After updating my Mac Mini M1 from Monterey to Ventura my Thunderbolt screen remains black. The M1 is working flawlessly over HDMI, the same for the Thunderbolt Display attached to a 2014 Mini with Monterey which I'm using right now.
Mac mini, macOS 12.6
Final update (hopefully): Deleting "com.apple.windowserver.plist" via screen sharing using my Macbook a couple of times finally helped. I also had to do a couple of restarts as the Mini also crashed occasionally (kernel panic). Waking up from sleep time of the monitor gradually went down from 30 to 0,5 seconds. Strange, but it's stable now since two weeks. Touch wood!
Final update (hopefully): Deleting "com.apple.windowserver.plist" via screen sharing using my Macbook a couple of times finally helped. I also had to do a couple of restarts as the Mini also crashed occasionally (kernel panic). Waking up from sleep time of the monitor gradually went down from 30 to 0,5 seconds. Strange, but it's stable now since two weeks. Touch wood!
I don't think that's the case with the Thunderbolt display, which is a typical Apple monitor controlled by the Mac OS without even an on/off button, also even without a HDMI port, just Thunderbolt 2. Not a problem so far, until I updated to Ventura... Now, the display awakes from sleep, but only after a loooooong time, moving the mouse and tapping randomly on the keyboard several times. Next step will be a clean install of Ventura, before going back to Monterey. I just cannot imagine that Apple didn't think about the combination M1/Ventura/Thunderbolt Display. I think there are still many thousands Thunderbolt Display out there...
Most monitors (and TVs) have an onscreen menu to configure the display.
On ones that use a USB-C port, they will accept USB video over the port. macOS doesn't send USB video and it seems Ventura gets confused when there is a USB signal on the display port. If it is a pure Thunderbolt port and not a combined port, it wouldn't be the issue.
What make/model display?
On another post, the person found he had to disable USB on the USB-C port using the monitor’s on-screen display.
I don’t remember the symptoms on that post, though. I’m pretty certain it wasn’t a Thunderbolt Display.
Thanks, but, sorry, I don't get you: "disable USB on the USB-C port using the monitor’s on-screen display"? How am I supposed to do that? In the meantime, I followed the advice from a friendly Apple support guy (I also found on the web somewhere) and deleted the file "com.apple.windowserver.plist" under Library->Preferences. That helped, until the M1 went to sleep and didn't wake up. So I gave it a second try, deleted all preferences this time, also set up Ventura once again. Now it seems to work...touch on wood! There was only one Apple Thunderbolt Display, as far a I know...?
Thunderbolt Display black after update from Monterey to Ventura Mac Mini M1
