M1 MacBook Pro Stuck on Black Screen After Restart

[hunginator]

Hello,

When restarting my MBP, it shows a black screen after reboot (before login screen) and stays there indefinitely. I can see my mouse cursor but that's about it.

My MBP is plugged in via USB-C to my Dell monitor which also charges my MBP.

I've noticed that when I am not plugged into my monitor and using my MBP like a laptop, my restart works perfectly normal and I do not get stuck on the black screen.

My issue seems to be quite weird and wondering if anyone else have experienced the same or know what's wrong?

Specs are:
13" MBP
M1 Chip
16GB Ram
512GB SSD

Thanks!

 

[Lethen]

Not the exact same, but anyways..when I plug my MBP M1 into our Dell WD15 USB-C hub with Dell U2515H monitor attached, the Dell monitor is black, everything else works, screen on the MBP it self, USB keyboard/mouse which are connected to the (black) Dell monitor, ethernet works, and the MBP is charging. The Dell U2515H is recognized in the Mac display settings - just no picture on it.

If I power toggle the hub, everything works including Dell monitor. Haven't tried restarting MBP in this situation.

Never had issues with this hub using my Dell laptop from work.

Seems like Apple has some issues with the USB-C connection on the M1's, there are also reports of bricked M1's that might be tied to USB-C hubs 😱

 

[hunginator]

Thanks for your reply -- I guess these are some of the "little" bugs that Apple still needs to resolve with the new M1 chip.

 

[sushrut_k]

I am facing the exact same issue. The MBP gets stuck with a black screen (I can only see the mouse pointer). At this stage, only solution seems to be to use the power button to shut it down and restart it. I hit this when I try to insert my laptop into the sleeve after shutdown. As I do that, sometimes the laptop restarts automatically and gets stuck on this black screen with only the pointer visible.

 

[hunginator]

I am facing the exact same issue. The MBP gets stuck with a black screen (I can only see the mouse pointer). At this stage, only solution seems to be to use the power button to shut it down and restart it. I hit this when I try to insert my laptop into the sleeve after shutdown. As I do that, sometimes the laptop restarts automatically and gets stuck on this black screen with only the pointer visible.

this is the exact issue I have. glad to know it's not something wrong with my computer/settings. now... to find out what the remedy is!

 

[jdb8167]

Hello,

When restarting my MBP, it shows a black screen after reboot (before login screen) and stays there indefinitely. I can see my mouse cursor but that's about it.

My MBP is plugged in via USB-C to my Dell monitor which also charges my MBP.

I've noticed that when I am not plugged into my monitor and using my MBP like a laptop, my restart works perfectly normal and I do not get stuck on the black screen.

My issue seems to be quite weird and wondering if anyone else have experienced the same or know what's wrong?

Specs are:
13" MBP
M1 Chip
16GB Ram
512GB SSD

Thanks!

Have you tried putting the notebook to sleep? Close the lid and unplug the power adapter for 30 seconds and then open the display again. This fixes the similar problem that I see occasionally. It sounds like your problem is more persistent than mine though. For me it happens once out of 10-20 times.

 

[sushrut_k]

It's random for me. It happens once in 4-5 times. Do you guys think that this is a software issue or is it a hardware issue ? Also, the laptop restarting in sleeve after shutdown seems pretty strange to me. Seemed to be a hardware issue which is why I requested a return from Apple. I don't want to do that though since it will take another 15 days for me to get the new laptop and it is very inconvenient to not have my laptop around.

 

[sushrut_k]

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbook/comments/9o48xj
This seems to be the same issue from 2 years back !

 

[jdb8167]

It's random for me. It happens once in 4-5 times. Do you guys think that this is a software issue or is it a hardware issue ? Also, the laptop restarting in sleeve after shutdown seems pretty strange to me. Seemed to be a hardware issue which is why I requested a return from Apple. I don't want to do that though since it will take another 15 days for me to get the new laptop and it is very inconvenient to not have my laptop around.

It seems like a software issue with detecting different brands of external monitors. There are reports about USB-C to Display Port problems and HDMI problems on many different brands of monitors. That doesn't seem like a hardware problem to me but sounds like software. Apple has already acknowledged that they need to fix ultra-wide monitors and I hope they acknowledge these other problems soon.

 

[hunginator]

Have you tried putting the notebook to sleep? Close the lid and unplug the power adapter for 30 seconds and then open the display again. This fixes the similar problem that I see occasionally. It sounds like your problem is more persistent than mine though. For me it happens once out of 10-20 times.

nope, my laptop's lid is always closed as I almost always just use my external monitor via USB-C. when I restart my MacBook, I get exactly the same situation and screen as sushrut_k is showing in his post above.

when that happens, I need to shutdown my MacBook by opening up the lid, and holding the on/off/touchID button for several seconds. I then unplug my USB-C monitor from the MacBook and then turn it back on via on/off/touchID button.

 

[blipmusic]

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I'm having the same issue with an M1 MBP. I rarely shut it down completely, but it very seldom shuts down cleanly. Almost every shut down/restart it goes to a dimly lit, black screen and the only thing that works is holding the power button, forcing a shut down.

Doesn't matter if an external monitor is attached (thunderbolt, lid not closed) or not.

No issues starting up so far.

 

[jdb8167]

Sorry for resurrecting an old thread, but I'm having the same issue with an M1 MBP. I rarely shut it down completely, but it very seldom shuts down cleanly. Almost every shut down/restart it goes to a dimly lit, black screen and the only thing that works is holding the power button, forcing a shut down.

Doesn't matter if an external monitor is attached (thunderbolt, lid not closed) or not.

No issues starting up so far.

Yeah, I'm still seeing that too. It crashes on shutdown or restart to a black screen. The only fix is to hold down the power button for 10 seconds and wait for it to force shutdown. I don't shutdown too often but according to the SMART monitoring data, I've had 49 unsafe shutdowns since November 17. Some of those were earlier crashes with early versions of M1 Big Sur but all the recent ones are from the black screen on restart/shutdown.

I've got an uptime of 7 days right now so I suspect that it will happen again when I shutdown next. Sometimes with shorter uptimes, it does shutdown correctly. I'm getting ready to completely wipe the SSD and reinstall from scratch. Probably with 11.4 unless 11.4 fixes it.

 

[blipmusic]

Yeah, I'm still seeing that too. It crashes on shutdown or restart to a black screen. The only fix is to hold down the power button for 10 seconds and wait for it to force shutdown. I don't shutdown too often but according to the SMART monitoring data, I've had 49 unsafe shutdowns since November 17. Some of those were earlier crashes with early versions of M1 Big Sur but all the recent ones are from the black screen on restart/shutdown.

I've got an uptime of 7 days right now so I suspect that it will happen again when I shutdown next. Sometimes with shorter uptimes, it does shutdown correctly. I'm getting ready to completely wipe the SSD and reinstall from scratch. Probably with 11.4 unless 11.4 fixes it.

I have similar uptimes up towards weeks usually - I rarely reboot. One can only hope this is software and not hardware related.

Is this using smartmontools? It lists 16 unsafe reboots, also since Nov 17 or 18 (whichever day of those the MBP arrived).

 

[jdb8167]

I have similar uptimes up towards weeks usually - I rarely reboot. One can only hope this is software and not hardware related.

Is this using smartmontools? It lists 16 unsafe reboots, also since Nov 17 or 18 (whichever day of those the MBP arrived).

Smartmontools does show this. I wrote my own version for retrieving SMART data and have been using that. Same info though.

I just restarted my M1 MacBook Air after 8 days uptime and it didn't crash. So maybe it is fixed after 11.3.1.