Solving My rMBP Black Screen at Startup

12

For those adverse to reading 1000+ word articles, the solution to my rMBP black screen problem can be found here. (https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6877561)

I’m just coming down from a terrible 4 day panic where I thought my 15 month old Macbook Pro retina had been reduced to a shinny piece of metal. Thankfully I was able to get it working again, with no help from the so-called “geniuses” at Apple retail.

This took about 24 hours of experimenting, research and work to solve. Hopefully, others will find this article and be able to solve their problems quicker.

The Start of the 2013 rMBP Black Screen

This has happened two times to me. It could be coincidence, or not… either way, both times, this is what happened just before I got the rMBP black screen.

  1. I closed my Macbook lid putting it into sleep
  2. I unplugged my rMBP from the power adaptor
  3. I had my iPhone USB cable connected
  4. While in sleep, I disconnected my USB cable
  5. I open my MBP lid and the display wont wake up from sleep

This sequence of events seems like it should be a cheat code to an old school video game to give you invincibility, but instead, it seems to kill my display.

The State of My rMBP Black Screen

When I pressed the Caps Lock the light would go on and off. Also, my screen was very slightly lighter black than when it was turned off. I could start and restart my computer and I would hear the startup chime, but after that, the screen would have a very slight noticeable flicker, and then nothing. It was at this time that the Apple light on the back of my screen would light up.

I plugged an external monitor into my Macbook Pro and it did connect. When I would start up (Yosemite) I would see the Apple logo on my external monitor and the progress bar would progress until about 1/3 of the way. Then the screen would flicker, the Apple logo disappears, the progress bar would change to be unstylised and it would either hang at 100% complete or on a grey screen.

After some experimentation, I realised that I could fully start up my computer if I would power-on and close the Macbook Pro lid before the Apple logo lit up. Woo-hoo! Progress.

Solutions to the rMBP Black Screen that Worked For Others (just not for me)

It’s always good to start the troubleshooting with some tried, tested, and true methods.

  1. Reset the PRAM: This always helps. Restart your computer and hold down the Option, Command, P and R keys. Wait until you hear the startup chime for a second time, perhaps even a third for good measure and release the keys. For many this will solve the issue… not for me.
  2. Time to go a bit more hardcore… reset the SMC. When the computer is plugged in and turned off hold down the (left) shift, option, control and power keys for a few seconds and then release them. Keep an eye on the light on the power connector and watch it change colour briefly after you release the keys. This works for some people, but not for me.
  3. Boot up in safe mode: On startup, hold down the shift key. This kind of worked for me. It didn’t solve my problem, but it sort of helped. When I booted up in safe mode, I didn’t need to close my Macbook Pro lid. With it left open, the screen was still black, and my external monitor screen would flicker when going into the initial user login sector. Oddly enough when I would mouse scroll in Google Chrome it would flicker inside the browser window, but not in Safari. I could also open and close my MBP’s lid without it crashing the system. (small wins!)
  4. Recover mode (Command R) helped me wipe my hard-drive and do a clean reinstall of OSX.10.
  5. For those not afraid of Unix, single user mode (command S) can help. Especially repeating fsck -fy (for f*ck’s sake!) until the terminal readout tells you everything is fine. (didn’t work for me)

What Solved My Macbook Pro retina Black Screen

In short… this article:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/120259/grey-screen-after-login-blue-scr een-of-death-from-cmdr

Basically, I went to?Macintosh HD –> System –> Library –> Extensions and removed?all of the files that started with either AMI or ATI. There were 19 in total (this was after wiping my hard-drive, reinstalling Yosemite, and then wiping that and loading up my first time machine backup from my MBP late 2013)

These files had to do with my display and graphics card settings.

Once I removed them from the Extensions folder, I restarted my Macbook Pro (this was probably time 267 or so since the original black screen) and with fingers crossed and my breath held, it worked! My display was working, although things were a bit off, it was working.

I then returned the ADM and ATI files back to the Extensions folder, did one more restart and voila, it worked again and has been working fine ever since.

Lessons Learned from the Macbook Pro retina Black Screen Crash

There were a few key lessons that I can take away from this experience…

  1. I really should have bought Apple Care protection because apparently, I should expect a 15 month old computer to die and be completely useless.
  2. The Apple “Geniuses” always seem to default to replace the most expensive part of your computer when they don’t know what to do.
  3. Brand Loyalty (30+ years of being an Apple Zealot) means nothing to Apple when they’re in a position to squeeze $ out of you.
  4. I really need to buy another computer to work from if this one dies again.
  5. Apple has seemingly replaced Microsoft as the evil large computer corporation (The amount of upsells they push on customers is re-god-damn-diculous.
  6. Trust your gut, even in computer troubleshooting. I had this feeling from the beginning that there was some software, file conflict. With enough perseverance, I found it.