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black screen after login, Mountain Lion on Macbook Retina

I've been using Mountain Lion for a while, and regularly I get a black screen, right after the login screen (after entering the password).

Often I have to reboot several times until it boots properly.


It is not clear when or why it happens: it could be some 3rd party code (gfxCardStatus, CUDA 5.0 sdk, steer mouse, Microsoft Intellimouse driver?) or something else.


Does anyone else have a similar issue?

Posted on Jul 26, 2012 9:59 PM

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330 replies

Jul 27, 2012 9:36 AM in response to RupertWarries

I tried uninstalling several of my self-installed drivers/custom software, removed gfxCardStatus, no SteerMouse, Intellimouse, rEFit boot, but it is still happening.


If I disable graphics switching it stops happening (System Preferences/Energy Saver/Enable automatic graphics switching). But then it will be using the discrete (NVIDIA) gpu all the time.


Hopefully we figure out a better way or cross the fingers for an update soon to fix this black screen issue.

I reported the bug in the bug tracker, Bug ID# 11974116.

Jul 27, 2012 1:46 PM in response to erwincoumans

In my case, the black screen after login issue has only been occuring when using the 1920x1200 resolution, but this may be coincidental. More importantly, I can reproduce the issue on a clean install mountain lion setup after a few restarts, only switching to 1920x1200 first. As already observed by others, disabeling automatic graphics switching resolves the problem, but of course this can not be considered a solution. We all want to have that great battery life. Let's hope that Apple will take notice of this issue quickly and bring a fix that will resolve this. 🙂

Jul 28, 2012 10:14 AM in response to erwincoumans

I had the same issue and managed to reslove it.


Shut down your machine.

Power it back on while holding the 'shift' key (left or right, doesn't matter)

You will see a greay progress bar go across the screen while you boot in to 'safe boot'

Once booted, login, and go to Energy Saver and turn on 'Automatic Graphics Switching'.

Reboot back in to normal mode, and you should be able to log back in and see again.


I did this without being plugged into AC power.


Hope it helps!

Cheers!

black screen after login, Mountain Lion on Macbook Retina

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