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Morac

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
2,306
681
I upgraded my MacBook Air M1 to Sonoma. Right after the restart after the preparing stage, the screen went black for several minutes. i eventually closed the lid for a bit and reopened it. After about 5 seconds I got the power on sound and a progress bar after which the install continued to completion. Everything seems okay.

Since Apple signs all their system files and it’s not complaining, should I assume the install worked?
 

bob_stan

macrumors regular
Oct 6, 2019
159
93
Central New York
If I understand you, the screen went black during the install for a while but now is OK. If so that is normal behavior during an OS install.
 

Siliconpsychosis

macrumors member
May 18, 2023
71
72
The ventura > Sonoma firmware upgrades take a while on apple silicon, ive seen the same on several machines. just be patient and it works just fine.
 

johnwhite1000

macrumors newbie
Jan 31, 2022
28
6
On a Mac Studio Ultra with two Dell 32 in monitors my display went completely black for about ten minutes before video came back and the install progressed to completion.
 

hooptyuber

macrumors regular
Jan 21, 2017
234
317
That same thing used to happen on my 2016 MacBook Pro whenever I did OS upgrades.
 

Morac

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
2,306
681
If I understand you, the screen went black during the install for a while but now is OK. If so that is normal behavior during an OS install.

Yeah. Basically I was wondering if closing the lid broke the install somehow in an unnoticeable way since I got the power on sound shortly after reopening it.
 
Last edited:

Soylent Yellow

macrumors member
Jun 4, 2014
65
93
The screen on my iMac M2 went black as well, and didn't return for hours.

What helped was unplugging/plugging the monitor cable! (Hope this helps another struggling soul somewhere out there)
 

Mollop3

macrumors newbie
Sep 30, 2023
8
0
I upgraded iMac on 9/29/23. Experienced the weird delay but everything was eventually fine. Today was fine until an hour ago - now wallpaper is black. Checked system settings and my chosen wallpaper is checked but all is black. Even tried switching to the Sonoma horizon but no go. Any suggestion?
 

Morac

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Dec 30, 2009
2,306
681
I upgraded iMac on 9/29/23. Experienced the weird delay but everything was eventually fine. Today was fine until an hour ago - now wallpaper is black. Checked system settings and my chosen wallpaper is checked but all is black. Even tried switching to the Sonoma horizon but no go. Any suggestion?

It’s probably a bug. I’ve found the wallpaper settings in Sonoma tend to not stick. I’d try restarting.
 

Mollop3

macrumors newbie
Sep 30, 2023
8
0
Thank you but I tried that to no avail. If that is the only problem with the update, I guess I can live with it but i find black wallpaper depressing 🤷‍♀️
 

redhot47fla

macrumors member
Sep 16, 2016
33
17
I upgraded iMac on 9/29/23. Experienced the weird delay but everything was eventually fine. Today was fine until an hour ago - now wallpaper is black. Checked system settings and my chosen wallpaper is checked but all is black. Even tried switching to the Sonoma horizon but no go. Any suggestion?
Likewise. After several days of normal behavior, mine went black and has stayed that way regardless of what I try.
 

Mollop3

macrumors newbie
Sep 30, 2023
8
0
My problem has spontaneously disappeared since restart this morning. As previously stated, must be a bug.
 

DavyMc

macrumors newbie
Oct 13, 2023
1
0
I work for a fairly large US employer in IT (over 5000 employees) and we have been testing out the 14.0 Sonoma upgrade via our early adopter program internally

So far has been a massive fail ..... all the M1's has suffered this B(lack)SOD and the ONLY fix that works is to do a complete wipe of the system; not a big deal ... unless you need to get data off the device; so far we have been unable to recover/restore the units to access the data.

Every unit that has had this happen has never recovered on its own .... makes me think Apple hired the former MS quality assurance update teams
 

fisherking

macrumors G4
Jul 16, 2010
11,252
5,563
ny somewhere
I work for a fairly large US employer in IT (over 5000 employees) and we have been testing out the 14.0 Sonoma upgrade via our early adopter program internally

So far has been a massive fail ..... all the M1's has suffered this B(lack)SOD and the ONLY fix that works is to do a complete wipe of the system; not a big deal ... unless you need to get data off the device; so far we have been unable to recover/restore the units to access the data.

Every unit that has had this happen has never recovered on its own .... makes me think Apple hired the former MS quality assurance update teams
there must be some common denominator with your specific mac setups, as this is not a common issue (look at the posts above yours, for example, where there are only reports of black wallpaper).
 
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Mollop3

macrumors newbie
Sep 30, 2023
8
0
Black wallpaper is back. Even though settings are not Black. Things were great since October but not now. Restart won’t correct. i have ‘Allow wallpaper tinting in windows’ turned off. Does anyone have any other suggestions? Thanks.
 
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