Control Strip (Touch Bar) randomly disappears

Anyone able to test if it sill occurs on one of the newest betas? I just set up macOS from ground, after some timethe problem occurs again. I use a prolink adapter to a hdmi monitor.

Also this threads has some nice pictures of the problem: Touchbar not behaving (parts switch off)

Same symptoms here.

Macbook Pro 13"

Official Apple HMDI/USB/Power to USB-C dongle

Secondary display

Now while I cannot say if the issue is specifically related to having the monitor plugged in, I did have an issue where I would lose the second monitor when I plugged in the power cable as well. The solution was to unplug the entire dongle, and while that is a totally separate issue, it makes me further suspect something with those drivers.

Unfortunately for me, tapping the "fn" key does not seem to resolve this and I have to restart my Mac. It's pretty frustrating seeing how I use the touchbar quite often, and contrary to some, I like the feature. Until this happens and I can't turn the sound down on a music app/etc.

seems that way...although I have only just bought the LG ultra wide display, used it last night with and unplugged the MBP from it this morning, to find the missing touch bar. Mine came back on after a restart. Will have a go again tonight to see if its a persistent issue. The small issue I had was that it had trouble detecting the display, but eventually did.

The "tap the fn" key fix doesn't seem to solve a disappeared escape key. This is probably because there's no change to the display for the escape key (while the others are refreshed).

I'm also encountering the issue with a connected external display, but didn't verify it yet without a display.

It seems the keys disappear after a bit of inactivity (when the keyboard backlight would also be dimmed), but are not reinstated.

I also noticed that the keys work even while they're not displayed (although they're hard to find). So it's just a display error.

I have a Macbook Pro 2016 touch bar 15 inch.

The following things happen to me at different times:

- entire touch bar disappears; or

- all buttons appear, except the escape key; or

- only 1 1/2 buttons appear at times (the 1 1/2 buttons on the far right);

Ways to reproduce:

- Having an external hdmi monitor plugged in, then disconnecting, then putting macbook to sleep, then walking it up --> escape key missing.

- I haven't found a pattern to reproduce either:

- all the keys missing

- 1 1/2 keys missing

Hacks for showing buttons when one or more are missing:

- Shows all icons every time (but it takes a while to do): going to Settings --> Keyboard --> Customise Control Strip

- pressing on the button where it should be (but doesn't appear) makes just that button appear

- pressing function key: shows all the keys again EXCEPT they escape key.

So quickest fix is:

1. press function key

2. press where the escape key should be

However these are all hacks. There is obviously a problem here that Apple needs to look into.

It is interesting that apple never heard of a single problem ever even if it would be on the front page on every major news site.

Thank you for the "fix" though, my system worked great for 3 weeks and today this started...

The fn key to show the 'F' buttons is a good solution. I have had this happen also, no external monitors connected. Laptop monitor turned off/sleep and so did the touchbar. When I woke it, the bar didn't come back up. I went into settings and made a change in there to have them come back up. I also noticed if I touch a spot on the bar where there should be a button, that button shows again. It's almost like it needs to refresh once you rewake the laptop.

I have also found that this happens when I connect the MacBook Pro to an external display. However once disconnected the problem still persists until I reboot the machine. What's more is that the buttons, although not visible, are still completely responsive. Sometimes only half of the control strip will disappear or even just random individual toggles! I have to reboot my laptop at least once a day, which is serious considering I would only have to reboot my 2015 MacBook (The Super thin one), once every few months! Pressing the fn key will sometimes solve the problem but other times it won't.

My 2016 15" MBP started doing this as well. If I tap it, that one button will return.

I use Mission Control and 2x HDMI monitors and the laptop display.

I recently changed the Touch Bar shows to Expanded Control Strip (Sys Prefs>Keyboard). Turning this back to App Controls with Control Strip resolved it, but I don't like that setting personally.

Pressing the fn key resolves the issue until it reoccurs.

Obviously this must be a software issue? and I don't think its MacOS - because it didn't happen to begin with, only after I filled it with software.

The only thing that I can think of is it seems to happen more when I am using "Parallels" for my windows VM

Same issue here. I didn't realize i might be because I hook up to external monitors but that makes sense now since I do. However, the problem persists even when I'm not connected to external monitors and seems to occur randomly. It's pretty frustrating to have to click the function key to refresh the touch bar's missing elements. I have the base model 2016 13 inch w/ touch bar.

I can also confirm this problem. Very, very annoying. It occurs when using external display (LG Ultra HD Display in my case connected via USB-C). Fn hack works, but just for a few minutes, then ½ of buttons or no ESC problem appears again.

Same here. Only a restart fixes it temporarily until it happens again after a few days. Interestingly, it invariably happens after being connected to an external LG 4 K display and pulling out the cable while lid is closed. When opening it up again, the touch bar won't wake up after it goes to sleep.

Same issue here. Sometimes the content on the touch bar is only partially obscured. It's frustrating but glad to hear about the Fn key reset. Works like a charm. Hoping there's a fix at some point. FWIW, this happens to me periodically with no external display connected, and the integrated, not discrete, GPU in use.

I have similar issue. I also have dual monitor setup but think it was happening before I set that up. I seem to notice it mostly when playing music through itunes and doing something else at the same time.