Blank screen after waking from sleep. No login window.

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Level 1

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Blank screen after waking from sleep. No login window.

Hi All,

I'm using Snow Leopard 10.6.5 and with the recent update I'm getting increasing incidences of the following problem:

When I open the lid on my MacBook and it revives from sleep mode I am often faced with a black screen with the mouse pointer only. My Mac is configured to display a login screen and this does not appear. Closing the lid, letting the machine sleep and waking it again usually solves the problem.

Any ideas?

Dave

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.6.5)

Posted on Dec 4, 2010 1:02 PM

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Answer 1

Dec 11, 2010 10:33 AM in response to GlasgowDave

I can't offer any ideas, but I have a similar problem. About 10 seconds after waking from sleep the screen on my MacBook Pro goes blank for about 8-10 seconds and then the screen returns. The problem does not recur until the machine goes to sleep again.

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Answer 2

Dec 11, 2010 6:15 PM in response to James Wilson7

Elsewhere in these forums there is a suggestion to reset the SMC. I did that and the problem appears to be solved.

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Answer 3

GlasgowDave Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 12, 2010 2:42 AM in response to James Wilson7

Yup, I reset the SMC recently but the problem remains. I'd been convinced it was a SMC issue before because I'd also seen some odd behavior where the laptop wouldn't recognize that the power cord had been removed. However, the reset seems to have made no difference.

My next step is to safe boot the machine and try that. Although I've come to depend on the handful of little helper apps (Quicksilver, etc). =)

Dave

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Answer 4

GlasgowDave Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 13, 2010 3:39 PM in response to GlasgowDave

A little update:

I reset the SMC but that made no difference. I restarted in Safe Mode and the problem seemed to vanish. So I restarted in normal mode again. I was hoping that the clearing of caches, etc that is done in Safe Mode might have solved the problem. Sadly it didn't.

However, I have now quit several items that run on startup and I think the problem may have gone. I will reintroduce them one by one in a bid to discover the culprit. Currently under suspicion is Dropbox, Audiogalaxy, LastFM and Xmarks. Possibly it's none of the above. I'll keep you posted.

Dave

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Answer 5

Dec 13, 2010 4:14 PM in response to GlasgowDave

Good luck. My system is still behaving properly, perhaps because I have none of the four start up items you mentioned.

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Answer 6

Dec 13, 2010 6:58 PM in response to James Wilson7

I spoke too soon. It just happened again. Arrgh.

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Answer 7

GlasgowDave Author

Level 1

5 points

Dec 14, 2010 3:57 PM in response to GlasgowDave

Update:

It's been happening less frequently now but it's still happening. Before, the problem would occur every time I woke the machine from sleep. Currently it's 1 in 7. The screen is certainly coming on as I can see the backlight come on. The only problem is that the login box is not displayed. Typing my password into the black screen does nothing.

Dave

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