. This requires you to install macOS 10.15, set up the machine as a new computer, and then use Migration Assistant to transfer your old user data back into your machine. To follow this process:

1. Make sure you have a working Time Machine backup from before your macOS Catalina install - DO NOT PROCEED IF YOU DON'T, or you will lose your data
2. Boot into recovery mode by powering on the machine and holding Command ⌘ + R
3. Use Disk Utility in Recovery Mode to reformat (erase) your system ("Macintosh HD", or whatever you named it) drive or the container that hosts the system drive and "data" drive.
4. Select the appropriate file format for your machine's needs (seek other articles to find this out)
5. Close Disk Utility after complete, and use the "Reinstall macOS" feature of Recovery Mode to reinstall 10.15
6. Allow the process to complete
7. Set up the machine as if it were a brand new device - don't transfer your data in this process
8. Verify that your new install of macOS 10.15 Catalina is no longer exhibiting the wake/sleep issues
9. Use Migration Assistant in the Utilities folder to transfer your user data back from your Time Machine backup to your fresh install of macOS - OR, if you prefer, take this opportunity to start "fresh" and only transfer back the specific data that you think you'd like to keep.

This is the most complete and time consuming way this could be resolved, but the issue has been solved for me. It must be caused by some sort of user-land kext or daemon, or something that is changed by performing a clean macOS 10.15 install and then transferring your user data.

NOTE: Only do this is you had the forethought to have a working and complete backup with Time Machine prior to installing macOS Catalina. I cannot stress this enough if you are new at this...

Good luck, and godspeed!

Detailed fix:

1.. Delete these 3 files from the Library/Extensions/ directory:

• • MCTTrigger6USB.kext MCTTriggerGraphics.plugin and Trigger5Core.kext

2.. Reboot your machine.

3.. Go to your trash bin and put the files back (it will ask you to authorize them again with your password).

This seems to have worked for the majority of us that started this thread. If you still have problems, try resetting your PRAM by holding CMD + OPT + P + R at the same time when booting up your machine for 12 seconds, then release them at the same time.

I think if you delete those Library files and then put them back after reboot you should be good to go.

TL;DR - I tried a bunch of stuff and didn't fix the issue. Read below if you want to know what I tried.

I have multiple machines on the campus of Macs that I manage exhibiting the same issue. When testing this, I had one machine that isn't exhibiting the bug and one machine that is right next to each other. I tried to check the machine that has the bug against the machine that is working (the presence of certain files, extensions, permissions, preference settings, etc.). Just some of the things I attempted on the bugged machine:

• Booted to safe mode
• Reset NVRAM
• Reset SMC
• Issue occurs across local user accounts
• Removed almost everything individually from /Library
• Removing everything from /Library/Extensions did not work (I also force deleted the HP enabler driver via TDM). I double checked this by locating all 3rd party extensions in System Information; I definitely removed them all. There are no USB display drivers on the machine I was working on.
• Some machines are encrypted, some not, so it doesn't appear to be a FileVault issue. Their user accounts don't seem to have any sort of strange issues going on either (such as not being secure token enabled)
• Attached an external monitor, enabled mirror displays and locked the screen to see if anything changed, but no difference.
• Toggled everything in System Preferences > Mission Control re: Spaces (i.e. Displays have separate spaces, etc.)
• Dark mode/light mode
• Toggled Fast User Switching

The machine definitely enters sleep successfully and wakes up successfully, as turning off screen lock via System Preferences > Security & Privacy alleviates the issue. So it does not appear to be an issue with the sleep image, writing the contents of RAM to disk or reading them upon wake.

When the issue is exhibited, notifications from Notification Center will still be visible on the screen. It appears that you can still interact with the system via the cursor as well. Clicking sounds are audible. You can turn up/down screen brightness. You can also restart the computer via Control + Command + Power. This would suggest that for whatever reason, macOS is simply not drawing the authentication screen. Console > System Log doesn't provide any answers as to why it's not drawing it either. It's possible that another application/process is in the foreground at the lock screen, which in turn displays nothing, because the machine has not been authenticated to yet. Just a guess.

I had considered it possibly being a bug with the new Sidecar feature, but none of the machines exhibiting the issue have used Sidecar. Still, may be worth it to test it on a machine that has the lock screen bug.

To all of those complaining to Apple: We don't actually know if this is Apple's fault. If it is being caused by some third-party component (which it appears to have been for at least some people) that is not playing nicely with Catalina, that is not Apple's fault (and may prove difficult for Apple to issue a fix).

I've found a reliable workaround (reliable for me, anyway). THIS IS NOT A FIX. There still appears to be an underlying problem, but at least this helped me use my computer again. Here's how you'd do it:

1. Create a new administrator account
2. Reboot, log into the new account, and initialize all settings (I skipped everything I was allowed to skip)
3. After the new account is set up and active, reboot, and log into your normal account (NOT the new one)
4. Now, when waking from sleep, or entering a password at the screensaver or the lock screen, you will see a dialog box that prompts you for a password. It also says "Switch User" at the bottom left. But at least you can unlock the machine!
5. DO NOT DELETE the new user. Doing so will cause macOS to revert to the old behavior after a reboot.

I really hope this helps.

There is a temp way to get around it for the time being, until Apple comes with an update to fix it. To get around the black screen just set this to 8Hrs so your mac wont lock. Locking is what causes the issue for me changing it is was fixed. I know this reduces security, but my mac stays with me the whole day so its fine! Hope this helped!

Go to your user folder/Library/extensions then create a temp folder there. Copy the following files into that temp folder:

MCTTrigger6USB.kext MCTTriggerGraphics.plugin and Trigger5Core.kext then delete them from the extensions folder. Reboot and you're golden...SAVE THE TEMP FOLDER WITH THOSE ITEMS IN THERE.

WILL

Thank you! This solved my problem since I took it a step further.

It alleviates the pain somehow with no lock for 8 hours, but since I keep it at home and nobody else is using it, I deactivated "Require password" altogether.

It tried without it and I saw it works and then I put it back on.

It's a miracle! It works as expected now!

PS:

I have a MackBook Pro Retina, late 2015 and 2 external monitors.

The HP monitor on HDMI never had a problem.

The issue was with an old Led Cinema Display 27" on Thunderbolt - it remained black after screen lock

I noticed it is not about the display not powering back on, since I could see notifications popping up on the screen but the lock screen was not showing to be able to type the password.

It remained black. It seemed a problem with the screen lock, rather than power.

Deactivating screen lock and reactivating seems to have solved the issue for me.

I am having the same exact issue with my 2018 MB Air. Tried clearing the SMC and NVRAM and nothing. Finally had to go and restore back to Mojave and have not had an issue since. Hope they come up with a solution soon.

My work MBP is having the same issue, 2019 15 inch MBP. If I lock the screen and wait for it to turn off I don't get this issue, but if I do the same thing and walk away for a few minutes the issue happens. Also the touchbar shows options like it's unlocked, like my outlook was the last program with focus, and when the issue occurs I see the outlook options in the touchbar.

Looks like it is no only me who is suffering from this issue. And just for the record I have a 2014 13" Retina Macbook Pro. Tried doing (multiple) SMC and PRAM/NVRAM reset but to no avail, was going to try reinstalling Catalina again but will now hold off since i'm not the only one facing this issue.

I did some research and found something perhaps unrelated, and that is to change the hibernatemode to 25 (i.e. full hibernate). Just going to try it and see if it can be a viable workaround, but obviously hoping for a fix soon.

That sounds like an interesting workaround. Not sure how sidecar is involved, but maybe turning off sidecar helps?

How do I go to arrangement when I have black screen on my laptop? Can I connect sidecar from iPad side and get the screen in that way? Sidecar is not connected for me when the issue happens (it happens every time the screen powers down due to inactivity)

Same for me on 2018 MacBook Air except I can’t even force reset as the keyboard and touch power button is non responsive. Took it to the Apple store last night and of course it started working as soon as they opened it. Ran systems check and everything came back fine. Took it home and after leaving it plugged in over night I am once again looking at a black screen, non responsive keyboard, etc. They said they haven’t heard of this problem from the new OS.