black screen in Catalina

YES, PLEASE FIX THIS

I can reach my desktop which then goes black in 2to3 seconds.I removed the power plunge and the black screen ended.Dont know how long it will continue, or if zI found a tru solution.

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)

@TB Express - thanks for your message, and your update. Guess we will have to wait for Apple to come up with a fix, however, as per the post and link shared by @appzattak earlier I guess it may take a while since it appearsApple is clueless as to why this is happening. It must be a widespread issue as quite a number of us is facing the issue.

I am definitely holding back upgrading my Mac Mini until at least a fix is out for this - still hopeful for a fix soon.

2019 Macbook Pro with touchbar chiming in here. Same issue. I just get a black screen with cursor when trying to wake from sleep. The touchbar still works though and acts like I'm getting logged in but the screen doesn't change. I can change the brightness of the backlit keyboard, however I cannot change the brightness of the screen from the touchbar. Really frustrating having to hard shutdown my mac to use it now after walking away for awhile.

This worked for me for a while, and then subsequently the screen went black again.

I had a call from Apple Support who spoke to me to get more details about the fault, and asked me to run a System Diagnostics and send the logs to them. I did mentioned this possible workaround (as it appeared to work when I was on the call with Apple Support), so hopefully Apple could come up with a fix soon.

They are definitely paying attention to this issue, although whether or not they can fix it is another issue.

Just had a software update popped up on my MBP. It seems that Apple has published a supplementary update to Catalina. Read the update release notes, no where was it mentioned about this black screen issue, but I proceeded to update it anyway.

Update took about 20 mins on, and upon update, did a quick test - I let the screen go blank (whilst on battery), left it for a minute or so after going black, touched the keyboard again and screen came up with my login screen.

Next, tried closing the lib, left it for another minute or so, and popped open the lid - got the dreaded black screen.

So, it still appear the issue isn't fixed nor addressed....

Just did some further investigations, and it seemed that now my screen would come back after leaving it for a while and it goes to sleep. However, when I close the lid of my MBP, and reopen it later, the screen remained blank.

Not sure if this is a one-off or coincidental, however, it looks like the Supplementary Update provided did fixed some bits...

Now just hope they can fix the part about the black screen after popping open the lid.

I reset my laptop to factory settings (completely erased hard drive) and and went back to Mojave. No more sleep issue and everything works great.

Not sure if upgrading to Catalina at this point would now work but I'm sick of dealing with it and don't feel starting over if it doesn't so I'll stick with Mojave for now.

I appreciate the post however on my MacBook Pro (Late 2016) it is still acting as described above. If it goes to 'sleep' then after waking back up, I can tell it is on, the Touch Bar shows the icons and is responsive, and I can hear the system sounds while I press buttons but there is no display. If I power off and reboot the machine works as expected. This began after the Catalina update. I had never experienced the with prior versions of Mac OS X.

i found a resolution to the issue,

choosing mirror displays had my 3rd external monitor come up as normal , turning mirror off then kept my 3rd display up,

sleep mode still crashes macbook pro 15 inch with 6 core i7, but so far so good on 3 external monitors with MBP display being 4th,

I am having the exact same problem... have tried reinstalling Catalina, and updating all minor versions...   The "Prevent computer from sleeping automatically when the display is off" does NOT work for me. I think the only option here is to set display to NEVER turn off... But that seems like a terrible workaround idea.

APPLE SUPPORT, PLEASE HELP.