For several years, Apple replaced the physical function keys on the MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive OLED strip known as the Touch Bar. While visually striking, the Touch Bar is actually a separate mini-computer running its own lightweight version of watchOS (the Apple Watch operating system) that communicates with macOS in the background.
Occasionally, this bridge communication completely breaks down. The Touch Bar might suddenly go completely black, freeze on the volume slider, or stop responding to your taps altogether. Because it lacks physical buttons, you cannot force it to respond physically. Instead, you must use the macOS Terminal to forcefully kill the background server processes controlling the display.
How to Completely Reset a Frozen Mac Touch Bar
You must kill two separate background processes: the server that draws the buttons (TouchBarServer) and the overarching control strip framework.
- Open the Finder, go to Applications, open the Utilities folder, and double-click Terminal (or press Command + Space and search for Terminal).
- First, we will kill the primary control strip process. Type the following exact command into the Terminal window:
sudo pkill TouchBarServer - Press Enter. Because this is a core hardware command, you will be prompted for your administrator password. Type it in (the characters will remain invisible) and press Enter.
- Next, we will kill the secondary framework process to ensure a completely clean reset. Type this command and press Enter:
sudo killall "ControlStrip"
The moment you press Enter on the second command, the Touch Bar on your keyboard will instantly flash black. A split second later, macOS will realize the processes have crashed and will automatically restart fresh, uncorrupted versions of both daemons. Your Touch Bar will light back up, restoring full touch functionality and returning all frozen buttons to their default state.