Touchbar flashing and not working after sleep

My Macbook Pro 13" (2019 - 4 thunderbolt 3 ports) - When I leave my Macbook idle for about 10 minutes and try to turn it back on, the touchbar would give out a white flash and stops working completely. Restarting the Macbook doesn't bring the Touchbar back on. Only resetting the SMC would make it work again. The Macbook would also restart itself with and error message once it restarts. This happens only when I leave it idle for a while and doesn't happen when I'm working on it.


Here are some of the things that I have tried but nothing worked so far:


  • Quit Touchbar and Control strip from Monitor app.
  • Kill Touchbar using terminal
  • MacOS update (currently on Ventura)
  • Reset SMC and NVRAM/PRAM
  • Run Disk Utility (including First Aid)
  • Updated all my apps
  • Reinstalling MacOS
  • Creating another User Account (problem still there when using the other User Account)
  • Deleting Cache files from Library/Caches
  • Deleting apple.touchbar.agent.plist


Could someone please help???

Posted on Oct 29, 2022 04:12 PM

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Posted on Oct 30, 2022 03:53 AM

The thing is if it's a hardware issue, why does it turn back on after SMC reset? I went to the Apple store once before (for a fan overheating issue that time) and they told me it's because sometimes when you migrate your data from a different Macbook (in my case, I had a Macbook Air before this one), the software might not be compatible. I was shocked by this answer but never got the problem resolved back then. And that was when I got the Macbook for only a few weeks!!! I managed sort that issue out myself by reinstalling MacOS. Now I'm out of warranty and I do not wish to spend over €600 for the service if I know they are just going to do some minor adjustments.

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2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 30, 2022 03:53 AM in response to louiscorp

The thing is if it's a hardware issue, why does it turn back on after SMC reset? I went to the Apple store once before (for a fan overheating issue that time) and they told me it's because sometimes when you migrate your data from a different Macbook (in my case, I had a Macbook Air before this one), the software might not be compatible. I was shocked by this answer but never got the problem resolved back then. And that was when I got the Macbook for only a few weeks!!! I managed sort that issue out myself by reinstalling MacOS. Now I'm out of warranty and I do not wish to spend over €600 for the service if I know they are just going to do some minor adjustments.

Oct 29, 2022 06:09 PM in response to louiscorp

louiscorp wrote:

My Macbook Pro 13" (2019 - 4 thunderbolt 3 ports) - When I leave my Macbook idle for about 10 minutes and try to turn it back on, the touchbar would give out a white flash and stops working completely. Restarting the Macbook doesn't bring the Touchbar back on. Only resetting the SMC would make it work again.• The Macbook would also restart itself with and error message once it restarts. This happens only when I leave it idle for a while and doesn't happen when I'm working on it.

Here are some of the things that I have tried but nothing worked so far:

Quit Touchbar and Control strip from Monitor app.
• Kill Touchbar using terminal
• MacOS update (currently on Ventura)
• Reset SMC and NVRAM/PRAM
• Run Disk Utility (including First Aid)
• Updated all my apps
• Reinstalling MacOS
• Creating another User Account (problem still there when using the other User Account)
• Deleting Cache files from Library/Caches
• Deleting apple.touchbar.agent.plist

Could someone please help???


Sounds like a hardware issue


In or out of warranty you can get a free over the counter 'Apple Service Diagnostics' test /assessment

Make an appointment for a "hardware issue"

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Touchbar flashing and not working after sleep

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