Black Screen But Can See My Cursor

Thanks for suggesting safe mode. It turns out my comp was auto upgrading while it was in sleep mode and I had the log in issue and it got messed up locked up and went black but everything was working. So I shut down, restarted pressed shift went into safe mode and I could finally see me screen and log in and low and behold it was because of the **** software update. Thank you so much to all who helped! The pain in my stomach has left and my pockets also thank you!

Thank you so much. I had to do this three times and it worked on the third go. I think the first two times I probably wasn't exactly following your instructions...but it has worked perfectly now. You saved me a trip to the genius bar, many many thanks.

thank you so much. it worked.

I have been suffering with this for a couple of years off and on. I tried re-installing and everything else on here, but it never worked for long. This is how I solved it.

Put computer on low brightness

Unplug all usb

Put computer to sleep

Plug in a USB external drive

Wake up computer

Unplug USB

Increase brightness to what you want (do not reduce brightness again or you will have to start at the beginning)

It works, my mac is on full brightness as I type.

Hope it helps.

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.

I Had the same problem today, and this really helped me. Thank you so much!!!

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.

Thank you so much, this worked, (and got me out of panic mode!)

Hey!

I tried a lot of other things here but MenanV's solution is what worked for me (2013 MBP Retina) Re: Black Screen But Can See My Cursor

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!!!!!

Jesseinma

Thank you from me , needed to get on mac mini early in the morning , horror black screen , never happened before !

Your solution fixed it

Well done

Larry

And 2+ years later after a 10.12.2 update your advice still rings true, saved me a ton of time - cheers!

All the best, Simon.

I had this same problem today on a Mac Pro (MacPro5,1) running MacOS Sierra (10.12.2). The other answer did not work but gave me an idea which I tried and did work successfully.

I experienced this issue after enabling automatic login. I booted up my computer and had blank screens (I run three monitors) but I had a cursor and notifications of emails, calendar events etc.

1. I first tried rebooting several times.
2. I then tried rebooting into safe mode which allowed me to see the login window but once I logged in, I had the same black screen with cursor and notifications.
3. I then read this thread and tried the first letter of my username followed by the enter key. This did not work but I lost the mouse while typing. I then tried typing my password followed by the enter key - this worked and the problem has been resolved (I can successfully boot into the OS without any issues now).

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

mine would go to log in then go black but this worked thanks for clear instructions