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My display remains black after wake from sleep. How do I fix it?

As stated, my MacBook Pro display remains black after waking from both full sleep and "Energy-Saver" display shut-off. When I wake the machine or try to activate the display, I get nothing but a black screen. To be clear: the display is not OFF. Simply black. I can change the backlight up and down, thus displaying a very bright or very dim black screen. The keyboard backlight is fully functional as well. My mouse isn't visible, and no trackpad gestures work. The issue started shortly after installing Yosemite, though I'd hate to link the two events together. The only way to actually get the display back is a hard reset. As you can imagine, I'm rather tired of resetting my machine. I've tried rebooting in safe mode, and resetting the SMC/PRAM. The issue presents regardless of whether I intentionally put the machine to sleep or allow it to turn off on it's own. Any tips, questions, or suggestions are welcome.


This issue is on my only machine and is very frustrating, so I'd love to fix it asap. Here's the build:


15" Mid 2010 MacBook Pro

2.4GHz Intel Core i5

8 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Intel HD Graphics 288 MB

NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M


OS X Version: 10.10.2 (14C68k)

Kernel Version : Darwin 14.1.0


Also running (generally):

iTunes Version: 12.0.1.26

Safari Version: 8.0.2 (10600.3.5)

MacBook Pro, Other OS, OS X 10.10.2

Posted on Nov 25, 2014 10:56 PM

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 26, 2014 3:31 AM

Hi,


Same problem here, it has started with Yosemite 10.10.2, with 10.10.1 it was working properly. I also have a mid 2010 MacBook Pro and I have seen some display flickering while using Safari too...


Thanks.

28 replies

Dec 5, 2014 2:03 PM in response to ndopp

As an update to all:


i happened to be in a mall with the Apple Store last night. I mentioned my issue to one of the techs who happened to know exactly what I was talking about. Apparently it's an uncommon (though known) issue that has manifested in random machines since Mavericks. He advised me to bring in my comp and said he'd show me how to fix it. when I did, he launched the bios screen and issued a few different commands to remove a certain profile or preference from something called a P-list. The one in question is com.apple.login or com.apple/login. I don't remember which. I haven't had any issues in the last few hours. Hopefully the same fix results in good performance for the rest of you as well.

Dec 6, 2014 5:01 PM in response to ndopp

same issue on a Mid-2009 MacBook Pro 17". After updating to 10.10.2, I first notices issues with using browsing in Safari. Parts of websites would seem to flicker. At first i didn't see it as that big of an issue. However, as i used my computer more and more, i noticed the issue arising within the iOS Simulator when i build and run my apps from Xcode. The simulator has the same flickering issue. But, when i closed the lid and reopened it, the computer never wakes from sleep, requiring a restart. I also noticed that when the computer goes to sleep with the lid open, waking it from sleep with some keyboard/trackpad input wakes the screen. But, further input seems to do absolutely nothing. No mouse movement and no keyboard input except for the function keys does anything. Pressing the ESC button actually dims the screen to black and seems to put the computer back to sleep, leaving the computer in a persistent sleep state. Nothing I do except for a restart allows me to actually use the computer.

Dec 7, 2014 5:28 PM in response to Zolihonig

Update 2:

Sorry for the delay, my machine was out of commission yesterday.


Upon further use and investigation, the solution specified above from the Apple Store was NOT a complete fix. While in the store, my machine appeared to be working fine, both waking and sleeping as expected. I think it may have even worked once after I got home. Later that evening, (within an hour of my last post) the issue was back. As soon as the display went into power saving sleep mode, it wouldn't wake again. Back to the black screen with adjustable brightness, but no motion or color. *I should note that I've also seen this issue arise while showing my login screen, but again without any pointer motion, just the frozen screen.*


Last night, after deciding it wasn't worth another drive to the Apple Store I decided to erase and perform a full reinstall. I dug out my hardware test disk and ran a couple of tests just to rule out hardware as a problem. After confirming all hardware was good, I entered recovery mode and performed a full reinstall. I am now running OS 10.10.1, and am reluctant to update to the Pre-Release 10.10.2. I've been slowly running updates on individual apps one at a time so that I can observe and hopefully identify any file causing issues. No issues to speak of for the last 18 hours and 10+ sleep/wake cycles. As a precaution, I also erased my time machine backup and let my machine create a new (hopefully clean) backup that won't carry over the previous error.


This is a long and rather unfortunate way to resolve an issue like this, I wish I had found an easier fix. On the other hand, starting fresh is kind of fun sometimes, right?


To Zolihonig's post:


I don't know enough about what the Apple guy did to give you anything more specific than I listed above. After opening the command terminal (still can't figure out which keys he pressed at boot to get there) he worked too quickly for me to keep track of what he did. Everything I know is listed above. Sorry I'm not more useful there.


Best,


ndopp

Dec 9, 2014 11:00 PM in response to Nightlust

Thanks for the tip. I removed the application and the drivers using the commands in terminal listed on airparrot's website. Still haven't updated to 10.10.2, but when I'm feeling confident in my current system, I'll update to the pre-release again to test stability without Airparrot installed. Thanks again Nightlust.

My display remains black after wake from sleep. How do I fix it?

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