Sonoma: Macbook Pro (M1 2020) Touch Bar is not working after update (Flickers during restart then once logged in, it disappears)

I had the same problem and jumped through all the hoops to no avail. Then today I realized that the Sonoma upgrade turned the Touch Bar zoom on, which impacts ability to interact with it. To turn it off (or see if it's turned on) go to Settings > Accessibility > Zoom > Touch Bar zoom (last option, toggle switch off).

I've got a 2018 running Sonoma. Based on the shining the light at the camera trick, I wondered if the flickering had something to do with adjusting the keyboard brightness to the ambient light.

Sure enough, I turned off the "adjust keyboard brightness in low light" function, turned on Touch Bar Zoom (so I could access the functions even if they weren't lit up), then restarted, no more flicker. The Touch Bar is black, but the zoom feature allows you to access it. The only key I really use on there is escape and I know where that is. Could probably also just label the bar, as others have done with tape, but doesn't even feel necessary. Huge relief.

I had the same problem and reset the controller SMC with this procedure Reset the SMC of your Mac - Apple Support fix it.

the Option + Shift + Ctrl + power fixed it for me. Thank you

I rebooted the Mac and it worked, now the bar is working properly. I hadn't much hope, but it worked!:-)

I had the same issue right after updating my system to Sonoma. Right after updating my touchbar was black with no icons or lights. I continuously restarted and did a couple of hard resets on the computer. The touchbar then finally came back on and worked. However since the upgrade, sometimes the touchbar will disappear again (going black with no icons) when I restart my computer. I then have to do a couple of restarts and hard resets for the touchbar to reappear. Hope they can fix it ASAP.

Resetting SMC worked for me....we will see for how long. (cntrl option shift power)...when it rebooted Touch Bar was on, wasn't flashing and functioned normally. My activity monitor ,however, still crashes.

I am having the same issue. I installed Sonoma awhile ago, however recently my Touch Bar started flickering. This is my main machine, so I use it a lot. The specs are the following: M1 MacBook Pro, 256GB of storage, 16GB of ram.

2 weeks into the Touch Bar flickering, it just went dark. It still registers touch, however nothing shows up on the Touch Bar.

I would believe this to be a hardware problem, possibly related to the cable that connects the Touch Bar to the motherboard. I don't want to get the full top case of my laptop replaced, because it might be better to just buy a new laptop, because I have already gotten the display replaced.

I am also experiencing this issue and sometimes have troubles booting up the laptop. Also on MBP m1 2020 with 14.5 (23F79). Don't really know if it's the physical damage of the touchbar or just a software glitch. It's really annoying cause I can't boot up the system for a while. Did you try switching it off and on via terminal? killall -STOP "ControlStrip" / kill -CONT pidnum

Curious if you've tried to personalize the Control Strip in the settings to remove all the elements of your Touch Bar? I believe that should work since the Touch Bar would be empty.

I have written the details on how to do that in this blog post.

Keep us updated!

This morning I had 16" 2019 Intel MacBook Pro with a perfectly fine TouchBar. I updated to Sonoma a few hours ago and since then have not been able to get the TouchBar to light up. It does work, as I can kinda guess where the icons should be and adjust the Mac's brightness and volume, but the TouchBar remains pitch black. I also tried the SMC reset, the PRAM reset and the Kill commands in the terminal, but nothing has worked.

So no, I believe it is not a hardware issue, cause it was perfectly fine just before updating the OS.

Perhaps there are not enough users with this issue for Apple to take notice, which makes me wonder if it is either a "chance" or lottery thing during Sonoma's installation process, or a rare combination of factors that only a small group of users share, or if indeed this is affecting all TouchBar users under Sonoma but only a few are posting about it. If that were the case, it is a major fail that a heavily touted functionality like the TouchBar is crippled by an OS update that remains unfixed as long as it has.

Im pretty sure since so many people are having this issue after installing Sonoma that it is software related. My touch bar worked perfectly before the Sonoma update. It is slowly driving me mental.

Try this to reset the SMC of your Mac

Make sure that your Mac is plugged into power, then take one of these actions. 

• Restart: Choose Apple menu  > Restart.
• Or shut down: Choose Apple menu  > Shut Down. Then press the power button on your Mac to turn it on again.

If this is not working, please boot your Mac in the safe mode to see if the issue persist

1. On your Mac, choose Apple menu  > Shut Down.
2. Wait for your Mac to shut down completely. A Mac is completely shut down when the screen is black and any lights (including in the Touch Bar) are off.
3. Press and hold the power button on your Mac until “Loading startup options” appears.
4. Select a volume.
5. Press and hold the Shift key, then click Continue in Safe Mode.
6. The computer restarts automatically. When the login window appears, you should see “Safe Boot” in the menu bar.

If it does not persist in the safe mode, it is caused by an external piece of software, you might want to evaluate the software you've installed on your Mac.

For your question if this is a hardware error caused by Sonoma, I want to stress that correlation is not always causality. What I want to say with that is that the error might have occurred after updating to Sonona, it is not yet proven that it is Caused by the update to Sonoma.

i'm experiencing the exact same problem! i've been trying to return my computer back to ventura (or whichever software it was on before sonoma) this is very very very infuriating these devices cost WAY too much money (even more if you have apple care) just for simple functions to not be working properly / as promised when we users update to the newest software