2007 Macbook shows black screen and cursor when woken from sleep. What should I do? When I open the lid from my MacBook, occasionally (not always) it will just show a black screen and a cursor, and the hard drive is spinning, but the log on dialog will never show up.  Sometimes it shows up after a minute or two, sometimes it doesn't, so I close the lid - wait five seconds - and try again.

Does this sound like an issue anyone has heard of before?
I've had this happen too.  Solutions that occasionally work:


Close the lid, wait for the 'sleeping' light pulses from the front of the laptop, then reopen and try again.
Type my password (I have password protected sleep/screensaver) and hit enter blind.
Wait a few minutes
Sleep the computer by hitting the power button once (not holding it down), then waking it up.
Swearing profusely


Solutions that almost always work:


Force rebooting.