If you have a 2016 MacBook Pro, you may have experienced, at one time or another, problems with the Touch Bar. The laptop’s standout feature — an OLED strip located at the top of the keyboard, where the row of function keys typically reside — has been known to freeze or go blank when switching between applications. If you find yourself with an unresponsive Touch Bar, there are a couple things you can do.
You can restart the Touch Bar through the Activity Monitor, which Apple’s website describes as “a kind of task manager that allows you see how apps and other processes are affecting your CPU, memory, energy, disk and network usage.” If you don’t know how to open the Activity Monitor app, the easiest way is to simply type “Activity Monitor” in Spotlight — which you can access by hitting Command + Space, or by selecting the magnifying glass in the top-right corner of your screen. The second way to access Activity Monitor is through Finder: open the Finder app, select Applications, select Utilities and then select Activity Monitor.
Then:
1. Open the Activity Monitor app.
2. Locate and select Touch Bar agent.
3. Locate and select the X button in the window’s upper-left corner.
4. Select Quit.
If that doesn’t work, try restarting the Control Strip, which is the far-right section of the Touch Bar. You can do this through Activity Monitor as well.
1. Open the Activity Monitor app.
2. Locate and select Control Strip.
3. Locate and select the X button in the window’s upper-left corner.
4. Select Quit.
