Major problems with Thunderbolt display & MB Air

Plenty of people are having no issues. Like me.

I still have no issues with my replacement display

Possibly the issues were with early production units, and some people were unlucky enough to get replacements that had the same defects.

Anyone with continuing problems should keep making Apple replace the display until they get one that works correctly, or their money back.

Mine was bought on first release so maybe I got lucky or maybe there was just a bad batch.

13 inch MAcBook AIr and iMac now do have some functionality via TB cable (software upadte and reupdate on both to get it to work)

Command F2 on iMac puts it into display mode (same combintion has no effect on the MacBook AIr)

However I want to be able to quickly transfer files between these 2

Any suggestions?

+1

MBA (new one), Apple USB keyboard connected to the TB display. Randomly, the USB hub in the display appears to fail (keyboard doesn't do anything, iphone connected to USB doesn't charge). Major issue - the only solution appears to be to reboot the Macbook...

All software up to date on both the MBA and the TB.

All had been working fine for me then I just had a problem today where the built in USB's stopped working. I had to reboot, then I replugged in the usb hard drive and scanner and they worked fine. So the USB's still seem to randomly decide not to work.

Well, I had been operating fine, but then I made the mistake of unplugging from the display and taking my laptop mobile. Upon my return, I figured I'd play it safe -- open it up, plug in power, let it come to life, then plug in TB cable. The display sprang to life, but no USB. Sigh. So, I unplugged the monitor.

MBA froze hard. Had to force reboot. I rebooted with the TBD attached, and things seemed okay, then just a minute ago, *poof*, no USB, no Facetime camera (though the display and ethernet seem to be working).

I'm back to plugging in my USB via the laptop until they get this figured out. Even if it never works, trading in for an LED display is not an option for me, since my MBA doesn't have built-in ethernet and I really can use that GigE port -- my main reasons for getting the display were the ethernet and the big screen).

Yes, if I've been using my Air "portably" (if you will) for a while I do notice that the display has trouble recognizing all its peripherals upon reconnect.

Seems like plugging the USB cable into the Air, hitting a few keys and reconnecting to the display solves it.

So not 100% perfect but so much better than it was.

I made my MBA 13 i7 and TB Display EFI update and everything seems to work fine. Didnt even PRam or SMC or else, just updates reboots. It's been 2 working days with dock-in dock-out and I hope it is resolved now.😎

NB : my problem was usb attached Apple keyboard and Wacom Intuos 3 tablet drop off and losing typing. The rest worked fine from the start : ethernet, firewire, speakers and built-in webcam.

Yep stacecom, exact same behaviour I was getting - right before it totally died.

I have a nice display, but none of the ports work, at all.

Have a case open with Apple, it's about time I chased them again tomorrow, because this is useless to me at the moment.

I'm having similar problems. MacBook Pro 15", OS X Lion and Thunderbolt display. All the latest software and firmware updates.

When I connect the MB to the TB display, I usually don't get the USB recognized. Unplugging it and reconnecting usually resolves the issue. However, I have to be careful when unplugging to make sure the MB has time to fully go to sleep - if not when I plug in again it locks up the MB in a sleep state and I have to restart by holding the power for about 10s. Even though this usually fixes it, I have to open system preferences and check the audio settings to make sure.

Today audio worked but USB hard drives and network didn't. Reconnecting has fixed the network, but now the USB is down again.

This is very frustrating. Especially for a $1000 display.

I bought a Macbook Air (i7)and a Thunderbold display a fesw weeks ago. Over the last week I got more and more disappointed... I have similar problems as mentioned above:

When I leave the MBA on while not working on it, after some time the fan starts top blow at high speeds making lots of noise. When checking the processor load it shows two core with almost any load and two with about 25% load. The CPU temperature is quite high (70-80 C). At such time there's not an application taking significant processor time... With the lid is closed it seems to get worse, but there is no other way to switch off the MBA display.

When I connect my wired Apple keyboard to the Thunderbold Display, keys sometimes do not react while connected to a USB port on the MBA itsel the keyboard shows no problems...

Lion has got a problem to recognise my NAS boxes (the Time Capsule works fine though). This is really unacceptable since my network shares are on those third party NAS boxes and they are working flawless for years on the Macbook Pros running Snow Leopard!

Do I need to say that I really disappointed in Apple? When I pay more than €2500 for a laptop with an external display, I don't expect any problems. Specially since I not doing anything complicated: I'm just using Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Firefox and Skype.

Let's hope Apple comes with a fix soon!

Hi Wimek. I'll try to help you a bit...

Regarding not working on your MBA and increasing temperatures. Are you by any chance using a screen saver? The screen savers Apple gives us are mostly graphic/cpu internsive. Regratably it doesn't seem to be possible to use a real 'blank' (black/display off) screensaver. So what I do is to use wallpapers as a blanker and switch off zooming under 'options'. This should solve this issue quite a bit.

Regarding you NAS boxes not working. Apple has changed the AFP-protocol with Lion and so your NAS needs to be upgraded with firmware to accomodate this. NAS manufacturers like Synology already have done this, but others have not. This is not really Apple's fault, but more of a support issue of your current NAS manufacturer. Check with them if they already have a new firmware.

Hope this helps.

Message was edited by: SkullOne (Reason: typo)

I am experiencing all of the exact same issues mentioned in the original post. I am connecting a new 15" MBP to the Apple Thunderbolt Display. Extremely disappointing considering I just spent more than $4000 on this equipment.

I would encourage people, again, to raise a support case with Apple as soon as you experience the problems.

They've recognised something is up - and it's only a small batch, so they're trying to pin down exactly what causes the problem. Mine is being shipped back to Apple next week and I'm getting a replacement - but it's going back to their engineering department for analysis.

Will report back if the replacement is ok.