MacBook Pro black screen error appears to your device while waking your MacBook from sleep. Users might encounter this error unexpectedly on their Mac display. This problem might occur after upgrading the MacOS operating system.
How to Fix MacBook Pro black screen of death error
Method 1- Boot into Safe Mode
To access Safe Mode on your Mac, follow these simple steps:
- Power Down Your Mac: Completely shut down your Mac by clicking on the Apple menu in the top-left corner and selecting “Shut Down.”
- Wait for a Few Seconds: Allow your Mac to sit idle for about 15 to 20 seconds.
- Turn on Your Mac: Press the power button to turn on your Mac.
- Hold Down the Shift Key: As your Mac boots up, immediately press and hold down the Shift key until you see the login window.
- Release the Shift Key and Login: Once the login window appears, release the Shift key and proceed to log in to your Mac as usual.
Method 2- Reset the PRAM/NVRAM
To reset Mac’s NVRAM settings:
- Turn off your MacBook Pro.
- Press the Power key.
- Wait for your Mac to start loading.
- When you hear a startup sound, press and hold Cmd + Option + P + R.
- Keep pressing the keys until you hear a second startup sound.
Method 3- Restart your MacBook Pro
If you’ve confirmed that the laptop is receiving power and you’ve ruled out the possibility of interference from peripheral devices, the next thing to try is a simple restart.
- Pressing Control + Command (the symbol with four loops) + Power/Eject/Touch ID button (depending on your model) should automatically restart your device.
- Alternatively, hold the power button for 5 seconds to shut down your MacBook Pro, wait 15 seconds and then press the button again to reboot. Fingers crossed.
Method 4- Adjust your display’s brightness
It’s possible you unknowingly pressed the brightness keys on the keyboard so your screen dimmed down. Or it could have been your cat.
Use F1 and F2 buttons to light black screen on your Mac.
Method 5 – Force Reboot your MacBook Pro
You can force restart your Mac to solve the issue.
If you’ve established that the Mac booting black screen issue lies in the display, force restarting the device can be a solution. (if you are not sure, skip this process).
Force restarting the Mac can fix bugs and errors.
Here’s how:
- Press and hold the Power key for about 6 seconds.
- Wait for the Mac to shut down
- Press the Power key again to start it
Method 6- Start up from macOS Recovery
Try a forced reset. Sometimes a good old-fashioned hard restart is all it takes to fix all kinds of MacBook issues.
On an Apple-chipped MacBook Pro (M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max) Press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds. You should see the startup options window, which includes a gear icon labelled Options.
- Select Options and Continue.
- If the options window doesn’t appeal, release the power button and press and hold it again for another 10 seconds.
- If you started up from macOS Recovery, you should see a utility window that includes Disk Utility.
On an Intel-chipped MacBook Pro, press and hold the power button for about 10 seconds, then press and release the power button and immediately press and hold Command + R until you see an Apple logo or other image. If you still see a blank screen after about 20 seconds, it’s time to move on. If this does recovers your screen, it’s worth running Disk Utility to check for errors. If Disk Utility finds errors and repair them, restart your MacBook again afterwards.
Method 7- Reset the System Management Controller
Resetting the SMC will dump and reset settings for anything power management related. It resolves, among other problems with things like heat, sleeping problems, fans, and of course, Mac black screen display issues.
To reset the SMC on MacBook Pro or MacBook Air (with nonremovable battery):
- Shut down the Mac
- Connect the Mac to power (if it is not connected). Ensure to use your MagSafe adapter.
- While the Mac is off, press the Shift+Control+Option+Power keys together at the same time and hold down for a few seconds
- Release all keys at the same time
- Boot the Mac as usual and watch out what happens
When the Mac boots, hopefully, the Mac black screen will have gone away and you’re back to normal.
Method 8-Keypress (Keyboard) Sequence
If you Mac boots, the black screen may go away and the MacBook Pro or MacBook Air may go back to normal, however, if it doesn’t, try a keypress sequence to ditch the black screen.
If your Mac is powering on but the screen stays black, try the keypress sequence:
- Press the power button (OFF) once, bringing an invisible dialog box on the MacBook Pro black screen
- Press the ‘S’ button – shortcut for sleep on Mac
- Force a hard shutdown by holding the power button for 4 seconds
- wait for about 16 seconds
- Press the power button (OFF) to turn the MacBook Pro on again
This process is not common but has worked for many
Method 9- Reset the PRAM
If the above two tricks failed (solution #6 and Solution #7), a PRAM reset can often be the solution to the MacBook pro booting back screen.
The settings in the PRAM carry forward even if you shut down or restart Mac. If they get corrupted somehow, it can cause problems like the black screen on Mac.
This is why resetting the PRAM is a potential solution to the black screen on boot. PRAM reset is almost similar to SMC reset. To reset the PRAM:
- Reboot the Mac
- As soon as you hear the boot chime, hold down the Command+Option+P+R keys together
- When you hear the boot sound again, the PRAM has been reset
- Let the Mac boot again as usual
Up to this point, Mac should boot again normally and should no longer have the black screen display.
Method 10- Enter Password, Hit Return
This surprising alternative works when the Mac booting black screen problem persists.
All you need to do is enter your regular login password as usual and hit the Enter/Return key; the Mac boots up as usual and then you’re good to go. Try this out, it might work for you:
- When the Mac boots into the black screen, enter the password your login password on Mac as usual
- Hit the Enter/Return key
If this works, you’ll know rather quickly because the black screen will give way to the regular Mac OS desktop.
Method 11- Turn Off Automatic Graphics Switching
This solution works for black screens on dual-GPU MacBook Pro only.
Some MacBook Pro models have dual graphics cards that switch automatically. Sometimes, those models can boot directly to a black screen.
Often, to remedy this issue you’d simply disable automatic graphics card (GPU) switching on MacBook Pro:
- From the Apple menu choose “System Preferences”
- Go to “Energy Saver”
- Toggle the switch next to ‘Automatic Graphics Switching’ to turn that off
- Restart the Mac normally
In conclusion, a MacBook Pro black screen can be a frustrating problem that hampers productivity and causes concern. However, with the right troubleshooting steps and solutions, you can often resolve this issue and get your MacBook Pro back to optimal performance.
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