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macOS boots to black screen with black cursor #

(TL;DR: Moved AppleIntelHD4000Graphics.kext out of /System/Library/Extensions/)

After a bit of a tumble, a MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2012) started up to a folder with a flashing question mark. Replaced the internal drive with a new SSD and installed Catalina normally.

On first boot, rather than Setup Assistant, a black screen with a black cursor appeared (though Voice Over instructions could still be heard). Reset SMC and NVRAM to no avail. Repeated clean install with Mojave then Catalina again - same result.

Tried booting into safe mode, which worked (though of course not all features were available). Tried forcing safe mode on every boot (via nvram boot-args="-x" in macOS Recovery), but performance was poor and lack of sound was a show-stopper.

Assuming a problem with the integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU (unlike the 15" 2012 MacBook Pro, the 13" does not have a discrete GPU), looked for the corresponding kernel extension in /System/Library/Extensions/.

AppleIntelHD4000Graphics.kext sounded promising; booted back into macOS Recovery, disabled SIP, moved the kext into another directory, touched /System/Library/Extensions/ for good measure^*, enabled SIP, and rebooted - success! - everything but sleep functioned well.

^* According to the kextcache manpage, this is the same as kextcache -i os_volume, which will "rebuild out-of-date caches and update any helper partitions associated with os_volume."

Sources

• Theodore Sternberg's answer to iMac only works in safe mode and cursor showing weird black lines (pic attached)

• historystamp's answer to How to determine if the graphics card is at fault on an iMac?

• Matthieu Riegler's answer to Where is the specific driver for my GPU located

• LаngLаngС's answer to GPU problem - Boot Hangs on Grey Screen

Related

• A Solution for MacBook Pro Booting to a Black Screen

  • In the comments section, Hing mei suggests Control+N+Power, which did indeed bypass the black screen, but the menu bar never appeared and macOS was unstable and slow.

• Black screen with cursor instead of login window

• Fix for black login screen

• OS X El Capitan / Sierra / High Sierra Hanging on Boot [FIXED] includes this handy script for finding installed kernel extensions that are not present in the recovery partition:

  # mount the drive as read/write
  mount -rw /
  
  # create a directory for "disabled" extensions
  mkdir /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Library/ExtensionsDisabled
  
  # view files that exist in your Extensions folder but not the recovery partition
  kexts=`comm -23 <(ls /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Library/Extensions|sort) <(ls /Library/Extensions|sort)`
  echo $kexts
  
  # move "extra" kext files to the "disabled" directory
  for kext in $kexts; do
    mv /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Library/Extensions/$kext /Volumes/Macintosh\ HD/Library/ExtensionsDisabled/$kext; 
  done
  
  exit

• The discrete GPUs in the 15" & 17" 2011 & 2012 MacBook Pro laptops seem to fail with remarkable regularity, spawning many posts on how to force use of the integrated GPU:

  • GPU problem - Boot Hangs on Grey Screen

  • MacBook Pro: How to disable discrete GPU permanently from EFI?

  • Force 2011 MacBook Pro 8,2 with failed AMD GPU to ALWAYS use Intel integrated GPU (EFI variable fix)

  • How to disable failed discrete-GPU (NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M) for 15″ MacBook-Pro 10,1 (mid-2012) on High Sierra 10.13.4

  • MacBook Pro 15" Unibody Mid 2012 Disable 2nd GPU to prevent white screen or green stripes during boot process.

  • How to permanently disable (defective) graphics card in MacBook Pro?

  • Best solution to force MacBook Pro 2011 to use integrated graphics (discrete graphics still working though) [ duplicate]

  • gfxCardStatus is a menu bar app for manually switching between the dGPU & iGPU (though reportedly it "will not prevent macOS from changing the GPU").

  • dosdude1's "Disable MacBook Pro Dedicated GPU" instructions and MacBook Pro dGPU Disabler app

  • Testing the Dosdude1 patch to disable the dGPU on macOS

  • dosdude1's DeMux: "Firmware to disable the defective dedicated AMD GPU on 2011 MacBook Pro models. A permanent solution for radeongate."

/mac | Aug 23, 2021

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