Thunderbolt Display will not wake up after sleep!!!!!!

Has anyone tried having their logic board battery replaced? Apple suggests doing that if a NVRAM and PRAM reset doesn't work. You all seem to have glossed over this fact. I'm thinking of taking my macbook pro 2011 in to have this done.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

"If issues persist, your Mac's logic board battery (not a portable Mac's rechargeable battery) may need to be replaced. The logic board battery helps retain NVRAM/PRAM settings when your computer is shut down. You can take your Mac to a Mac Genius or Apple Authorized Service Provider to replace the battery on the logic board."

My Solution: I have two external monitors through thunderbolt. One monitor would not wake up sometimes when I tried with a bluetooth device. I put the macbook back to sleep and tried waking it using my built in keyboard and it works like a charm.

That's it! It is totally caused by irregularities in voltage/power feeding into the display.

I've been facing this problem for ages and I fixed it by switching out the cheap dollar store power bar I was using for a better one.

To test if you have the same problem just run the back of your hand over the aluminum on the back of the screen. Check if it feels "fuzzy". This is caused by the screen being inproperly grounded.

Thanks iJoy. No amount of PRAM, NVRAM, or cache empying was able to fix this.

Nevermind, it must have been a fluke. The display is not waking up from sleep again until I unplug and plug it in again to my macbook.

Hi everybody,

the TB "not waking up" story is going on for quite long time. Two years ago someone wrote that "Apple is actively working to find the root cause", so far I did not get any email from Apple telling me that they have finally and positively found it. I have two "pending" tickets and I'm waiting for their solution before the end of the extended warranty deadline. Even the latest OS Maverick didn't make any difference so far.

For no apparent reasons my TB still sometimes fails to wake up. At that point I disconnect it from the MBP, shut down, restart, reconnect the cable and most of the times this works. The trouble is that I'll have to reopen/reposition/resize all the various opened windows that I had on the 27" screen. This is an unwarranted loss of work time. So my question is what remedy, if any, are we entitled to get from Apple?

Car makers, when they find a trouble in their products, usually they make a "recall" to fix it. Should we ask for a TB recall?

Apple, please, when you find a definite solution, let us know. Thanks.

Hello TAF;

My problem was previously fixed with a firmware update using Mountain Lion. Then Mavericks was released and the problem came back yet it is much worse. I have tried resetting the NVRAM and that works for about two sleep cycles then I'm back to unplugging my TB from my MBP and opening the lid and the TB starts back up again. My concern is my back up drive is being disconnected incorrectly when the MBP sleeps and I get the error message.

I'm afraid that it's going to kill my back up drive and wear out mu TB jack on my MBP from unplugging it 2+ a day.

Voltage fluctuations can cause this problem. If votage drops below some threshold, the TB display appears to be protecting itself from electronic damage by tripping into some "safe" mode that can only be reset by unplugging and replugging the power cord.

Voltage fluctuations may be coming from outside your home (a power company issue, as it was in my case), but can also be from within your home. Our issue was visible -- we noticed dimming and flickering of our lights and called the power company. The power company was going to install a voltage logging device, but they quickly found a loose connection in our transformer and that fixed everything (the light flickering and the TB display wakeup problem).

Just because you don't notice flickering and other devices don't have trouble doesn't mean your voltage is steady. Drops can be more subtle than that and the TB display seems to be particularly sensitive. Do you have an electric heater, iron, toaster or other high-draw appliance on the same circuit? Are you using a cheap power strip (as a hpridham noted in an earlier post)? Is your display plugged into a wall outlet controlled by a dimmer?

I'd recommend you have your power company confirm it's not an issue with the power coming into your home. It should be free, unless you want them to do it after hours. If it's not outside your home, then consult an electrician who can likely provide a device that will log the line voltage on the outlet you are using for a few days. Unfortunately, that isn't likely free.

Some problems could be very dangerous (a slight short that's arcing somewhere in your walls). Your TB display may be telling you something important.

If it was a power issue why would the problem stop after the firmware update in ML and then return after Mavericks update. I have done nothing to the power situation. It's not a power issue. I have a dedicated circuit to my office equipment and the enrire system is on an APC power conditioner and surge protection that conditions the power to my entire system before it comes to the equipment.

Yup, I agree, Sky King. I said power issues can cause this behavior. I'm highly skeptical that there's a single cause. And, since it's so elusive, it's likely some fiendish combination of factors that are even difficult for Apple to model in any deterministic fashion.

It's also worth pointing out that the behavior you are seeing is different than what I experienced. You describe being able to get the display to wake up by removing and then replugging the Thunderbolt cable between the Powerbook and the display.

When my TB display would fail to wake up, the only resolution was to unplug it from the wall, wait 10-30 seconds and then plug it back in. When it powered up, it would wake up just fine and work for some random amount of time (depending on when the next power dip came along). Disconnecting/reconnecting cables had no effect, nor did completely cycling the Powerbook off and back on or opening/closing the lid.

I've struggled with this problem for a while and was following this thread. I think I found a solution:

I think the problem is somehow due to the hard-drive going to sleep, which disconnects the monitor, rather than the screen going to sleep. I'm not sure what the technical difference is between "computer sleep" and "display sleep", but I turned "computer sleep" up to two hours (Under System Preferences > Energy Saver > Power Adapter) and unclicked "Put hard disks to sleep when possible." I haven't had any trouble since.

I'll repost this on other similar threads and see if this is helpful for anyone else.

Same problem here and I need help. Mi TB started going blank out but the sound stills. I updated my OS with Maverycks and it fixed... for a short period of time. Then now everything is the same. I believe is a problem with the computer/monitor sleep but I tried the advice above and nothing happened. Ive seen other comments with the same problem and there´s no solution apparently.

I´m in México and I didn´t get an extension of the warranty, because I though Mac wasn´t come up with issues like this. Now I have to get another thonderbolt, sadly. I´m a graphic fdesigner who strongly needs this screen. 😟 PLEASE IF YOU HAVE AN ADVICE BEFORE I HAVE TO GET ANOTHER ONE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW!!

My email: otmvivanco@gmail.com // Tomas

Well... I just unplugged the energy cord from the TB, waited for 1 min and plugged it again. Nothing happend BUT I opened and closed the lid of the MBP and TB came to life!!!!! So far it´s working for me and just in case I just went to Screensavers and set it up for staring after 1 hour. This bc I noticed the problem starts when the computer runs the screensaver.

I'm in the same boat. I've got a late 2013 iMac 27" with Mavericks. I've tired everything reset SMC, etc. disabled sleep, cleared out the sleep cache, etc. nothing seems to work. I've two ASUS 23" connected via HDMI -> Thunderbolt and when the system goes to sleep, and attempt to wake it up, either the system goes to all black screens or the primary iMac monitor turns on and one of the two ASUS monitors turn on but, the system is non-responsive. The only way to get the systme back is a hard shutdown via power button, reboot and everything comes backup without issue. There have been other times when unplugging one of the thunderbolt cables reinitilizing everything but, that is unacceptable to me.

At this point, I'm using the "command, option, eject" to power off the monitors when I'm away from the computer. I've also disable sleep, and hard drive sleep. Tested this configuration last night, and the system was responsive this morning to waking up the monitors. I'm going to continue to test for the next few days and see if this method proves to be realible.

Question, has anyone tired a DVI -> Thunderbolt connection and have had better results? Been thinking about purchasing DVI -> Thunderbolt and see if this fixes the issue, and maybe, this is a HDMI issue only. Know Apple monitors the boards, but figured I'd throw my name in the hat with everyone else. Hope Apple will investigate, and find a solution. However, my research tells me this has been an on-going issue with Thunderbolt for sometime.

well, my test didn't work. still having issues with the monitors waking up when connected to thunderbolt display. However, tired a different approach to this situation. Now when I put the power off the monitors via 'shift control eject; I turn off the 2 ASUS monitors via the power switch, too. Let the computer sit for about 5 hours today and then hit the keyboard and the login screen came up and then proceeded to power on the other two monitors. System didn't lockup, go to black screen, etc. strange observation. Wonder if the issue is a thunderbolt firmware, or OSX related issue.

So I'm back to thinking it's power and only power that's causing this problem.

The issue seemed to go away during a period of time when I stopped using my Microsoft Kinect which I normally have plugged into the same outlet. I'm using it for a project and I took a month off. When I started work again the issue came back. Note, I at the time the Kinect was not attached to my computer's USB port, only plugged in to the same outlet as my computer and display. Currently the Kinect is again unplugged and there is no issue.

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