Q: Lion randomly crashes - black screen

Crash problem is already in 10.6.8!

Going back to 10.6 appears only to be a solution, when going to 10.6.7. I already had the random-crash phenomenon after installing the upgrade to 10.6.8. So I installed Lion as soon as it was out hoping to resolve the problem. But obviously Apple had the disastruous feature already been built into 10.6.8!

Even worse, when I reinstalled 10.6.7, after the 10.6.8 desaster, also 10.6.7 crashed. So the 10.6.8 upgrade evidently brought some software along that didn't vanish after reimplementing 10.6.7.

The 10.6.8/Lion crash happens on both my macheines (Mac Pro and Macbook Pro, both very new).

It appears that the crash happens, when I'm somehow connected to the internet, be it Firefox, iTunes or only getting a ticket for Kerberos with no other program running. Could it be related to the new IPv6 integration?

So far, I never had a crash, when I was not connected to the internet.

Are you sure it wasn't just in 10.7 and going back to 10.6.8 didn't get rid of whatever was causing the crashes in 10.7? I had 10.6.8 for quite a while and never had a single crash. 100% of my problems have come since upgrading to Lion. With the smcFanControl + NDVIDIA developer drivers my iMac seems to be doing ok again.

No, it happened immediately after installing 10.6.8, well before Lion was coming out.

I was having the black issue in 10.6.8 as well, maybe even 10.6.7 but it was far more intermitent. It seemed to only happen when I was waking up from sleep and had my external drive connected, disconnected, and then connected again after a restart. It was a weird process that I could never peg down and figure I never would have to because Lion would fix it.

In Lion, without gfxstatus running, I crash as soon as I did anything requiring the second graphics card (flash videos, adobe, external monitor).

whetty101 wrote:

 

I went to the Apple store today and showed them how I could get it to crash. They did some checks making sure all the internals were fine, which they were but then suggested to reinstall lion which I have now and still the same problem.

 

So the advice I was given was: just deal with it until 10.7.1 comes out. They weren't sure of the date; or to revert back to SL and again wait till 10.7.1

 

They think its a software problem. Not a lot of help really...

Thats why having a fresh lion install on an External HDD with no other programs is usefull. You can avoid that "genius" step of "yeah reinstall"..."oh just reinstall" ... "ohhh just reinstall that should fix it". !!!

My problem is not as severe as others, but after I upgraded to the new operating system yesterday on my 2009 macbook pro, the screen occasionally has gone to black and I've had to do a hard re-boot.  Please let me know when a fix is available.

Hello Everyone.

It appears we are all having the same issue.

Here are my system specs if it helps or shows any trend.

If there is anything to try, please let me know.

My system seems to work for a short period of time and then all of a sudden the screen goes black, the keys stay lit, and it takes holding down the power supply to bring it back to life.

The first time this happened was immediately after installing Lion when I was attempting to do the first Gesture the system asked me to complete.

I am typing this message on the affected laptop, but the infamous "Black Screen" is lurking...

Hardware Overview:

  Model Name:          MacBook Pro

  Model Identifier:          MacBookPro6,2

  Processor Name:          Intel Core i7

  Processor Speed:          2.66 GHz

  Number of Processors:          1

  Total Number of Cores:          2

  L2 Cache (per Core):          256 KB

  L3 Cache:          4 MB

  Memory:          4 GB

  Processor Interconnect Speed:          4.8 GT/s

  Boot ROM Version:          MBP61.0057.B0C

  SMC Version (system):          1.58f15

  Serial Number (system):xxxxxxxxxx

  Hardware UUID:          7EDE4F99-73E0-5C11-A8D3-FA1970039015

  Sudden Motion Sensor:

  State:          Enabled

Hey... wait one minute... do you all know what's worse than this issue?

My mic port does not work!  I wNted to use Garage band with my guitar and plug a mic in, but nothing. Tried my mic from the iPhone and nothing. Plugged the mic from the iPhone into the output jack and it started working!!  Tried various combinations and sometimes it worked but most of the time it would not work. The mic port definitely does NOT work on my new Mac mini that came with Lion. Anyone else have this issue?  Is it the port or a software glitch?

Try using the Audio MIDI Setup utility in the Applications/Utilities folder to select the inputs and output you want.

MacBook Pro 2.66 Intel i7, 4GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M 512 MB from Mid-2010 (July)

I am experiencing the same issue (black screen, lit locked keyboard). I only use the mac for internet browsing and word. No external monitor or any other additional devices. Never run Bootcamp.

I did experience this issue with 10.6.8 very ocassionally (maybe a couple of times) and didn't think it was very relevant.

After installing Lion, I experience black screen freezes with kernel panics all the time. I can actually reproduce the issue whenever I want:

- Activate whichever 2 apps you want (that are not created by Apple -ie. Firefox, Skype, Chrome, Word, Spotify, Evernote, Dropbox...-)

- Then do a Quick Look (by pressing the space bar) over any text file (pdf, rtf, doc, txt).

- Browse through different text files with Quick Look active.

This guarantees a black screen/kernel panic report, 100% of the times.

I took the mac to the Apple Store (Sherman Oaks, Los Angeles, CA) and reproduced the issue in front of a Genius, and showed I could do it as many times as I wanted. They checked for hardwarse issues, made me do a clean reinstall of Lion... still the same issue. I brought it back and reproduced it again in front of them. Since they couldn't figure out what was happening, they took it in and changed the main logic board (it took 3 days and they did it for free, even if it was 2 months out of warranty)... still the same issue (just got it back from the shop today).

I guess I'll bring it back tomorrow again (now that it's under the repair warranty).

Does anyone think that I should ask them to replace the GPU? Would that solve the problem? Is there anything that I should ask them? (I will show them this thread, that I found today)

I found this post today, so I tried gfxCardStatus and it solves the issue for me if I set it to "Integrated only" (anything else doesn't make a difference). Using "integrated only", I'm completely unable to reproduce the black screen.

It's a good workaround, but I still want to take the mac to the Store tomororw and take the advantage that it's now under the pos-repair warranty.

I am filling a bug report right now too.

Any suggestions about what exactly tell the Genius tomorrow are much appreciated. (I know that they probably won't be able to help much).

al_varus, you can ask the Genius to replace the GPU to clear the creshe-black screen bug, waiting for your advance information on it.

@al_varus, great post. I've tested the quick look crash on my fresh Lion install on my external HDD and BAM crashed 2x in a row. I don't have a single extra application installed so just tested by opening Mac Mail, Safari text edit and iTunes. I then goto my internal drive documents directory, click Space bar for quick look then click up and down on the arrows quickly to flick through files/images ... BAM Kernel panic.

So that crash + the one in photo booth (effects > tab 2) is enough to show the problem in two instances without fail to apple "genius" bar on a fresh install.

However...what is most worrying... When they replaced your motherboard AFAIK that also replaces your GPU. The CPU and GPU are built into the motherboard unless I'm mistaken. So now i'm concerned there is far more issues if even replacing the motherboard doesn't help at all... sigh. I was originally hoping to have the motherboard replaced ... if that doesn't even fix this then whats left for us??

Having said that, i *hope* i'm wrong and they can replace your GPU and fix your/our problems. Awaiting your results on how you go

as stated already here in this thread it looks like this is not a hardware problem, it seems to be a software problem introduced by 10.6.8 and 10.7

There is no mic problem. Was an ID10T error. I just read "audio input on the side or back of the Mac is not for passive non-amplified microphones".

My Story, I have a iMac 27" mid 2011 which I updated to lion and now when I start my mac, I get a black screen on start up.

I just got back from the apple store and the guy plugged in a external monitor to my mac and the screen comes back to life.

Some how the mac thinks there is another external screen connected and when it detects the other monitor it fires up it own screen what the???.

Apple need to fix this!!