This has happened to me twice, I'd like to avoid it if possible. When I turn the unit on, the hard buttons work, but the screen does not power up. All I've had to do to fix it thus far is turn it off and on. Any idea what's causing this problem?

you have to turn off your car or the unit... ?

I turn off the car and start it back up, no problems after that.

did you try touching the screen while it is blank?

Yup nothing.

The screen inverter is probably bad. All the AVIC's use a CCFL display, turning it off and on rapidly sometimes "shocks" them into turning on.

You can easily test this by getting a flashlight and putting it directly against the display, if you see an image, the CCFL is bad and you will have to send it to Pioneer.