Thunderbolt display not recognized - but only after supper!

Question

Ugh. Getting seriously frustrated with my 27" TB display, now. Have been using it on a MBP 2011 for a while, had experienced some flickering with Lion, not so with ML.
Last week, I left my MBP connected and went in for supper; when I came back, the MBP had - of course - fallen asleep. Woke it up, but only the MBP display came on, not the TB display. I unplugged/replugged, several times - same thing.
Rebooted the MBP, with the TBD plugged or unplugged - same thing.
SMC reset - same thing.
I spent two nights reading forums and trying all sorts of fixes - no luck.
Finally, I resigned to booking an appt with the local Apple Store; this appt was for this morning. This morning, before getting the monitor out of the office, I decided one more time to connect my MBP - it worked!!! ***?
So I worked all day, no issues. Very happy.
Tonight, before going in for supper, I unplugged the monitor and closed my MBP's lid so it would go to sleep. When I came back, I woke up the MBP, connected the TBD, and...nothing. Black screen!! Went through a couple of rigamaroles to try and get it back - nothing!
Argghhh!!
So now, I'm wondering if my diet has something to do with it. Tonight, I had T-bone steaks on the grill, with roasted potatoes and a salad. Maybe if I would have had pasta instead the monitor would have gone back on?
Any ideas, suggestions or magic spells would be greatly appreciated.
As would a fix from Apple...
Jacques

Answer 1

I have been having the same problem since I got the **** Thunderbolt display and a lion-installed macbook pro in September last year. I've been sitting tight thinking surely Apple will fix this debilitating defect on their premium equipment -  How wrong was I!
My story is similar in that I always take the laptop home from work and have the Thunderbolt display in my office at work. I close the lid putting the laptop to sleep and pull out the cables. When I go home I may use the laptop via its internal display (one would think that would be ok) and then close the lid and put it back to sleep. WHen I return to work, plug in the cables and open the lid, most of the time the thunderbolt display stays black. On a rare occasion it will switch on but I can't fathom any pattern as to when and why it might work. The only solution to get the display to switch on is to reboot the laptop (and lose all my open documents from work the previous day and night). Recently, and I'm not sure what has triggred it, things have got a whole lot worse. Now, if I reboot the laptop when connected to the unresponsive screen upon restart the Thunderbolt display freezes on a grey screen and the laptop display stays black. The only solution is to hold down the power button and force shutdown the laptop. This happens everytime now, I simply cannot reboot the laptop with the thunderbolt display attached!
Nice premium equipment Apple! As this stuff was bought by my work I have learned to live with it. If had bought this junk with my own hard-earned then I would be furious and would have demanded a refund/replacement/explanation a long time ago.
Maybe, just maybe, Apple may one day actually fix this £2000 setup I have sitting on desk so that it switches on when its supposed to. Is that too much to ask?
Sat