blank screen when hdmi cable is plugged

Same problem here. Under 10.8.1, I could plug in the HDMI cable and it would display on my TV. A few days ago, I upgraded to 10.8.2, and now my screen goes black on the Retina MacBook Pro when I plug in the HDMI cable if it's connected to the TV. It seems to transmit that black screen to the TV. The reason I say so is that I can see a magnified white outline of my cursor against the black background on both the laptop and on the TV. I get the sound, and I can move the cursor around on the TV screen. (You might not see it because the cursor can fall off the edges---the black desktop is bigger than the portion you see on the monitor), but everything else on both screens is black.

Also, after the upgrade, I started getting weird graphics artifacts in Safari. The red-yellow-green buttons in the upper left get underlined---short horizontal red lines under the red button, yellow under the yellow, etc., and gray lines under the window title text.

I think Apple is struggling with the video system on the rMBP. Under the version of Lion it came with, I got multiple crashes per day. An upgrade to 10.8.1 fixed that problem completely. It worked great on the laptop and the TV with no crashes. Now with 10.8.2, I can no longer connect it to an external monitor via HDMI, it appears. I wonder what surprises 10.8.3 will bring.

OK I think have may have found a way to help us. I too was suffering this loss. I would plug HDMI and TV together and the screen would go black and it was working fine all summer up until a week ago or so. I contacted apple support and the guy told me to go to the apple icon (top left) then select system preferences. Then hit displays. Now when this comes up make sure the mirroring option is checked. Then this is the weirdest thing. Now hold down the option button on the keyboard. A tab will appear readin "Detect displays". He said this should work. I haven't tried it yet but let me know if it works. He also said tht the option used to be there but now it is not. Being apple strives to make things simple and dummy proof, to take away this option just makes it harder for people to find a button. Not a good move I think. Again, let me know if this works.

I found a differnt thread that has solved the problem (for me anyway!) Credit goes to KenV54!!

Heres the link and post, hope it works for you guys!!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4312536?start=45&tstart=0

KenV54

PROBLEM SOLVED!!! (In my case, at least)

My Apple tech support guy came back a day earlier than expected, said to remove a couple of plist files, and it now works perfectly with HDMI, my projector, my external monitor, etc.

I had already removed one of the plist files a few days ago (which in itself hadn't worked), but when I removed the other, it did. I would suggest removing both.

Go to Finder.

In the root directory (MacBookPro or whatever your HD is called), go to Library, go to Preferences, find com.apple.windowserver.plist and put it into Trash

In your own user directory, go to Library (in Finder, click Go menu and hold Option key down to get to Library), go to Preferences, go to ByHost directory, find com.apple.windowserver.OE35739etc,etcxxxxxxxxxxx.plist, and put it into Trash.

You do not have to empty Trash.

Reboot computer.

The HDMI should be working now, and permanently so.

If it isn't, post it here and I'll let the Apple tech guy know.

Good luck.

System Preference----Sound----output---and select

yep, having the same issue on my end. before the update to 10.8.2 i could plug into my tv via hdmi without any problems. now, having updated to the latest build, i just get a blank screen on both my computer monitor and the tv. funny: plugging into an external monitor via hdmi still works without a hitch.

apple: hopefully we can see a fix before sunday? if not, how am i going to enjoy streaming my NFL games?

joepl, by the looks of things is still running snow leopard, and its still affecting him?? There was a spacific retina display update not so long ago maybe it could have been that, rather than the ML update??

kckaos, I am looking at my update log. I remember everything was working fine on 9/22. On 9/23 there was a couple update - MAC OS X Update 10.7.5 and MacBook Pro Retina EFI update. And ever since that's when I start experiencing the problem.

I see the "detect displays" icon pop up when I hold down the option key, but both the TV and the computer monitor are pitch black when I plug the HDMI cable in, meaning I can't now navigate the cursor to the "detect displays" button. So frustrating! I'm tempted to buy an AppleTV and just stream over AirPlay... But, of course, that's another $100 for a functionality that should come bundled with a $2K computer...

This fixed my issue, but caused my Filevault login to then be running in low resolution. While on the phone to AppleCare, I was playing around, and simply booting up the computer with the external display plugged it seems to have forced it to recreate the settings file and fix the issue.

Thanks!

This fixed the same issue on my macbook - thank you so much, such an annoying thing!

Yosemite v 10.10.2 (14C109)

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro10,1

Processor Name: Intel Core i7

Processor Speed: 2.3 GHz

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 4

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 6 MB

Memory: 8 GB

I found a way to fix this. Before you plug the cable in, check "Show mirroring options in the menu bar" under System Preferences>Displays. When you plug the cable in, you will find the AirPlay icon in the bar on the top right. Click on this and it will show that it is checked off as whatever device you are plugging into (ex. mine said Sony TV), but instead of this you want to check "Built-In Display."

I'm having the same problem! It was fine 4 days ago but I don't know what happened... I think it has to do with the new update maybe?

I'm also having this problem, and it also seems to have only been happening since the last update!!

I am having the same issue. I am using MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X (10.7.5)

kckaos, this is my first mac and I am a newbie. I thought 10.7.5 is lion. I bought my mbp w/ retina in late June but I haven't upgraded to Mountain Lion.