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Released in November 2020, the 13" MacBook Pro features Apple's Arm-based M1 SoC with both an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU. (Model A2338 / EMC 3578 with two Thunderbolt 3 ports)

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True Tone is gone and camera not detected after display disconnection

Yesterday I replaced the keyboard and its backlight on my M1 MBP, rivets and everything. No, it wasn’t because of any water damage.

It went well, except for the fact that True Tone is gone and my MacBook thinks it doesn’t have a camera. For context, here are the final steps I took in the reassembly:

  • With everything but the screen installed, I plugged the MacBook into my external monitor and turned it on to test it.
  • It worked, so I unplugged it but neglected to turn off the machine (rookie mistake)
  • After installing the screen and closing it up, it was initially blank even though I knew the machine was on. The display worked after a forced restart.

Here’s what I’m dealing with:

True Tone is gone from the Control Center and Displays Preferences

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The system doesn’t detect an internal camera

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There is now a second ‘Color LCD’ ColorSync profile

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Oh, and here’s a screenshot from Sensei, which shows some info about the connected display.

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I know that the M1 has the capability to lock certain features if it detects a third-party component (WHY?), but I used the original screen from the laptop.

Any ideas?

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Did you ever get the camera working again?

I got some water on my M1 Air and the camera no longer works — same symptoms as yours.

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@drtofu - Sadly, I suspect the logic board got damaged as Jack gave us a good clue!

"In my question, I mentioned that I broke the #1 rule of repairing electronics and reinstalled the display with the battery connected. (Ouch)"

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@drtofu Nope, unfortunately not. I have yet to attempt any other repairs on the machine but the recent announcement of Continuity Camera has made coping with this problem easier. If I have any other updates, I'll be sure to let you know.

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I finally fixed my laptop. Here's what was wrong, and I have some extra things to look out for if you're having the same problem.

Solution

I had to replace my display cable.

The display cable takes care of the display, as well as the camera and sensor array. Here's a photo of my broken cable (left), and the replacement cable (right):

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See the vertical line that runs by the number 8 on the left cable? That's not on the replacement cable.

Perhaps my display cable was always defective, and fondling with it caused a connection to break.

"That didn't fix it!"

Look closely on the logic board, and try to locate this (very small!) component:

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If it's visibly blown, then this is likely your problem. If you don't have access to precise board-level repair tools, you're SOL unless you can get a repair shop to fix this for you.

This section "Camera not detected after history of liquid damage" on Repair Wiki describes the process to getting this component replaced. Good luck!

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MacBook Pro 13" Retina (A2289, A2338, 2020) Display Cable

$29.99

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I can’t explain why replacing the keyboard would have effected your display. I’ve replaced keyboards in the Intel models, I haven’t tried doing a M1 series yet.

You may have reached too far here, I’m assuming you wanted a different keyboard layout from what you bought.

But where did you find the keyboard? So far I haven’t seen any parts on the market yet for the M1 series systems. Even still only the uppercase has been offered when a keyboard is needed for the 2016 onward systems as its just too hard to replace the keyboard alone.

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Thanks for the response.

I got the keyboard and its backlight from an AliExpress store, EXIN (formerly Mactec). Surprisingly, they even already have some parts for the recent M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros.

I got an identical replacement for the keyboard that shipped with my MBP, no layout changes or anything.

I was actually thinking that my issue might have been caused by some sort of on-boot error/misconfiguration due to me starting it without the display, but perhaps the keyboard actually does have some logic in order to exchange some service data with the MacBook?

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@jackhinkle - So why did you go through this exercise? Clearly something must have been damaged here, maybe the root issue is the original damage just effecting the display. Did you drop the system or have something sit on it?

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@danj Alright, quick pause.

In my question, I mentioned that I broke the #1 rule of repairing electronics and reinstalled the display with the battery connected. (Ouch)

I found an answer on a question with a very similar issue:

Why has True Tone disappeared after screen replacement?

They mentioned something which is quite concerning:

"...or that your battery screw was not removed well before the lcd is replaced can short out the camera or True Tone component circuit on the Logicboard."

Once I get home, I'll disconnect the battery and reseat the display connector. I'll close this thread with an answer once I'm done.

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@jackhinkle - The screw issue was on the older retina models not 2016 onward MacBook Pro's.

The bottom line question is what happened that you needed to replace the keyboard as I suspect that would help in figuring out what happened.

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