black screen in Catalina

I can attest that this was extremely helpful and fixed my issue.

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..

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.

@wlgspotter the solution I was referring to above was to enter recovery mode and use first aid on each individual hard drive/partition, then restart to complete. After completing those steps, I closed and opened my computer several times, thereby activating the sleep function, and upon opening the black/grey screen issue did not occur. However, as I opened the laptop to respond to this message, the problem repeated itself, so I need to edit my previous comment, as the "solution" did not resolve the issue afterall. Pending an apple update to the software in the near future, I'm going to have to resort to wiping catalina and reinstalling mojave

Oh wow thanks for sharing this. I did just as advised, and it seemed to have worked for me! Still early days, I'm testing it out more, but initial tests seemed to indicate that the restart to SAFE Mode then restart again to Normal mode may have fixed it - fingers crossed!

Thanks this did work for me when I switched off graphics switching, but Apple really needs to fix this.

I tried the Nvram/ SMC/ Reinstall, nothing worked, great work Apple, you now broke my $4,000 MacBook pro with this new operating system, good Job!

I am having the exact same issue with my MacBook Air. I have also reset SMC and NVRAM with no success.

The only thing I can add is that I have learned that since the MacBook is functioning (other than the screen), I can at least restart rather than force reboot. I move the pointer to the upper right, click once (opening the apple menu), type "res" (selecting restart), then hit enter twice.

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).

Exact same issue. Reset SMC And NVRAM. Stuck on a blank screen any time the computer reboots. Only way to resolve is to hard restart computer.

The solution without rebooting is to reduce the display brightness to zero and return it to the desired position.

This is a nice workaround, but not really a solution. All it does it to prevent sleep mode when power is on (not sure if the graphics switching has any effect, I don't have that on mine).

It will still sleep when running on battery, and end up in black screen (for me at least)

Hmm that's interesting. I'm not sure why would your system indicate that - are you using any kind of external monitor that may make use of any of the drivers?

I definitely allowed me to remove it from my system without issues.

Sorry can't be of much help, other than to perhaps check with the manufacturer of your display drivers to see if they might have updated drivers?

Had that issue a few times, now no longer happening getting something else but more serious. Note that for me my system is only ever going to sleep or left unattended for a long period of time while docked, I can't speak to the behavior when running on battery without external displays connected.

My issue is that I can't reboot and get anything to display UNLESS docked (CalDigit TS3 Plus). If I reboot without being docked, no matter how many times I retry, I will get a black screen. Powering down and then plugging into the dock (which powers on automatically when plugged) will then boot without fail every time. This is really concerning, and very frustrating. If I have to reboot for any reason, or access BootCamp, I won't be able to get back into macOS again unless at home and docked. Tried what was suggested here and moved some kexts, rebooted and replaced, had no effect whatsoever. Same issue as described continues to happen consistently.

Kexts I have (not that I think it matters since moving them an replacing them didn't do jack):

ACS6x.kext

ArcMSR.kext

ATTOCelerityFC8.kext

ATTOExpressSASHBA2.kext

ATTOExpressSASRAID2.kext

CalDigitHDProDrv.kext

HighPointIOP.kext

HighPointRR.kext

HueSync.kext

PromiseSTEX.kext

SoftRAID.kext

ufsd_NTFS.kext

Hoping we, or Apple, can come up with a solution to this quickly as Mojave is sounding better by the minute. Happy to provide more info if this gives anyone any ideas. Appreciate the collaboration in this thread, but wish Apple would be more engaged in these types of discussions as their input would be most valuable vs the pure speculation I see from a few others in here.

Mac mini 2018 doing same thing , have to hard reset to boot up .

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.

I had the same problem, however "automatic graphics switching" was not an option within my energy saver preferences. I found the instructions on this site to be immensely helpful. Solution 1 worked right away.