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Black screen imac desktop


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Hi ,

This problem occurs now and then when my screen goes black all of a sudden, and powers off. I reboot, same. I reboot again, and sometimes it get to the point of allowing me to enter my password. Then black screen again. It will sometimes not reboot. Then when it gets power cycled, it will reboot, only to have black screen yet again, a few seconds after the chime starts, and the start bar starts moving left to right. Over and over, and over...a cycle begins where black screen keeps shutting me down, even after a few minutes  of use, when I think the problem was solved.  I followed the safe mode reboot, and ran disk utility to do repairs, and will re-install the mac os if I must. But my question today is why is this happening in the first place, and is it related to some type of malware/ spyware/ virus? throughout all of this malwarebytes ran fine and did not detect any threats. Really wierd.

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Greetings,

My knowledge of Macs is pretty limited, however this sounds very similar to the symptoms of a possible failing drive or data corruption on the drive.  It could even be some kind of software conflict during startup between some of your applications.  It could have any number of possible causes, but if I were you I'd start getting any important data backed up immediately before continuing with anything else.  If there is anything important on the machine that you don't have backed up elsewhere, it could be lost if the drive should fail.

If you want to start with getting the system checked for infections please post in the Mac Malware Removal Help & Support area and someone will assist you as soon as they are available: https://forums.malwarebytes.com/forum/165-mac-malware-removal-help-support/

In the meantime I'd suggest backing up any important files just in case there is a problem with the drive so that you don't lose anything significant, assuming you don't already have it all backed up somewhere.

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2 hours ago, exile360 said:

It could even be some kind of software conflict during startup between some of your applications.

As far as I know, when starting in safe mode, only the essential components are loaded on macOS, so any conflicts should be excluded.
From the symptoms a damaged disk is very likely because it seems to be unable to load correctly. 
It is better to wait for a comment from o @treed, a member of the Mac staff or @alvarnell

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The symptoms are NOT a sign of any type of known malware, so I'm in full agreement that it sounds like a hardware issue. I take it running First Aid in Disk Utility didn't reveal any issues? 

Try to run Diagnostics https://support.apple.com/HT202731. An Apple Store or Official Apple Authorized Service Provider give it a more thorough and accurate test.

Reinstalling macOS isn't a big deal and will leave your user data and third party software in tact https://support.apple.com/HT204904.

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6 hours ago, alvarnell said:

The symptoms are NOT a sign of any type of known malware, so I'm in full agreement that it sounds like a hardware issue. I take it running First Aid in Disk Utility didn't reveal any issues? 

Try to run Diagnostics https://support.apple.com/HT202731. An Apple Store or Official Apple Authorized Service Provider give it a more thorough and accurate test.

Reinstalling macOS isn't a big deal and will leave your user data and third party software in tact https://support.apple.com/HT204904.

Do I have to disable malwarebytes app block in order to reinstall mac os? When downloading software updates ? When do I have to disable app block?

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As the instructions I pointed out before, you must be in Recovery in order to re-install macOS, so Malwarebytes won't be a factor, but in general it would be a mistake to disable Real-Time Protection when downloading any software update, as that is what is keeping you safe from downloading a software update that is actually malware. There have been a few cases in recent years where a legitimate application was replaced with Mac ransomware on the developer's site for a short period before discovery. A few users had some extensive issues that day.

You may run into a few software updates that say you need to disable any anti-virus software before running the update. In general, that isn't true at all and I'm not aware of any actual issues with regard to Malwarebytes. It could be a trick designed to allow malicious software to be installed, so don't do so without being certain you have a legitimate update and it refuses to install without disabling.

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  • Staff

Just to chime in a little late, I agree with what's already been said, that this sounds like a hardware issue, or possibly a corrupted system.

Also, Malwarebytes for Mac definitely does not interfere with any system installations. As Al mentions, the type of reinstall you're looking at doing would happen in recovery mode, where no third-party software is running at all. But for more everyday installs, such as system updates, there's really no need to turn off any real-time protection features during the parts that happen while Malwarebytes is running. It also won't hurt, of course... just don't forget to turn those features back on afterwards!

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