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blank screen when hdmi cable is plugged

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I get a black screen with the mouse cursor whenever I try to plug in my macbook pro with retina display to my HDMI cable tv. last week it works fine, now it doesnt.


I tried booting into windows 7 and it works fine there. When I boot back to Mountain Lion, and plug it in again, its the same...


As you can see, I get weird windows when I try right clicking on the screen, I see this both on my HDTV and on my mac. Remember, this was working fine just last week. My macbook pro is just 2 weeks old. I even used to watch HD movies here, now cant...

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Sep 23, 2012 6:29 AM

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Posted on Sep 26, 2012 6:44 PM

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.

24 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Sep 26, 2012 6:44 PM in response to Kjeldor

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.

Sep 29, 2012 9:33 AM in response to Kjeldor

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.

Sep 29, 2012 10:56 AM in response to jewski32

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...

Sep 26, 2012 7:13 PM in response to Kjeldor

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?

blank screen when hdmi cable is plugged

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