Q: Black screen upon wake from sleep with 10.8.2

I, too, happen to have a solution! If you ever wake your mac up and see the blank screen, but you know you have open apps and work of any worth not to lose in a forced restart, then all you have to do is:

1. Close the lid back and watchout for the sleeping indicater, wait until it begins to 'breathe.'

2. Open the lid back, there is a 30% chance you're going to see a functional login window, if not, close it back again.

3. Make sure every time you close the lid you wait until it's actually sleeping, then open again. This time, there is a 60% chance you're going to see the login screen.

4. The fourth time time you open the lid, there is a 90% chance it's going to work!

This is more of a preventive case than a curable one, it all depends on the OS state before you closed the lid. Empty the chaches (from ~/Library/) like richardjamesc had suggested earlier and make sure you're not suffocating the RAM; 400 - 500 of free memory space prior to putting the mac to sleep should be suffecient to prevent a blank screen upon wake up.

I was having very similar problems. iMac 27" (purchased in 2010). I could boot in either regular mode or safe mode, select sleep, wait until the hard disk spun down, wait another minute just to be safe, press the space bar, and the hard disks would spin up but the screen would remain dark. Touching the power button would reboot the machine. I've tried the SMH reset, PRAM reset, Disk Utility repair permissions/repair disk--remove the caches/cookies folders. Sometimes I could get sleep to work once or twice manually but if I let the machine sleep (after 2 hours) and left it (like overnight) it would reboot itself at some point in the night.

I've been working on this issue off and on for several months -- I would just set it to never sleep and leave it running, but lately I've seen signs that it might be overheating, so I would really like to get the sleep working.

Note: I have two external hard disks on a powered USB hub. One is just extra space for things I can re-download from the internet if I have to, the other is for backup (Carbon Copy Cloner and Time Machine).

I was also having strange problems with my Apple wired USB keyboard. Sometimes after a reboot the keyboard would not be seen. I thought I was having a keyboard issue, I got an old Pro Keyboard and it would always work. I bought a new Apple wired USB keyboard, and it had the same problems that the previous one had -- I'll be returning it.

I've also upgraded to Mavericks (10.9). (I did say I've been working on this for a while, I'm sure it goes back to at least 10.7 if not 10.6.)

Since the USB keyboard was being goofy, I tried disconnecting the external hub and disks -- I can now put the Mac to sleep (via apple --> sleep, or via touching the power button [new in Mavericks]) and it will wake up fine! I've tried several iterations and it seems to be working with no problem, and the keyboard is working too. I will test overnight and see if it randomly reboots as it was previously. Fingers crossed that this may be the issue - if so I will get a new powered USB hub and see if that solves the problem!

Hope this helps someone!

*Dale*

Message was edited by: DaleDFW

I have the same problem with a new (late 2013) retina MacBook Pro. Often, when I open the lid, the screen remains black. Sometimes, if I wait long enough it eventually comes to live. It runs Mavericks 10.9. Is there an official solution?

I have the same issue with blank (white) screen upon wake.  I have Mac Mini running Maverick.  The mouse movement is visible and keyboard sound can be heard.  I found a work around as follow:

1. Force screen to lock so password box is presented.  Then find out what key strokes I need to login.  For me, it was "C" to put focus on my USER ID "CST" password box.

2. Type in password

3. Hit RETURN key

When the blank screen reocurrs, repeat with "C", my password, RETURN

Then it logs in and proceeded to the desktop.

Hope this works for you.

cstmini

Thanks That seemed to do the trick!

Amazingly, this still happens with Yosemite. Bad.

Yeah, noticed the same thing on my 13" Early 2011 MacBook Pro. I wake it up and get a black screen. When I force shut down and restart, I get the prohibited logo, and need to reinstall.

Early 2011 MacBook Pro 13"

2.3 GHz i5

16GB RAM

Same problem since I upgraded to Yosemite: after my macbook pro retina wakes up from sleep by pressing the space bar, only a black screen and a mouse is visible.  Extremely annoying and never had this problem before the upgrade.

While all these seem like hokey solutions, as opposed to getting to solve the true source of the problem (Apple, how do you address a design flaw like this?), I'm missing CSTmini's first step.  How do you'  1. Force screen to lock so password box is presented.  ?

I have been having the same issues lately, quite annoying.   Would really appreciate if anyone knows of a permanent fix, or the proper way to submit information back to apple after it occurs.   No crash report is generated.

The only thing I know that works, is to change the sleep mode. You may or may not get more battery drain during sleep. Use at your own risk!!

1. Open terminal and enter this command:

sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0

2. Now enter your password when promted.

3. Enter sleep/close the lid, depending on what mac you have.

Hope this works for you:-)

If you want to reset it to normal mode again, change 0 to 3.

Not sure if this will help others, but I too have intermittently experienced the problem of my mid-2015 MacBook Pro waking from sleep to a black screen.  I'm currently running OS X 10.11.5, but this has plagued me in prior versions too.  Today when I got the black screen upon waking from sleep, I moved the cursor to the bottom left which is where I defined a hot corner to activate my screen saver (set to Flurry which came as one of the default choices in OS X).  After the screen saver kicked in, I moved my cursor again, and presto--it restored the normal view.  I don't see the black screen very often so have not been able to replicate the workaround, but I thought I'd post here in case it works for others.

Hello,

I have been struggling for some time with this issue with my imac black screen after sleep.

The mac service shop told me my screen was dying, but there is no other sign and it does not look like it is.

But I would rather think there is a default hardware connection with a ghost screen or no screen happenning when hybernating.

I have reinstalled the whole system, tried all the key magic and external apps, but the problem remains.

The best solution I have found is to

- plug a secondary screen

- login without seeing the login box

- open monitor preference pane

- switch several times the mirror display toggle untill the main sceen comes back.

It worked for the last four months.

Best

RC

hey this happens to me on 2015 MacBook Pro. Is it a hardware or software issue ? Is there a solution or why it happens?

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is a couple of years old, less people are likely to look at it. A new post would be much more visible. You can link to this one.

Sleep – Slow Wakeup/Requires Reset

Sleep - Wakeup