Major problems with Thunderbolt display & MB Air

Ahhh, got it. Knowing that you are using [the operating system version that shall not be mentioned] will be of value when I visit with the Genius Bar this afternoon as I can contrast my experience with Lion. I am running:

System Version: Mac OS X 10.7.3 (11D50b)

Kernel Version: Darwin 11.3.0

Is you new display stiill working fine? Have you applied all update of Lion?

I thought that there is a relationship between new update and this problem.

i wrote this https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3878581?answerId=18136467022#18136467022 maybe you may take a look.

How did you tell Genius Bar to exchange a new display? They always just replace the logicl board on my display.

Hey,

please take a look for https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3878581?answerId=18136467022#18136467022 .

I am still confused that, if the new update is the problem, how did people have this problem in Dec, 2011? You may also talk a look in old topic in this fourm.

Thank you

Hi. I am not using Lion, I am using that OS that shall remain Nameless, a bit like Lion on top of a large hill. I bought my display online from the apple store. I always do this as they just replace items and I can't be bothered to pack my screens / computers up and take them to the store.

I had the new display next day, and they are coming to pick up the old one on Monday, so I have two at the moment 🙂

Yes, the display is still working nicely

How did you let Apple come to your home and pick up old things?

The nearest Apple Store is about 25 miles from my home. If there is a way that they can come to my home and exchange the display. that would be very helpful

They send a courier with a 2 hour timeslot. I am in the UK....

So, is the conclusion that it is a hardware problem and if my USB's are not fully functioning as designed I have to ask Apple to replace the display. Hmmmmm?

Using: late2011 MBP 15" with 27" Apple Display, Lion and resolved to connecting keyboard and mouse directly to MBP in clam shell to avoid having to reconnect to recognize keyboard or mouse. Even with this I occasionally have to reconnect recognition of mouse or keyboard.

I think Hardware, I just plugged my MBA back into the old display and it does not work...

Uhm. i think it is a Hardware problem as well

If so, can i replace to Cinema 27' display, in this case? Anyone have trid replacement before?

Or refund?

Hi folks. Here's the result of the somewhat lengthy, but successful, troubleshooting process we used at the Genius Bar this afternoon:

Both the TB Display and my MacBook Air passed diagnostics. The technician then connected his system to my TB Display and everything was working fine. So, he then performed an SMC (System Management Controller) reset on my MacBook Air and, magically, everything on the MacBook Air *AND* the TB Display started working properly again. I now have the TB Display back home and everything is working like a champ, no problems, driving three USB devices (including my keyboard) off the TB Display USB ports.

So, it appears that there may be some kind of problem with the way that the Thunderbolt Display or connection works with some of the controllers on the attached computer. By performing an SMC reset, it appears to have cleaned up whatever bugaboo was in the MacBook which allowed the display to start functioning again.

Here's a KB article on performing an SMC reset:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

I can't state that I know all of the implications of performing an SMC reset, but it seemed to have absolutely no impact on my system (other than fixing the TB Display problem). So, I'm guessing that it is a pretty benign action. And, he only performed the SMC reset one time in order to rectify the problem.

Final verdict: I am home with the very same display and MacBook Air and everything is working beautifully right now. I'll report back if things go sideways again, and the SMC reset procedure doesn't work a second time.

Give it a shot and see what happens. Hope this helps.

Good luck,

Erik

I did an SMC reset before I called support, it did not help in my case.

I did an SMC reset before, i did help my case as well.

It may looks like everything work fine for a while, but the problem will appear after some opeations

I found something very interesting.

When this problem occur in Windows, I force the output of audio through the Display Audio. It gave the erroe message like "The device are busy. or being used by another program". I am thinking that, the problem is the driver can not release the display for another process (like kernel) use. It can explains that, why sometimes the display may works fine

Erik Johnson3 wrote:

By performing an SMC reset, it appears to have cleaned up whatever bugaboo was in the MacBook which allowed the display to start functioning again.

Yes, that used to clear mine for all of a day (or less, sometimes). I fear you'll have the old problems back again real soon Erik. I hope you don't, but I'm betting you will.

Something was, is, very wrong with the early TB displays - or possibly with the firmware update that came out for them. I still haven't applied the firmware update to my replacement, and it still works just fine like that.

Hi folks,

Here's my promised status report.

After performing the SMC reset, I've been working without any problems for three days now, and everything seems to be running "more smoothly", whatever that means. Boots take less time; there is no delay in getting a keyboard response from the TB display (previously, it would take maybe 15 seconds for the TB display to regonize the full-size keyboard plugged into the USB port on the back of the display). So, everything is running exactly as I would expect from the display connected to the laptop. I suspect that some hardware register was buggered up and it was adversely affecting how the display was being handled via Thunderbolt. The SMC reset seems to have remedied that issue. Now, let's see how long it lasts (and if another SMC reset is required in the future)...

As an aside, we also discovered that the keyboard I was originally using appears to have been suffering from an intermittent failure of some kind as, during the troubleshooting process, another keyboard proved more reliable. I exchanged the faulty keyboard at the Genius Bar (stil under warranty), and the new one has been performing flawlessly since.

That's it. If I experience this problem again, I'll be back to document the issue. Good luck, all!