Thunderbolt Display Doesn't Wake

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Thunderbolt Display Doesn't Wake

I have a brand new (2 months old) 15" MacBook Pro Retina display. I upgraded to OS X El Capitan. When home, my Mac sits in a cradle (not a docking station, just a little thing that holds it while closed), closed connected to an Apple USB keyboard, an Apple Magic Mouse, and a 27" Thunderbolt Display. Very often, I'd say 95% of the time, when the MacBook goes to sleep and I wake it with the keyboard, the Thunderbolt Display does not return. Sometimes I just let it go back to sleep and wake it again and it will work...but more often than not, it gets really stuck. I have to actually open the MacBook Pro, disconnect the Thunderbolt Display and USB keyboard, and only then can I get it to start working again when I plug everything back in.

I never had this problem before El Capitan on the same MacBook and same display.

Anyone else have this issue? Got a fix?

Thanks!

Donno

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X El Capitan (10.11)

Posted on Oct 9, 2015 3:04 PM

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Answer 1

Oct 30, 2015 12:13 PM in response to DonnoC

Same exact issue here. It's been a huge nuisance and a glaring usability issue for the MBP-Thunderbolt display combo.

To add some details, I'm using:

15-inch macbook pro, late 2011

2.4 GHz Intel Core i7

16GB 1333 MHz DDR3

AMD Radeon HD6770M 1024 MB

But I think it's an issue across a large number of MBP-thunderbolt display combos. There are a number of threads on this topic across the support forums.

I had the issue with Yosemite as well, however the "failing to wake" behavior became even more common after updating to El Capitan. I would love to find a solution to this.

Has anyone experimented with Dell/Acer/Asus monitors to see if the problem occurs in that setup as well?

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Answer 2

Dec 22, 2015 12:39 PM in response to jodorowsky

Another me, too. I've got a MacBook Air (early 2014) and I never had this issue with Yosemite or any OS prior. Ever since El Capitan, the Thunderbolt display will not wake from sleep. The Mac wakes (I can hear the external drive which is attached to the Thunderbolt's firewire port) but not the display. I have two workarounds so far:

1 - I open my clamshell and the internal display comes on. This seems to kick the Thunderbolt display on as well. I can then close the clamshell again.

2 - I have a 2nd monitor attached via a USB to DVI adapter (by CableMatters). This monitor wakes up each time. I can then use this monitor to go into System Prefs, click to "Mirror displays" and the Thunderbolt will then come on. Then I unclick Mirror again and it stays on. By the way, it can't have anything to do with the USB adapter or 2nd monitor because I experienced the problem before I ever added the drivers and adapter.

Hard to believe we're at the second major update to El Capitan and this is still an issue.

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Answer 3

Dec 22, 2015 1:25 PM in response to DonnoC

I contacted Apple and got to a Sr. Support advisor. He said he's seen this one other time and resetting the SMC (system mgt controller) fixed it so he had me try that. So far, it's worked. If you're not familiar with doing it:

Disconnect everything from the Mac except power (he even had me use a power cord instead of the Thunderbolt's power cord; wouldn't make much sense for that to be important, but I did it anyway.)
On the internal keyboard, hold down left-side Shift-Ctrl-Option while pressing and holding the power button for about 4 seconds.
Hook it all back up and boot like normal.

Let me know if this helps on your end. I'll continue to monitor mine.

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