Touch Bar display remains turned off after wake when MacBook is put to sleep while the built-in display is disconnected + workaround

[mkozjak]

Hi,

Is there any chance BetterDisplay is interfering with MacBook Pro M1 Touch Bar in any way so it turns off its display?

I am running my external monitor as the main display, with my MacBook's Built-In display disabled when the external one is plugged in. This has started happening after I started using BetterDisplay (with Pro licence). sudo pkill TouchBarServer; sudo killall "ControlStrip" doesn't help and I need to reboot my Mac to get the touch bar to show again. The presses on touch bar work correctly when I eventually guess tap on any of them. The screenshot tool captures all keys correctly too.

MacBook Pro M1 2020 13"
macOS Sequoia 15.7.2
BetterDisplay 4.1.1.

Btw I <3 BetterDisplay. Thanks!

[waydabber]

I don't think it should interfere. I don't have an Apple Silicon Mac with a touch bar so I had no chance to test, but so far I did not receive any feedback or bug regarding this and the app certainly does not contain any code to interface with the Touch Bar.

[mkozjak]

Cool. Any (crash) logs from BetterDisplay I can look into? I did disable sending of reports through app's settings, though.

[waydabber]

Does the app itself crash? If no, then there won't be crash logs.

You can check app logs, but I don't think that will help. In Console you can probably intercept system and kernel logs related to the Touch Bar, but I have no expertise in this at all, so I am not sure what to look for.

But it is possible that somehow the Touch Bar display is connected with the built-in screen so even though the Touch Bar seems to work, this particular model is wired in a way that with a soft-disconnected display the Touch Bar is turned off as well.

[mkozjak]

Ok, I have the steps to reproduce this issue! It's something in combination with BetterDisplay.

1. Start MacBook
2. Have BetterDisplay running
3. Plug-in Thunderbolt and have the external display as main
4. Set BetterDisplay to turn off a built-in display
5. Built-in display turns off
6. Close the lid on a MacBook
7. Unplug thunderbolt
8. Wait for a few moments
9. Open the lid and see Touch Bar isn't shown.

If I disable and turn off BetterDisplay everything works as expected.

@waydabber - maybe any more clues now? Thanks!

[waydabber]

It seems like the issue is related to the built-in display being disconnected while at the same time an external display is disconnected with the lid closed, triggering sleep.

I simply recommend making sure this does not happen, so if you would like to disconnect the Thunderbolt display and grab the MacBook, open the lid before doing so so the app has a chance to re-enable the built-in display. If I understand correctly the issue does not appear then.

[mkozjak]

Yes, it seems to work this way. Thanks!

[mkozjak]

@waydabber - Just to confirm, this is a workaround that is good enough. If you want, maybe you can add this to wiki somewhere.

[waydabber]

Thanks for the confirmation! I'll leave this discussion here for those who have this issue + update the title.

[mkozjak]

Hey, @waydabber, with the Golden Gate update, is there any chance we can get this somehow mitigated if only by a workaround or a command that restarts my touchbar (the above commands do not work) so I don't have to unplug thunderbolt from mbp and close/open the mbp lid and reconnect to the display for touch bar to start working again?

[mkozjak]

Hey, @waydabber, with the Golden Gate update, is there any chance we can get this somehow mitigated if only by a workaround or a command that restarts my touchbar (the above commands do not work) so I don't have to unplug thunderbolt from mbp and close/open the mbp lid and reconnect to the display for touch bar to start working again?

The solution to this is to react on the output of this command after the mac wakes up:

sleep 3

if system_profiler SPDisplaysDataType | grep -q "DELL U2724DE:"; then
    pmset displaysleepnow
fi

pmset makes the touchbar reappear.

[waydabber]

Nice!