What to Do if the Touch Bar Freezes on Your MacBook Pro

I have mixed feelings about the Touch Bar on Apple’s MacBook Pro. I think it’s a gimmick, and, while useful at times, isn’t useful often enough. As I type, I see predictive text options, but I’m not going to stop typing and tap the bar just because I see a word that I want to type next; it will slow me down. When I’m using Safari, some graphics sort of show what tabs are open, but they’re pretty useless; you can’t see enough to distinguish one tab from another.

The only thing I really use the Touch Bar for is the volume and brightness; adjustments that I made on previous laptops with F keys.

But this morning, the Touch Bar froze; at least the part on the right, the Control Strip. I couldn’t adjust the volume, or change the brightness. So I did some sniffing around and found what I needed to do to force quite the Touch Bar and relaunch it. It’s worth noting that this is the first time since I got this MacBook Pro in June that this has happened; and that there was a major macOS update yesterday. Coincidence?

Open Activity Monitor (it’s in your /Applications/Utilities folder), and click in the search field. Type “touch.” You’ll see one or more items.

Touchbar1

Select TouchBarServer, then click the X button at the top left of the window. In the dialog that displays, click Force Quit. (Quitting might work, but force quitting should always work.)

Touchbar2

This should resolve your problem.