Q: mac mini black screen after upgrading to sierra

Is there nothing on the black (boot) screen at all ever?

Not that this helps...but I have the same problem too.  My particulars are a bit different; I'm running a headless Mac mini (mid 2010) as a Time Machine server and after "upgrading" to Sierra when I try to access the machine through screen sharing I only get a black screen.  The machine itself is running because I'm able to ssh into it but the screen itself is black!

Steve

Can you boot the Mini in Safe Mode - Try safe mode if your Mac doesn't finish starting up - Apple Support ? What is the display connection? You may also need a SMC and NVRAM reset.

Identical case here.  I can ssh in, and browse the drive from Finder, but via screen sharing the screen is black.  If I move the mouse around it will refresh once the mouse cursor has passed over a given area, but the screen seems to freeze after I attempt to login.  Have tried SMC and PRAM resets to no avail.

Looks like a bad GPU driver for Intel GPUs from Infinite Loop. Please create a bug report and/or call Apple Technical Support. If possible, take the Mac to the nearest Apple Store Genius Bar.

If it's a driver issue the Genius Bar won't be able to help.  We'll have to wait on Apple for a fix.  But if that's the case, how did this make it through the beta process?  I've seen posts describing this back at Sierra beta 2.  Did they ignore  the issue?

tedmacwpg wrote:

 

I've seen posts describing this back at Sierra beta 2.  Did they ignore  the issue?

To meet a delivery time line, perhaps. Can you revert back to El Capitan (or to a Time Machine backup of a previous OS X version).

When I hook the Mini up to my TV (1080p), it functions fine.  I can login and screen share with no problem.  When I detach it from the TV and reboot, it goes back into black screen mode for screen sharing.  So it seems to have something to do with the output resolution (or something) that it defaults to when it's not actually hooked up to a monitor.

When I had it hooked to the TV I changed the display output to "1080p", or something like that, thinking that it might output correctly to my iMac with that setting.  Apparently not though.  Can you think of a resolution setting I could try, or is there a way to force a persistent resolution via the GUI or command-line?

(And I mean I can login right from the machine itself, and also via screen sharing from my iMac.)

This is an old problem. If the destination Mac did not have a display connected, Screen Sharing (aka VNC) did not know what to choose as the default screen size. Moving your mouse is repainting the screen, which may be slow. I will look for the old discussion on the same subject.

Ok, will do.  I remember this was an issue in a more minor way under Mavericks and El Capitan, and then everything was fine under Yosemite.  But even in Mavericks/El Capitan it would still work, you just needed to deal with the pain of sometimes repainting the screen with the mouse.  But now under Sierra I just get "bong bong bong" noises when I attempt keyboard input after repainting the screen with the mouse.  Will look around I guess.

Sierra has some additional preferences under Screen Sharing. See macOS Sierra: Set up and use screen sharing . Check the Set screen sharing preferences section.