Chosen Solution
I’ve been having problems with my Mac for a while, but recently I tried to restart my MacBook and it ended up just giving me a black screen with only the cursor on it. The keyboard still lights up sometimes, but it won’t let me manually shut it down, even when charging. Any suggestions for fixing it?
mmm … This is an odd one! The fact you see the curser on the screen tells us the touchpad input via the T2 chip is working and the input to the Intel graphics engine is working (if you see the movement as you move the curser) as well as the internal displays input and its display as well. That only leaves the main processor logic which appears to have failed. Lets dig a bit deeper here can you get the onboard diagnostics working? Lets do a forced shutdown by holding the power button down for a good 20~30 secs, release the button and now press and hold the D key and press the power button again to enter into the onboard diagnostics. Did it enter? Did you get any errors? Reference: Mac startup key combinations
Normally I would default to a software problem with this sort of fault, but if you cannot actually turn the machine off, that could make fixing it difficult. When you press the power button do you get any response? Does the display shut off at all? What sort of issues were you having previously? (Sorry for the barrage of questions, I just tend to ask them all at once to avoid endless back and forth ) It is starting to sound to me like this may be a hardware issue, assuming you have already tried things like SMC or NVRAM reset. It may be time to have a look at your MacBook’s innards (or have someone else look) I am wondering specifically about the power button area since you don’t seem to be getting a response from the button. This model has a small daughterboard which the Touch ID button connects to and I have seen little bits of liquid get in there more than once and muck things up or just make machines act really weird. It may also be worth opening, just for the sake of disconnecting the battery if nothing else, since that will forcibly reset the SMC.
