When Minneapolis-based photographer Greg Benz started having issues with his MacBook Pro, he did what most people would and took it to an Apple "Genius Bar" for repairs.
The issue was that the MacBook Pro's display kept going dark, rendering the computer completely unusable.
When Apple geniuses were unable to identify the problem, the company issued him with a temporary replacement while his MacBook Pro was sent to Texas for repair.
A few months later, however, the problem returned, and Benz was forced to send the computer away for repair again.
Each repair took a week and resulted in the computer's drive being wiped clean, meaning Benz had to restore his data from a clone backup five times in five months.
Eventually, when the problem returned again, Apple issued a replacement, but a couple of months later, the new new MacBook Pro failed.
"Just like before, the screen was pure black after clicking the power button and there was a slight fan sound," Benz wrote in a blog post .
"The only other indication that anything was alive was that the machine would still make an audible chime when plugging in power and the capslock key light could be toggled off and on."
Benz went back to the Genius Bar and spoke to an Apple employee who spent 20 minutes trying different things.
Eventually he got out his phone and shone the flashlight on the screen, where he was able to see the little circle of the login avatar. It was then he realised the problem.
"So after losing about 2 weeks of my time, >$10,000 in Apple warranty repairs (2 logic boards, new cables, and a complete replacement of a >$7000 computer), troubleshooting input from several Apple Geniuses, level 1 and 2 tech support from Apple Corporate, diagnostic tests at the Apple Store, and diagnostic tests twice at Apple's repair facility in Texas; what was the root issue?" Benz wrote.
"Ready for it?… I'm not joking… the screen brightness was turned all the way down (not merely dim, but off)."
While the solution sounds absurdly simply, Benz highlighted several issues that made the problem very hard to diagnose.
Benz was in the habit of turning off his screen brightness when he hooked his Macbook Pro up to an external monitor, so when he booted up his Pro, it turned on in the same state he left it.
Unlike older versions of the MacBook Pro, which have physical brightness keys, the latest models have a digital Touchbar to control brightness, which only lights up after you've logged in - no mean feat when the screen is dark.
Benz admits that the black screen at boot-up is not an issue with the Macbook Pro itself, but with some software he has installed that prevents macOS from operating the way it should.
"If you were to somehow install the same problematic 3rd party software as me and run into this issue, the workaround is straight-forward," he said.
"Just wait a few minutes after hitting the power button (to allow the computer to be ready for you to log in), then type the first letter of your user account, click