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No video output on Mac Mini after Lion install

A

Ashlar1984

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 21, 2011
2
0
Hi!

I installed Lion on my Mac Mini and it was all working fine till I turned it off. When I turned it back on Mac Mini turns on, I can hear it chime and I can hear disk spinning, little light is on but it's giving no video output.
I have it connected to my LCD TV. It's usually connected with HDMI and I tried DVI to HDMI option I have but neither works. I don't have VGA (nor was I able to find it in any store in town) adapter.
Is this something that happens to every Mac Mini or did I do something wrong during install? Can I fix it somehow? Seems incredibly stupid having to connect it with VGA cable and not HDMI. Especially since it'll take me weeks to get a VGA adapter.
 
Same here

I have exactly the same problem. I too have a Mac Mini, hooked up via HDMI to a projecter. No other display in reach, so I can't test that.

Also, Remote Desktop is not working (can't even connect). Tried kickstarting the Remote Desktop Agent via SSH, but it seems to be running already, so that's not the problem. :(

Interestingly, a "reboot" command via terminal also does not shut down the system, which is VERY strange.

In the end, resetting the Mac Mini's PRAM did the trick!
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1379

I had to hard reset it though (keeping the power buttom pressed), because it couldn't be shut down via terminal. Amazingly enough, the PRAM reset worked with the wireless keyboard.
 
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I'm having the same issue. Did the PRAM reset and I see the white screen with apple logo, but then as soon as it's ready to go I hear a click and bang, black screen again.

I'm running the current Mac mini (prior to the one just released) with hdmi to dvi converter back to hdmi at the tv end.

Any ideas?
 
So I tried something that I read somewhere. I just unplugged the HDMI cable from Mac Mini, turned it on, waited a couple of minutes and then plugged it back in. Now it works fine. But I'm scared to actually shut it down and then turn it back on. LOL
I hope Apple fixes this problem soon.
 
the same thing happens to me with a mini connected to my plasma. Before it used to boot fine all the time now im getting the same problem as you guys. I did the thing were you unplug the power and turn it on while having the button pressed and it made my mini's fan spin like crazy even when turned off. Thank god it worked fine after another boot. This seems like a weird bug, while it may work for you guys don't be afraid if it happens again. It does on mine i fixed it but then after a couple of restarts or shutdowns it will happen again. I really hope apple get to know about this and fix it!! :mad::mad:
 
Same problem here

I tried to look through the logs. The only thing I can find is in kernel.log that the last entry before my Mac Mini locks up is:

Jul 24 22:36:52 RoyGs-Mac-mini kernel[0]: Ethernet [AppleBCM5701Ethernet]: Link up on en0, 1-Gigabit, Full-duplex, Symmetric flow-control, Debug [xxxx,xxxx,xxxx,xxxx,xxxx,xxxx]

After hard power-off, Os X Lion boots as it should showing that the next line would have been:

Jul 24 22:49:28 RoyGs-Mac-mini kernel[0]: [ffffff800884f500][AppleMultitouchDevice::start] entered

I really don't know if this is of any help to solve this problem. I must admit I am pretty clueless about the boot process. This is the 4th time this happens.

HDMI on a plasma TV. I know there is no video signal because my TV says "WIDE" just below "HDMI" when it receives a signal.

I also know this wasn't a problem with the previous version of Os X.

Here is the rest of the log when the machine started successfully:

Jul 24 22:49:30 cm-84 kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 == fAudioEngineArray" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 4493 goto Exit
Jul 24 22:49:30 cm-84 kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 != result" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 4475 goto handler
Jul 24 22:49:30 cm-84 kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 != result" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 4065 goto handler
Jul 24 22:49:30 cm-84 kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 != result" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 4075 goto handler
Jul 24 22:49:30 cm-84 kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 == fAudioEngineArray" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 4493 goto Exit
Jul 24 22:49:30 cm-84 kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 != result" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 4475 goto handler
Jul 24 22:49:30 cm-84 kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 != result" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 4065 goto handler
Jul 24 22:49:30 cm-84 kernel[0]: Sound assertion "0 != result" failed in AppleHDADriver at line 4075 goto handler
Jul 24 22:49:31 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOHIDSystem: Seize of IOHIDPointing failed.
Jul 24 22:49:31 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOHIDSystem: Seize of AppleMultitouchHIDEventDriver failed.
Jul 24 22:51:32 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 24 22:51:41 cm-84 kernel[0]: AppleBCM5701Ethernet: 0 1 BCM5701Enet::replaceOrCopyPacket worked after N tries
Jul 24 22:52:04 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 24 22:54:03: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 24 22:54:56 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 24 22:56:46 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 24 23:09:15 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 24 23:11:00 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 24 23:11:30: --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Jul 24 23:15:57 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 24 23:16:33: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 24 23:23:01 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 24 23:39:12: --- last message repeated 1 time ---
Jul 24 23:39:12 cm-84 kernel[0]: (default pager): [KERNEL]: ps_allocate_cluster - send HI_WAT_ALERT
Jul 24 23:39:12 cm-84 kernel[0]: macx_swapon SUCCESS
Jul 25 00:05:12 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 25 00:06:23: --- last message repeated 2 times ---
Jul 25 00:06:23 cm-84 kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero
Jul 25 00:06:53: --- last message repeated 2 times ---

Audio is working fine despite audio errors, through FireFly, an external FW2 Audio Interface. I don't know about the other errors/warnings, but the system is up and running so I guess those can safely be ignored.

No kernel panics reported either, so it seems I am impatient or that there is a deadlock during bootup for some reason. (Regarding impatient, I have been waiting at least 15 minutes at one occasion.)

[EDIT:] I forgot to mention that I don't need to reset the PRAM to make the computer boot properly. It suffices to hard power-off and then turn the power back on.
 
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there is another thread on macrumors, which shows the same error messages as in your posted console messages: kernel[0]: IOSurface: buffer allocation size is zero

we found out, that the errors are indeed flash related. while this might not fix your issues, please try to replace your flash player to version 11.0 64bit and see if that fixes your issues, as outlined on our nanofunk blog
 
I did a "Repair permissions" even though I did that before installing Lion. Lots of things to repair.

I also made sure to not enable "Reopen windows..." when shutting down.

Now Lion boots just fine every time it seems. I don't know if it was the "Repair permissions" that did the thing or removing the check mark "Reopen windows..." that did the thing.

I have not removed flash yet.

I will try to not uncheck that checkbox to see if the problem reappears and report back after doing that a couple of times.

If nothing changes, "Repair permissions" was what fixed my problem, otherwise something makes the "Reopen windows..." mechanism to fail somehow.
 
Well... Last night I left the checkmark on while shutting down. Today I got the welcoming black/blank screen again. I guess I have rebooted at least 10 times with no problem removing the checkmark on shutdown, and on the very first startup leaving it on *boom*.

Clearly something goes wrong regarding the Reopen windows functionality. It could be Flash as someone has stated, I will try to uninstall and reinstall Flash to see if that fixes things.

Fixing permissions does nothing to fix this problem, at least not for me, but I can live with not using the "Reopen windows..." functionality.

EDIT: OP describes my problem exactly. According to the blog, the issue with Flash seems to also cause problems while Lion is up and running. This is not happening to me. While my system is up and running, everything works fine. The problem is apparent only during startup.

I can also not reproduce the console log messages the way described in the blog, even if I did have some of the messages in the log during startup when things locked up with a blank screen.

I will stick with not checking then "Reopen windows..." thing for now. It is working for me it seems.
 
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