Yosemite won't boot - stuck on black screen

[905014]

Hi same issue here on 2013 MBA

My son shutsdown his MBA every night. Within the last few weeks, it wouldn't boot the next day a few times now. Each time just chimes but screen is blank (backlight on, LCD shows nothing). cmd + opt + P + R would bring it back only to happen again a few days later.

Anyone having repeated failures like this?

UPDATE: He is on 10.10.4 public beta which was installed on 5/27/15. Roughly the time that this problem started. Perhaps beta software is the issue. Will see if can go back to 10.10.3 or goes away with 10.10.4 comes out

Hi howardc64 , The beta versions are very buggy and unstable , but anyway the only way to fix this is to downgrade to 10.10.3 , Have this in mind that many users on this version are also experiencing the issue .

The Downgrade method is simple but before you proceed 1. Backup every important file on your sons mac , apple has made it simple for mac users to backup their content with time machine . Just search for time machine select any drive besides the one that your OS X is installed on .( An external Hard Drive formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Would be great ) After you have backed up everything you may proceed to the next step.
2. There are two methods of restoring the first one needs a fast internet connection
simply turn off your mac connect it to power supply then turn your mac back on ( As soon as you hear the boot chime hold down Command+R wait for the mac to boot the recovery menu and follow the on screen instructions
The second method is to create a bootable usb drive (you'll need an 8 gig usb Drive ) simply download a full copy of OS X 10.10.3 from mac app store then download an app called disk maker from: http://diskmakerx.com
Open the app and follow on screen instructions !
Finally ,
turn off your mac connect it to power supply then turn your mac back on ( As soon as you hear the boot chime hold down Option key choose the drive that contains the OS X and format and install Yosemite from fresh copy !

Cheers

 

[markhort]

Just had this happen to my 2011 MacBook Pro, thought it was dead. Going to try COMMAND+OPTION+P+R. Hopefully this works, other wise I have a Genus appointment booked for Sunday.

 

[markhort]

Looking promising! Managed to get to the login screen now.

 

[markhort]

Looks like an issue with FileVault. Disabled, then rebooted. I'm now able to login ok

 

[905014]

markhort Hi that's great to hear , message me if you need any help!

 

[markhort]

Cheers, going to leave FileVault switched off. I can't remember ever switching it on to be honest. Checked my other Mac's all have that option switched off.

 

[howardc64]

Hi howardc64 , The beta versions are very buggy and unstable , but anyway the only way to fix this is to downgrade to 10.10.3 , Have this in mind that many users on this version are also experiencing the issue .

The Downgrade method is simple but before you proceed 1. Backup every important file on your sons mac , apple has made it simple for mac users to backup their content with time machine . Just search for time machine select any drive besides the one that your OS X is installed on .( An external Hard Drive formatted in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Would be great ) After you have backed up everything you may proceed to the next step.
2. There are two methods of restoring the first one needs a fast internet connection
simply turn off your mac connect it to power supply then turn your mac back on ( As soon as you hear the boot chime hold down Command+R wait for the mac to boot the recovery menu and follow the on screen instructions
The second method is to create a bootable usb drive (you'll need an 8 gig usb Drive ) simply download a full copy of OS X 10.10.3 from mac app store then download an app called disk maker from: http://diskmakerx.com
Open the app and follow on screen instructions !
Finally ,
turn off your mac connect it to power supply then turn your mac back on ( As soon as you hear the boot chime hold down Option key choose the drive that contains the OS X and format and install Yosemite from fresh copy !

Cheers

Hi Thanks a bunch for the down grade directions. The no boot condition only occurs after shutdown which my son does every night. I just told him to close the screen and put the MBA to sleep to avoid the problem. We'll wait for official 10.10.4 before seeing if this occurs again. Thanks

 

[905014]

Hi Thanks a bunch for the down grade directions. The no boot condition only occurs after shutdown which my son does every night. I just told him to close the screen and put the MBA to sleep to avoid the problem. We'll wait for official 10.10.4 before seeing if this occurs again. Thanks

Hi howardc64 , you're welcome , I'm happy that I could help , by the way great idea , message me if you have any questions .

cheers
Armin

 

[utahimac93]

Hey all, this is my first post. I joined Mac Rumors just for this forum. I have a 7.1 iMac 24" I bought here a few days ago. It's been nothing but dreamy.

Here about 20 minutes ago, I came back into my office to use it. I had put it into Sleep mode (clicked Apple, Sleep). I pressed a button on the keyboard, and the screen lit up, but was black. I patiently waited for a couple minutes, and then powered the machine down (held power button. Not sure if that's bad or anything, I'm a brand new convert from a PC).

When I turned it back on, the screen lit up to the same black but illuminated screen. I tried several of the command+ whatever tricks, and it doesn't make a difference. I'm using a Bluetooth keyboard, will that even be recognized this early in the boot process?

Oh yeah, to make matters even more fun, my volume was muted when I shut down, so I'm guessing I won't be able to hear any startup sounds.

Desperate mayday to anyone with suggestions. This machine is crucial to my business operations. Thanks in advance!

 

[905014]

Hey all, this is my first post. I joined Mac Rumors just for this forum. I have a 7.1 iMac 24" I bought here a few days ago. It's been nothing but dreamy.

Here about 20 minutes ago, I came back into my office to use it. I had put it into Sleep mode (clicked Apple, Sleep). I pressed a button on the keyboard, and the screen lit up, but was black. I patiently waited for a couple minutes, and then powered the machine down (held power button. Not sure if that's bad or anything, I'm a brand new convert from a PC).

When I turned it back on, the screen lit up to the same black but illuminated screen. I tried several of the command+ whatever tricks, and it doesn't make a difference. I'm using a Bluetooth keyboard, will that even be recognized this early in the boot process?

Oh yeah, to make matters even more fun, my volume was muted when I shut down, so I'm guessing I won't be able to hear any startup sounds.

Desperate mayday to anyone with suggestions. This machine is crucial to my business operations. Thanks in advance!

Hi utahiMac93 , first of all don't panic , ok so you should try combining solutions , perhaps find an usb keyboard , connect it to your imac and as you mentioned you had the sound muted not to worry just power down your imac , when powering back on you'll see that the screen will sort of light up , if you get close to the screen you shall be able to recognize when its on or off , then immediately after powering on your imac try the combination I posted before . it'll take a few tries but eventually it will work, just make sure you're holding down the correct keys ! if you tried this many times and it didn't work try holding down the option key if the menu pops up you're in luck choose Yosemite and boot !

cheers

 

[905014]

utahimac93 said
↑
Hey,

The Option trick worked now. The screen was flickering partial images really bad, but after a minute or so the card seemed to stabilize. I'm now at the desktop page. Any guidance on avoiding the same problem in the future?

Armin T said:

Well its good to know that I could help , actually this issue may happen from time to time , this topic already has 47000 views so this issue is common , I think apple will eventually come up with a fix but till then , who knows how many will experience this issue?

 

[drummer5645]

ArminT
Just to let you know. I had your threat comments ready for my apple support call. I had the sleep issue on my late 13 Imac.

Support told me about a workaround and gave me your combine solution. I said "oh we are resetting the NVRAM" and she was surprised. I referred to this thread and suggested Apple owes you something.
By the way it worked on second try. They say it is not software rather if it happens again its hardware.
Thanks for taking the initiative.

 

[drummer5645]

Just when it seemed everything was fine, it started happening again. With Apple support we found in system preference>energy> uncheck "wake for network access". We maybe onto something finally

 

[rjaffier]

just to share, i joined here just for this forum too...

I had the same problem (using a Macbook Retina 15' Mid 2012 OS X Yosemite 10.10.4) : just a black screen.
After the boot sound i used the combination "commd+option+p+r" and nothing happened. So, i had to do it six times (no joking) and appears the Lock Firmware asking for some pass. Pressed "shutdown + option" and the mac survived. Now, im using my mac without turn off. I restart once, and black screen again. 6x "cmmd+option+p+r" works but now the combinations looks like in random. And the "shutdown + option" too.
i will do a "downgrade" then i will write here the experience.
Thanks for the solution "Armin T".

 

[905014]

Hi rjaffier , you're welcome ! I'm happy i could help ! ;-)
drummer5645 , hi again it seems like everyone is experiencing this issue somehow slightly different, I doubt its from hardware , perhaps we are all doing something in common ? hmmmm.....

 

[drummer5645]

Latest reaction tonight on returning from 5 hours of checking "sleep".
- No reaction at all from space attempt to wake.
- Quick push of on/off button got a "negative" looking screen, 5 secs+ actual pic back on
- mouse was frozen in place for about 10 secs.
- everything then worked
I will assume the unchecking in energy section under preferences had some impact somewhere. The good news is its working but why and for how long

 

[rjaffier]

well... i tried to restore the system. the commands "cmmd + r" and "option" seems doesn't work.
im using a usb bootable.

BUT! after trying to press the buttons a few times, close the lcd display, unexpectedly the system booted in my regular (or native) disk. so, appears the apple and the regular window to login.

can i make the downgrade without shutdown the mac? or to format the disk on diskUtility?

and about this "new" El Capitan? its a joke, sure.

 

[905014]

hi rjaffier , actually it requires a full copy of the version you are willing to upgrade to , but before that try holding the option key (alt key ) at startup then you should be able to choose the drive you want to boot from or simply go to settings-->startup disk --> choose your disk
done !
now for the downgrade/upgrade actually if you're trying to do so when your mac is powered on you must have an empty drive formatted in mac journaled .

follow the instructions that i provided in previous posts !

p.s if you somehow can't figure out how to restore your mac while its on , try creating a bootable usb and installing from it !
oh and yeah please stay away from betas if you are not a developer!

cheers

 

[rjaffier]

hi rjaffier , actually it requires a full copy of the version you are willing to upgrade to , but before that try holding the option key (alt key ) at startup then you should be able to choose the drive you want to boot from or simply go to settings-->startup disk --> choose your disk
done !
now for the downgrade/upgrade actually if you're trying to do so when your mac is powered on you must have an empty drive formatted in mac journaled .

follow the instructions that i provided in previous posts !

p.s if you somehow can't figure out how to restore your mac while its on , try creating a bootable usb and installing from it !
oh and yeah please stay away from betas if you are not a developer!

cheers

i follow the instructions for both methods but the commands at startup dont work.
because this i cant acess the recovery menu.

can i to erase my hard disk on disk utility?

 

[905014]

i follow the instructions for both methods but the commands at startup dont work.
because this i cant acess the recovery menu.

can i to erase my hard disk on disk utility?

Hi rjaffier,
yes, you can but not the same drive you are using , if you haven't used all of your disk space you can choose to partition and resize your ssd , however if your ssd is full , try connecting an external hard drive and using disk utility to format the disk into mac journaled and perhaps install OSX on external drive , after the installation is complete change the startup disk to the new one and boot into fresh copy of OSX finally format old partition and install OSX on old partition . change boot again. done !

Please if you do not have experience using the disk utility don't even bother trying this method it's too risky !
I am not guilty for any harm or data loss so please before anything make sure you backup using time machine!

cheers

 

[rjaffier]

thanks!

and be calm! i have one backup on raw files and one backup via timemachine.
so... i will make two partitions, and install yosemite in one.
lets see what happens...

cheers!

 

[rjaffier]

Hi rjaffier,
yes, you can but not the same drive you are using , if you haven't used all of your disk space you can choose to partition and resize your ssd , however if your ssd is full , try connecting an external hard drive and using disk utility to format the disk into mac journaled and perhaps install OSX on external drive , after the installation is complete change the startup disk to the new one and boot into fresh copy of OSX finally format old partition and install OSX on old partition . change boot again. done !

Please if you do not have experience using the disk utility don't even bother trying this method it's too risky !
I am not guilty for any harm or data loss so please before anything make sure you backup using time machine!

cheers

armin,

finally i did the clean install.
everything works great.

thanks for the help!

 

[905014]

armin,

finally i did the clean install.
everything works great.

thanks for the help!

Hi rjaffeir , thats great to hear !
I'm glad that i could help !
message me if you somehow run into further issues !

cheers

 

[johndevasia]

Hello all. I'm stuck with the same problem on my 2012 RMBP.
Pram reset doesn't help.
Smc reset doesn't help.
Tried AHT in both modes but it says no faults found.
Cannot boot into safe mode.
Every avenue I tried ends up with the apple logo and a progress bar that's filled halfway.
Meanwhile if I close the lid during boot, and open it later, it allows me to log in because I can see the camera light up (I have a face sensor login option...) and if I type in my password, it logs in. I was even able to play music using command+space bar and typing vlc. Then hit the play (F8) key.
Someone has to know what can be done here? Please?

 

[905014]

Hello all. I'm stuck with the same problem on my 2012 RMBP.
Pram reset doesn't help.
Smc reset doesn't help.
Tried AHT in both modes but it says no faults found.
Cannot boot into safe mode.
Every avenue I tried ends up with the apple logo and a progress bar that's filled halfway.
Meanwhile if I close the lid during boot, and open it later, it allows me to log in because I can see the camera light up (I have a face sensor login option...) and if I type in my password, it logs in. I was even able to play music using command+space bar and typing vlc. Then hit the play (F8) key.
Someone has to know what can be done here? Please?

hi johndevasia , hmmm.... so you said that you can see the apple logo lit up but the screen dies afterwards , if I understood correctly , did you mean NVram ? if not try reseting that too, The weird part about your situation is you get past the logo , ok no worries try connecting your mac with a hdmi to a tv/screen , let me know if you get any output .