Big Sur - Black Screen After Update?

Welcome, NewJohnny, to Apple Support Communities!

The car pulling a trailer analogy was quite a while ago.

It was simply brought up in order to help people that are not familiar with the issues of aging mechanical, electrical, electronic, etc., hardware systems.

If you understand the issues with aging hardware, then you have no need for an analogy.

Like I wrote, NewJohnny:

«If you understand the issues with aging hardware, then you have no need for an analogy.»

Unfortunately, this is, often, a matter of experience.

Those with too little related experience, can have difficulty understanding the concept, unfortunately.

(I’ve especially seen this with software [only] engineers. After all, they only consider hardware to be the unchanging “stage” upon which their software runs.)

The solution I have found is to hold down Option when restarting. This will came up with available hard drives and "Big Sur" (The bootable partition that has been created for the upgrade). Select your main hard drive and it should boot up normally. Not that this only worked with my Apple keyboard - my third party keyboard wasn't recognised by OSX until later.

Hopefully this works for you.

Has anyone posted a solution to the problem that works?

I do not have hardware issues.

I installed Big Sur and upon restart, the black screen with an Apple support link in the center results. No further functions are available.

Hold down Option while restarting and it will come up with your bootable drives. Manually select your normal hard drive rather than the Big Sur installation partition.

Alternatively hold down Command + R while booting up to enter recovery mode and reinstall OSX.

With either option. Delete the Big Sur installer from you Applications folder and try redownloading and installing from the app store.

And, I would recommending backing up when possible in that process. There was no problem with the hard drive in my case.

You can solve the problem using a bootable usb with the previous MacOs, insert the usb, turn on the laptop and immediately press abd hold option key until de Boot options appear, the select the USB drive and follow the instructions.

when the process finished my laptop startup with Big Sur and Ok.

So my problem is similar but a little different. I am using a Late 2016 MBP and I had the initial version of Big Sur installed and working properly with no hiccups. Then a few days ago I installed Big Sur 11.1 and this morning I get the black screen. I plugged up an external display and it works fine like normal, so it is my main Retina display that isn’t working I guess? Should I uninstall 11.1 and try reinstalling?

I had the same problem after upgrade to big sur on MacBook Air 2017. I tries a SMC reset but it didn’t work.

However the boot in safe mode suggestion by holding down Shift all the way till you reach the final stages (past a safe boot query screen) has fixed my problem and the laptop seems to be working normally now.

My 27 inch late 2015 IMac (is used lightly for home use for web browsing, looking through iCloud pictures) was running ace until it automatically updated to Big Sur and now it’s a black screen and a screaming fan. I’m wildly unhappy. As anyone would be if a major purchase just stopped working. I think my dismay is warranted, as is yours.

You need a USB cabled keyboard to get the job done. I went to the Geek Squad and he pulled out an old-as-the-hills keyboard from under the counter. I asked him to install Catalina. I don't trust Big Sur now. I'll wait until these accounts of black screens stop occurring.

Okay, here's an update. It's working now.

So, with days wasted getting no usable help from Apple support, option key this, PRAM reset that, trying to arrange for repair, getting told "it's your own fault", I finally just set the computer aside. It sat in its corner, plugged in, lid closed. This was two months ago.

Last week, I decided I wanted to open up the thing. Flipped the screen open. Lo and behold, it's sitting at the Catalina prompt waiting for login, midway through the Big Sur upgrade process. It spent the next two hours doing just that.

The laptop is now working again. It's now running Big Sur.

So, apparently, upgrading to Big Sur takes the machine just a bit of time: somewhere between a week to two months. Good job, Apple! Microsoft couldn't have done any better.

[Edited by Moderator]

PattS452 wrote:

For me it did show as an “update” and now I have a brick instead of a working laptop.

While it did show up on the Update Panel, it was labeled an upgrade.

Unfortunately, I can understand people not noticing such a seemingly minor detail.

(Of course. Once one installs Big Sur, all subsequent updates are updates to Big Sur.)

RobAtAppleDiscussions wrote:

Okay, here's an update. It's working now.

So, with days wasted getting no usable help from Apple support, option key this, PRAM reset that, trying to arrange for repair, getting told "it's your own fault", I finally just set the computer aside. It sat in its corner, plugged in, lid closed. This was two months ago.

Last week, I decided I wanted to open up the thing. Flipped the screen open. Lo and behold, it's sitting at the Catalina prompt waiting for login, midway through the Big Sur upgrade process. It spent the next two hours doing just that.

The laptop is now working again. It's now running Big Sur.

…

You probably had automatic updating of your Apps turned on. So, in the intervening time, the errant Apps were upgraded to compatible versions.

(You may have received the Big Sur 11.2 update, as well. As I recall, even the 11.1 update helped some with «Black Screen» issues.)

In any case, I, and, I’m sure, many others, are glad all is well for you and your system, now.

I have been using Macs from their inception. Bug Sur is without a doubt the worst OS that Apple has ever made (when it comes to upgrading and making a bootable hard drive). When this black screen issue happened to me the only way that I could fix it was to format the hard drive, and install the OS (11.2) from scratch. Make sure you've copied all your files before you format anything. I would use CCC for this. You can also use Configurator 2 to fix MacBooks that get "stuck" if you have another MacBook to connect to the stuck MacBook.

Have the exact same problem. After update i only get the black screen. Apple needs to sort this out asap as i have a deadline for work and my machine is dead due to an official apple update.