MacBook Pro touch bar emoji not working

I have this issue, too. Chatted with Apple support 4 times, nothing they told me to do solved the problem. Took it to the "Genius" bar yesterday, and they kept it and are sending it in for repair. Will post to this thread when I get it back to advise you all on what was said/done, and whether it is actually fixed.

The issue still pops up now and then for me. Usually restarting fixes the issue. Extremely annoying though. I have generally given up using the touch bar, and use an external keyboard and mouse most of the time. When I am out, I just have the touch bar set up in the traditional way.

No offense, Hernandez, but for me that is not an acceptable solution. We all paid a significant amount of extra money to get this "feature," and if it isn't going to work properly, Apple owes each and every one of us a refund. We shouldn't have to re-start/re-boot every time the issue pops up, not only because that is a time-waster, but because the issue shouldn't "pop up" in the first place. And we certainly shouldn't be expected to just give up! The heart of the matter is this: Apple sold us a defective product, and it is their reponsibility to make good, not our responsibility to accommodate their error. I would encourage you to pursue a true solution, or, at the very least, a refund for the amount you paid for the Touch Bar, rather than just resigning yourself to accepting a lemon. You wouldn't do that with a car, and you shouldn't do it with your computer, either.

You are 100% right. Can't argue with what you said at all. I am just in a situation right now (writing a dissertation) where I really don't have time to fight with apple and spend time to get the issue fix, especially since I'm way outside of my two week warranty. But trust me, I will remember this when its time for a upgrade. Fight the good fight though =)

Ahhh, I remember the stress of those days well! Feel for you. The warranty is longer than two weeks, though--it's for one year--so don't let that deter you! Hope your dissertation turns out awesome, and I will update this thread when I get my MacBook back and let you know what they tell me.

I just got my laptop back from Apple. They replaced the case, which includes the Touch Bar (and, incidentally, the battery). I don't know yet if it has solved the problem--this is literally the first thing I have done since getting the thing back. Let's take the emoji button for a test drive, shall we? 😀😄😃😁☺ Well, at least it worked that time. If it stops working, I will come back and kvetch some more. Otherwise, this appears (I say this very tentatively) to be a solution.

So far, so good, folks. It's been 2 days and the problem has not recurred, which leads me to believe that there may have been a bad batch of hardware that went out. Would encourage those of you having this issue to take yours in and have them replace the case. It seems to have worked for me!

Just found this thread because of the same problem, Emoji stopped working on the first time I used it in Messenger. It does work on other apps and when the touchbar goes dark, it comes back after I change to a different app. But still not what I paid for...

I had the same issue and I found that every time I unchecked the "Show Input menu in menu bar" in keyboard input sources, emojis didn't work. When I check that box again, emoji's work. Not sure why because it never used to do this until recently. Hope this works for you!

Thanks man

Closing the app did the trick for me.

Never thought about it

When I log out of my user profile, and log back in, inserting emoji via touch bar works again, although it stops again after a while. At least I no longer need to restart the Mac--Progress!

I use the 1password app. I closed out of the 1passwordMini that stays running up in the top right, and I could use the emoji's in the touch bar once again.

Closing and restarting worked for me as well. Thanks for the help.

I had this same problem. Trying to insert an emoji in an email in Mail program. Touch bar went black and did not respond. When I switched out of Mail - to Safari, Touchbar sprang back to life.