MacBook Pro Intermittent Black Screen or Loss of Video

Apple has determined that a small number of MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010) computers may intermittently stop displaying video on the built-in display or on an external display connected to the MacBook Pro. In this situation, you may also see a restart warning message before the video is lost or the display turns black or gray. Affected computers were manufactured between April 2010 and February 2011.

Via Apple Support

Update: The MacBook Pro intermittent black screen issue has been addressed with the release of MacBook Pro Video Update 1.0 — but it's only good if you're running Lion (10.7.2+). If you choose to remain on Snow Leopard, you should make a Genius Bar appointment at your favorite Apple store to have the problem addressed. Chances are you'll get a new motherboard out of it. See the support article for more information.

It seems the MacBook Pro/Lion Black Screen of Death™ has not been solved yet has been addressed. The good thing is Apple acknowledges it really is a problem.

I updated my Lion partition to 10.7.2 yesterday, and it seemed more stable than it was before - though I didn't get much of a chance to really push the system. I was planning to update my production system this evening, but I think I might hold off a little longer until there's more info from Apple in the article.

MacBook Pro NVIDIA Recall Extended

In July 2008, NVIDIA publicly acknowledged a higher than normal failure rate for some of their graphics processors due to a packaging defect. At that same time, NVIDIA assured Apple that Mac computers with these graphics processors were not affected. However, after an Apple-led investigation, Apple has determined that some MacBook Pro computers with the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT graphics processor may be affected.

If the NVIDIA graphics processor in your MacBook Pro has failed, or fails within four years of the original date of purchase, a repair will be done free of charge, even if your MacBook Pro is out of warranty.

Via Apple Support

Since I have been affected by this issue, I thought I'd throw up a quick post for anyone else who may get bit by it. Apple has extended the NVIDIA 8600M GT graphics processor recall on MacBook Pros manufactured around 2007/2008 to four years from date of purchase.

Update: My son's machine was in fact covered under the recall, and the local Apple Genius Bar was able to diagnose and replace the motherboard in the unit in a day, no questions asked. One thing to note, your video has to have failed before they will fix it though. If your MacBook Pro from that time period is still running okay, you'll have to wait for it to fail before you're covered.

Woes of MacBook Pro Unibody Owner

A little more on my MacBook Pro woes...

Since I've had this machine, a MBP Unibody 2.6 Ghz / 4 GB RAM purchased in September of 2009, I've had to back it up, completely wipe the internal HD, and restore 5 times. Two of those times, I've completely zeroed the drive for extra measure. I even tried starting entirely from scratch once hoping that would finally fix my issues to no avail. In that time I've ended up with a "keys out of order" error more times than I can remember. Running a single user "fsck" at boot usually cannot fix the problem. I had to lay out $100 for DiskWarrior to finally resolve that. Still, through all of that, I seem to keep coming up with issues on this unit. I've never had this much trouble with any Mac I've owned--ever.

Here are the symptoms that eventually lead up to the disk to going bad: When putting the machine to sleep for more than an hour by closing the clamshell, upon waking by re-opening it, the MBP will spontaneously log itself out, sometimes only once, other times it will happen multiple times in a row (I think I counted 5 logouts once). Usually, after all that excitement, any app that I try to launch will immediately crash. I do not keep any apps running when putting the unit to sleep anymore. I've lost too much work because of it. Twice I've gotten kernel panics instead of spontaneous log outs. It is far more likely that this machine will wake with an issue than not.

Logs allude to crashed threads in windowserver, CoreGraphics, as well as a video driver (not sure which right now). I've tried removing every single system add-on that I've ever installed, but still have problems. I've also cleared every single cache I can get my hands on and then some, but still have problems.

Right now, I'm testing the memory using Memtest. When I left for work this morning, it had not found any problems yet. If it were as simple as a bad memory module I'd be thrilled -- but to be honest, I'm thinking the problem lies in the 7200 RPM drive I had installed as a BTO option when I ordered it from Apple. It's always seemed to be a little finicky.

Because of this lemon fresh Mac, I've lost countless hours, and have fallen way behind schedule on a project that I promised would be delivered a month ago. I'm finally giving up and visiting the Genius Bar at my local Apple store tomorrow. So far, I've had pretty good luck with them helping me solve issues with other machines. Hopefully they can with this one too. I just hope I don't have to send it back to China to get fixed. That would put me another month (or more) behind schedule.

More to follow, I'm sure...

Rebuilding the Apple Mail Envelope Index

Some time ago, I had set up my Gmail account in Apple Mail in order to copy over messages that were missing in my online jimmitchell.org IMAP account. I'm one of those guys who likes to have everything all in one place at my finger tips when I want it.

After copying over the messages I wanted, I completely removed the Gmail IMAP account from Mail and went about my business. Soon after, when I went searching for a specific email, I experienced the phenomenon of ghost emails in the search results. These are messages that Mail once knew about, but no longer knows where they exist. The ghost emails were all from the since removed Gmail account.

If you're experiencing the same problem, here's a very simple fix to rebuild the Apple Mail envelope index.

First, quit Apple Mail if it's running, then navigate your way to "~/Library/Mail/" (where "~" is your home folder) in the Finder. Once you're in the Mail folder, you'll see a file named "Envelope Index" which keeps track of where all messages are located. Rename "Envelope Index" to "Envelope Index Backup" (We don't want to trash the file just yet).

Then, relaunch Apple Mail. You'll be presented with a daunting "Message Import" dialog that looks like your email account was wiped out and you're starting all over. Fear not. You're simply rebuilding the Envelope Index at this point.



Click "Continue" to rebuild the index. Once it's done, all those pesky phantom messages will be gone the next time you perform a search in Mail (Yay!). You can then go back to the "~/Library/Mail/" folder in the Finder and move the file you renamed to "Envelope Index Backup" to the Trash.

And there you have it. Your Apple Mail Envelope index has been rebuilt. A very simple solution to a problem that has baffled some of the best Mac users.