No Signal on HDMI TV After Lion Upgrade

For everyone who is having HDTV display and digital audio output problems take the advice of a few of the other posters here and go out and purchase Gefen HDMI Detective Plus. It retails for $129 but Amazon has it for sale for around $80. It will fix your Mac HDMI out video and audio problems period. Yeah it ***** you have to buy it but if you have the HDMI problems it was designed to fix you already have spent several thousand dollars on computer and home theater equipment so what is another $80 to keep everything working right.

By way of background, I have a late 2010 Quadcore I7 Imac, which also doubles as a HTPC for a 7.1 speaker set up in my loft with my Denon 4308CI amp and Panasonic HDTV (via a long 100 ft HDMI run). I use the Imac bluetooth keyboard and trackpad in the living room to control the Imac when viewing on my HDTV. The set up worked great with Snow Leopard until the 10.6.8 update killed my digital audio. I reverted to 10.6.7 to fix the issue until Lion 10.7.1 was released and I read on another Apple thread that the HDMI out issues had been solved. When I upgraded I lost both HDMI video and audio and I was hoping that 10.7.2 would solve the issues but it did not.

Anyhow, I was getting ready to go back to 10.6.7 again but read this whole thread for solutions and stumbled on the Gefen hardware solution. After doing some research it seems that many HTPCs have HDMI out problems with software updates and AV receivers and not just Apple. I bought the product, spoke to Gefen tech support before the set up as their instrucitons are a little unclear but after that I set up the product in no time and now everything is working perfectly once again. Best of all, I don't have to worry now about future software updates killing my HDMI out video and audio again.

BTW, if you use a AV receiver with your Imac just use one of the preset Gefen generic codes at set up as storing your HDTV's EDID in the Gefen may not allow you to push multi channel digital audio as well as video from your Imac.

I think I may have finally achieved success. My first

boot after upgrading the 10.6.8 updated system resulted

in the infamous black screen no signal. Shut down with

the power button then restarted by zapping PRAM

(command+option+p+r). I got the display back. Did the repair

permissions as usual. Then went into monitor preferences.

Pressed the detect displays button. Then changed the resolution

to 720p. I then changed it back to 1080p. It always has been

set to 60Hz NTSC so didn't touch that. Also disabled the menu

bar widget. I did al this thinking that maybe if I force it to

change settings that it me rewrite something that may have been

corrupted. Also, whether it means anything or not, also tried

to see if I could connect to it via Screen Sharing with my iMac and it did.

After all this, decided to shut everything down. Mac, receiver, and TV and

let sit for 10 minutes or so.

Then powered up TV, then receiver, and then the Mini.

Suprise!!!!! It booted. Did the same thing a second time.

And guess what, it booted properly again!!

I messed around with a lot of things, but something there got

me back up and running again, with Lion.

Last time, zapping PRAM only worked once (was first thing I tried).

Maybe changing display settings and changing them back did force

a rewrite of something to a new format.

Well, gonna sit down now and see if PLEX still works and

watch a movie and if I can still watch my iTunes movies.

Further, we'll see when this guy sits overnight and I fire it

up tommorow whether it still works.

mrklaw, my Yamaha is an RX-V467. Did you try this:

1. shut evrything down

2. turn on TV until it has some display that says its looking

for signal. My Samsung TV does this.

3. turn on the receiver. not sure, but I wait until a hear a second

click from the receiver after the intial one. Yours may not do

that, so just wait a few seconds.

4. perform the PRAM zapping feature booting the Mini.

5. once booted, cange display to desired setting. I use 1080p

myself.

After this, NEVER just reboot. NEVER shut any component off

while Mini is still running.

ALWAYS start system by turning on TV and wait for it to

initialize, turn on receiver and wait a few seconds for it to

do its thing, then boot the Mini.

I find that ANY DEVIATION whatsoever from this process

borks my video totally with Lion.

There was, and still isn't, any video issues at all with

Snow Leopard. I could turn anything on in any order,

leave Mini run with everthing else turned off. Basically,

all the permuttions you could have with 3 devices being

turned on and off produced no issues. With Lion,

only ONE of these permutations works without borking

system.

I believe i can offer a fix for some of you:

Before you can try to fix the problem, you need to have desktop access to the affected computer either by connecting it to a secondary working screen(if it's a laptop you're already sorted🙂) or enable Screen Sharing so that you can remotely control the computer while it's connected to TV. If you do not have access to a secondary monitory, you can enable Screen Sharing by booting OS X into Single User mode(boot into single user mode ** holding down "cmd - s" when powering on the computer) and type these commands:

mount -uw /

launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.screensharing.plist

reboot

When the computer starts up, you can remotely connect to it from another mac either via Finder

or Finder -> Go -> Connect to server - and type in: vnc://IPADDRESS

Replace IPADDRESS with the IP address of the affected computer, you can find it by looking at your DHCP server address leases/client list.

Or using VNC client from a windows computer and connect to the IP address.

Now that you've got desktop access the affected computer and it's connected to the tv:

• Download and install SwitchResX (10 day demo, google it)
• Start SwitchResX, select your TV on the left side:
• Click - Disable HDMI 1.3a (enables more resolutions on HDTV)
• Click - Default Resolution

  set it to 1920 x 1080 @ 50 or 60 hz (or the setting your television can handle or you prefer)

• Close SwitchResX
• reboot and the computer should start displaying on your TV, if not try adjusting the resolution.

There is an non demo free alternative to SwitchResX called DisplayConfigX which i'm in NO WAY SURE works with Lion or even can fix the problem, but it's worth a shot if you want to try something else.

I can report another success with the terminal commands from page 9 combined with a reset of SMC--Thanks Venturas!

After the SMC reset, the HDTV came up set to its native 720p resolution, and I just moved the Underscan slider toward More until the edges of the display fit within the physical screen perfectly.

FYI--the SwitchResX app did not help for my problem--I tried it first because I stumbled on to it prior to finding the terminal commands.

Good luck!

-----------------------------------------

Commands (pasted here for your convenience):

cd /System/Library/Displays/Overrides/DisplayVendorID-410c/

sudo mv DisplayProductID-0 DisplayProductID-0.old

SMC reset steps I used next (works for Mac Pro, Intel-based iMac, Intel-based Mac mini, or Intel-based Xserve):

1. Shut down the computer.
2. Unplug the computer's power cord.
3. Wait fifteen seconds.
4. Attach the computer's power cord.
5. Wait five seconds, then press the power button to turn on the computer.

Details:

My secondary display that was giving me fits is the following which I have connected directly to the HDMI out via HDMI cable on a Mid 2010 Mac Mini Server:

Philips 32" TV model # 32PFL3505D/F7 (It showed as Philips FTV in Display Preferences prior to the terminal fix--now it just says Philips)

I also have a 17" Dell E170S connected via Minidisplay port to VGA.

Just as a heads up, I ran into some issues today, having no HDMI output, and I found this forum thinking it was an issue with having just upgraded to 10.7.2. While fiddling around with the wires and going crazy, I remembered that I installed the latest Adobe Flash Player update today (the time I started having troubles). After uninstalling Flash and restarting OS X, the HDMI output worked and all is okay. So it might be worth a shot for those who have installed the latest version of Flash to uninstall it and see if that works. (I know it's kind of stupid having to uninstall Flash, especially since it's a pretty key piece of software...) Hope this has saved some of you some trouble. 🙂

I had similar problems since 10.7.2 update and after a lot of trial and error I found out it was the HDMI cable. This cable worked perfectly on 10.7.1 (even after downgrading to 10.7.1 from 10.7.2 with Time Machine) so I did not search for a problem with the HDMI cable.

It is worth a try!

I bought a Mac Mini a couple of months ago. When I originally plugged the computer into my Philips 42" TV, it worked fine. I messed with some resolution and then I got the "format not supported" message. I tried resetting PRAM and NVRAM, booting in safe mode, and using air display on my iPad to mirror what the desktop was showing me. I managed to get it to work SOME of the time, but as soon as air display was turned off or the computer was booted up normally, it would go back to the settings that weren't supported. Basically, the mac saved the display settings for the incompatible resolution as the default settings. I called apple support and here is the solution for my problem, which is similar to what many have experienced here:

1. Start computer in safe mode OR on another display.

2. Go to Macintosh HD>Library> Preferences and scan for a file titled "com.apple.windowserver.plist"

3. Take that file, drag to desktop and rename "com.apple.windowserver.plist.old" and make sure the file is no longer in the preferences folder.

4. In the top menu bar, click on the "GO" tab. Once that drop-down menu is up, hold the "option" key on your keyboard and keep holding it. You should see "library" displayed as an option in the GO drop-down menu. Click on library. Once you do, you can release the option key, btw.

5. Once your in GO>Library, find the preferences folder. Open preferrences and find the file named "com.apple.windowserver.D8966756-7809-59DC-87CC-6058F977FE4D.plist" and drag this file to the desktop, rename ".old" and ensure that THIS file is no longer in the folder.

*note, the path you follow to get there, for simplifying this process, is GO+option key>Library>Preferences.

6. Once both of those files are out of their respective folders, you can restart the computer and it should restart like normal and allow you to see the desktop.

This worked for me and I hope it works for everyone else that continues to have problems.

Breadsta thanks a lot, that solved my problem on MacbookPro connection to Philips 37" TV.

1. Start computer in safe mode OR on another display.

2. Go to Macintosh HD>Library> Preferences and scan for a file titled "com.apple.windowserver.plist"

3. Take that file, drag to desktop and rename "com.apple.windowserver.plist.old" and make sure the file is no longer in the preferences folder.

4. In the top menu bar, click on the "GO" tab. Once that drop-down menu is up, hold the "option" key on your keyboard and keep holding it. You should see "library" displayed as an option in the GO drop-down menu. Click on library. Once you do, you can release the option key, btw.

5. Once your in GO>Library, find the preferences folder. Open preferrences and find the file named "com.apple.windowserver.D8966756-7809-59DC-87CC-6058F977FE4D.plist" and drag this file to the desktop, rename ".old" and ensure that THIS file is no longer in the folder.

*note, the path you follow to get there, for simplifying this process, is GO+option key>Library>Preferences.

6. Once both of those files are out of their respective folders, you can restart the computer and it should restart like normal and allow you to see the desktop.

I find this funny, here is your supposed fix: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2714

Same problem here. 2010 Mini > Denon AV591 receiver > Samsung HP-S5060 TV. If I turn off the receiver and TV, I get "Not Supported Mode" on my TV when I turn everything back on. This only started after the Lion upgrade. I have to pull the HDMI cable for 10-20 seconds to get a display back...which kind of defeats the purpose of running everything via a remote.

Kevin,

With everything turned on, try pulling the HDMI cable from the mini for about 10 seconds or so and then plug it back up and see if you get a picture. That has been working with mine. Apple still needs to get this fixed...makes me think it's an HDMI handshake thing.

Thanks Jarek. I tried that and it still did not work. After a few tries I decided to shut off the TV, shut off the AV Receiver, shut off the Mini, and pull the HDMI out of it. Then I started up the mini with no HDMI plugged in. Turned on the AV Receiver, turned on the TV, then plugged in the HDMI and finally it worked.

Man this is a pain in the *** if I have to do this every single time I start up the Mac Mini. I sure hope Apple fixes it soon.

to fix hdmi problem with mac mini and lion, follow me:

step 1 turn off mac mini.

step 2 unplug the power cord

step 3 hold power button with it unpluged for 10 or more seconds

step 4 plug in power cord

step 5 turn on computer and hold option, command, the letter R, and the letter P till computer bongs a second time.

step 6 after second bong hold shift key till a grey bar appers with apple logo.

step 7 alow to boot till you see your sign in info. (dont bother signing in.)

step 8 click restart mini

i got this from apple for my own mini. no problems now!

Gustambro - Hmm i guess if the Mac is trying to run it's first time setup screen sharing doesn't work, since no user has been created etc....you actually need the mac username and password when logging into it via VNC.

I did the first time setup using a DVI monitor, did the rest as described above, single user mode and all.

If you haven't already done the first time setup you'll prob. need to borrow a DVI monitor and complete it to make screen sharing work.