Black Screen But Can See My Cursor

This just happened to my 2012 MacBook Pro. My fix was holding the power button down to shut it down, making sure the wall charger was connected and then holding down the Shift, Control, Option and Power button down all togther for 10 seconds, then releasing all at the same time.

If the problem comes back (mine did after awhile) you can try this new one I found.

Open system preferences, open displays, click scaled, click 1920 and move brightness cursor left and right , click 1600 move brightness cursor left and right, click 1344 and move brightness cursor left and right, then choose your resolution one more time (mine is 2560). set brightness where you want then leave it and don't touch it again. If you touch brightness control on keyboard you will have to go through this process again but it only takes about 10 seconds. It has been working for me for awhile now. I think when the different resolutions are chosen it changes some command in the software which resets it in someway. Whatever. It works and Im happy with it. Hope it helps someone. It has saved me from buying a new mac and from chucking a way a perfectly useable one (except for this glitch). If I can find this workaround I'm sure apple could fix it if they wanted to - shame on them. I've been a life long customer.

Here's what FINALLY WORKED for me, it was a similar to an answer about a failed instal,(incomplete), but with a twist on mine. Ok rMBPRO 15" late 2011, during daily use I was trying to recover a HDD,(so I had set sleep to never!), Upon returning I had a black screen, (2 monitors jsyk) and the curser would move, normal notifications were coming through, etc, but space bar et al, no go. Following the lead from from the reply regarding holding the power for 10 sec upon powering off then holding shift key until progress bar showed, that's how I started,( NOTE HOLD SHIFT UNTIL ACTUAL PROGRESS BEGINS ON PROFRESS BAR- I failed twice at the progress bar screen), once it completes...here's my twist it booted into sign in, NOT BLACK SCREEN. Allowing me to enter ID/PSSWD, I did it the cycled for a minute and went right back into black screen.

THATS when I entered the 1st letter on my user ID, (Use caps or whatever is correct) hit enter the entered my password, and my Mac was Back!

I hope that helps, as my case was very close to another users described solution but just a tiny bit different, and THAT is always what makes the difference. Peace! ( NOTE I attempted an SMC RESET 5 times it wouldn't cycle, or shut off, one time I help the keys for 5 minutes to a great screen and nothing. I'm sure this will help someone, and I'm glad. I've saved my *** so many times thanx to the generous contributors here, Thank you btw, I'm glad I may have a speckle of benefit to someone!!!!!

I had the same issue. Resetting the SMC and NVRAM did nothing good. I was always stuck at the blank screen.

I read somewhere Apple did removed the battery menu in this release so I had this weird idea of unplugging the power supply. As soon as the power cable came unplugged, I had the startup progress bar, the computer booted up and everything is willy-nilly since then.

HTH

Jessica's instructions were perfect for me; however, additionally, I had to blindly enter my password during the screen black at the end of the process (after the spinning back ball). That woke up the computer. All back to normal. THANK YOU!

I'm having issues as you did in 2014. I follow the steps as instructed, starts to reboot, login ok, but lines on screen, then goes back to black screen with curser. Looking for further guidance if you have any tips. Thanks.

the answer is a few posts above you but here it is again------ weather you get to login screen or not does not mater if you do and it then goes to black screen type in the first (and only the first) letter of your log in hiy return/enter key then type in your normal password hit return/ enter key again and you should be back to normal.

I have the same issue. I can get past the screen using the trick suggested, but this happens every time my mac restarts.

Ive tried deleting a plist file but still no help.

Anybody else have this problem as a recurring issue?

I've seen this kind of issue when a USB3 hub is plugged into the Mac altough there is just a black

screen with no cursor. Unplugging the hub from the Mac will let the computer boot normally as soon you do it.

I've never been able to reproduce this with anything else. I can't tell if it is related to something plugged in the hub, but it don't looks like it.

this occurred on a lot of different Macbooks after last update, you may or may not get to log in screen but either way wait for the black screen then type in only the first letter of your user log in upper or lower case what ever is your norm

then hit enter then login as normal still on black screen hit enter again and you should be good to go it may take a few minutes touch no other keys

This has happened to me before, it is most likely just your compute in sleep mode. to get out of it , just press teh power button or mash the keyboard.

Thanks jesseinma! you've saved my morning, your solution is spot on.

Wow -- jesseinma's fix totally worked. I'm really surprised that Apple would have a routine update crash with such a bizarre recovery. Beware upgrading to OS X 10.9.3!

I tried the instructions and I got the spinning ball for 2 or 3 seconds and then it just went back to cursor. Any other suggestions?

SMC is reset like this (there is no "SMC mode").

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3964

Barry