M1 graphics - text over white background in dark mode is weird on MBA 7-GPU

[tyron]

Any news on this odd issue?

The specialist I talked with called me on Nov 23rd to get more screenshots and details in response to a request from the engineering team. He checked a couple of other things in my computer as well. After that, he mentioned he'd be away for the Thanksgiving break, but haven't called me back since then. Unfortunately I have no contact information or case number to follow-up myself

So I saw this one time on my computer, but it affected not just texts but also any white windows as well. All of them appeared pink-ish for some reason.

I think your issue is different from ours. We are definitely not experiencing pink-ish colors, and changing the wallpaper doesn't make much of a difference. Lucky for you!

 

[DeanL]

Issue still present on Big Sur 11.1 Beta (20C5061b)

 

[Squillace]

Hi,

Macbook Pro M1 16GB/1TB here. Same as you. It was driving me nuts because I couldn't figure out what was provoking this. For the seek of my mental health, I decided to ignore it. Haha
Glad to see it's not just me...

 

[tyron]

Just called them to get an update on the case: they are still looking at it (I guess the fact that the case wasn't closed is good news afterall). They said they couldn't reproduce in Intel, they were looking at M1 for testing. And that I'll get a callback once more information is available. Fingers crossed, still...

 

[acidfast7_redux]

Is this the same **** I sorted in my first post, i.e., the TÜV blue-light specs in Night Mode?

 

[tyron]

Is this the same **** I sorted in my first post, i.e., the TÜV blue-light specs in Night Mode?

Not sure what you meant by "sorted in your first post". It's related to what you talked, yes. Related to the blue-coloring they have on white fonts while in Night Mode, most likely related to blue-light filtering they do match the certification you mentioned.

Our point is there's most likely a bug on the text-rendering software for M1 machines that is not filtering the blue-light properly, therefore giving us a bright color under those circumstances. It doesn't happen while rendering pictures. It doesn't happen while rendering the same tones in text on Intel machines.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

Not sure what you meant by "sorted in your first post". It's related to what you talked, yes. Related to the blue-coloring they have on white fonts while in Night Mode, most likely related to blue-light filtering they do match the certification you mentioned.

Our point is there's most likely a bug on the text-rendering software for M1 machines that is not filtering the blue-light properly, therefore giving us a bright color under those circumstances. It doesn't happen while rendering pictures. It doesn't happen while rendering the same tones in text on Intel machines.

I don't believe that, for a second, as it had to pass TÜV cert. What's your evidence for "it doesn't happen when rendering pictures?" Eyeball?

 

[petterihiisila]

Not too interested in commenting the certification business or what it has to do with this. Or convincing a fellow forum member to believe it or not. I think doing so is largely inconsequential to the issue at hand, other than for gathering anecdata, whether this affects everybody or not.

As far as I see it, the OP described the phenomenon accurately. I came from a 16" and immediately noticed this peculiarity in an A/B side by side test, since I migrated all files and settings 1:1 to the new Mac and everything was carried over. 8-core GPU M1 Air.

It's a visible but minor issue that luckily hasn't affected my graphics-related work at all. And for color-accurate work Night Shift has to be off anyway. I expect it to get fixed in a point update not many weeks/months from now.

This also happens in an external display btw.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

Not too interested in commenting the certification business or what it has to do with this. Or convincing a fellow forum member to believe it or not. I think doing so is largely inconsequential to the issue at hand, other than for gathering anecdata, whether this affects everybody or not.

As far as I see it, the OP described the phenomenon accurately. I came from a 16" and immediately noticed this peculiarity in an A/B side by side test, since I migrated all files and settings 1:1 to the new Mac and everything was carried over. 8-core GPU M1 Air.

It's a visible but minor issue that luckily hasn't affected my graphics-related work at all. And for color-accurate work Night Shift has to be off anyway. I expect it to get fixed in a point update not many weeks/months from now.

This also happens in an external display btw.

Yes, as it's designed to minimise blue light, so it's not broken, there will be no fix, as it's not an issue. Anyone thinking the text colour issue with Night Shift mode on, doesn't understand how Night Shift mode work or what it aims to accomplish in order to meet TÜV certification. Not discussing the certification is not properly understanding the software. Of course it happens on an external display. It is working as it is designed to.

Sometimes people makes mountains out of molehills and this is one of those cases.

Simply turn it off it you don't like the result.

 

[pelowj]

Yes, as it's designed to minimise blue light, so it's not broken, there will be no fix, as it's not an issue. Anyone thinking the text colour issue with Night Shift mode on, doesn't understand how Night Shift mode work or what it aims to accomplish in order to meet TÜV certification. Not discussing the certification is not properly understanding the software. Of course it happens on an external display. It is working as it is designed to.

Sometimes people makes mountains out of molehills and this is one of those cases.

Simply turn it off it you don't like the result.

You're failing to understand this is an issue. And I like TrueTone and NightShift so why the hell should I have to turn it off?

Compare a 2020 Intel MacBook Air (with TrueTone) and a 2020 M1 MacBook Air (with TrueTone) side by side and you'll see it.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

You're failing to understand this is an issue. And I like TrueTone and NightShift so why the hell should I have to turn it off?

Compare a 2020 Intel MacBook Air (with TrueTone) and a 2020 M1 MacBook Air (with TrueTone) side by side and you'll see it.

Sure, the implementation is different in the M1 as the new hardware meets the new TÜV specs, whereas the old hardware doesn't meet the new specs.

This doesn't mean that it's an "issue" in either case.

Sure, there's a difference but it's not an "issue", which is my argument.

 

[pelowj]

Sure, the implementation is different in the M1 as the new hardware meets the new TÜV specs, whereas the old hardware doesn't meet the new specs.

This doesn't mean that it's an "issue" in either case.

Sure, there's a difference but it's not an "issue", which is my argument.

Yeah, your argument is wrong. If you'd actually seen how glaring it is you'd be fairly clear it's an issue.

Hardware certification of that nature likely takes place well-before a final version of Big Sur is loaded onto the machine, meaning it's probably a bug introduced at some stage of the Big Sur development. I fully expect it to be fixed in the next point release.

-jp

 

[acidfast7_redux]

Yeah, your argument is wrong. If you'd actually seen how glaring it is you'd be fairly clear it's an issue.

Hardware certification of that nature likely takes place well-before a final version of Big Sur is loaded onto the machine, meaning it's probably a bug introduced at some stage of the Big Sur development. I fully expect it to be fixed in the next point release.

-jp

Alright. I disagree with everyone in this thread. We will wait and see if Apple rolls out a "fix." However, if they don't, it doesn't really nullify your hypothesis as one can't easily separate "failure to fix a problem" and "no problem existing." Thus, only my hypothesis can be nullified by a fix being rolled out, so I have nothing to gain further in this discourse after claiming my position as "it's not a problem."

 

[timidpimpin]

They call it the bleeding edge for a reason. You chose to be there.

 

[Andrey_K]

I'm having this issue. It seems that color tinting\\masking that is used for tone compensation and white point shifting is not applied to selected parts of the GUI. I am observing this behavior in spotlight and safari tabs when the following conditions are met:
1. Warm lighting for an extended period of time;
2. Dark mode;
3. Night shift.

So it might have something to do with white-on-black text rendering, aforementioned mechanics and nuances of m1 gpu.

The bug is not affected by cold ambient lighting, only its perception: it may start to seem that the blueish whites are normal, but screenshot to actual rendering comparisons shows otherwise.

 

[Andrey_K]

I just remembered a thing: similar stuff happened back in 15 with f.lux, some white text remained blue. Actually, some turned bluer then white. It was something to do with Nvidia drivers that f.lux developers does not have access to. The last version of f.lux does not have this issues, buy the way.

Bright Blue-white pointer

Hello! f.lux kicked in tonight, and the pointer (whether an arrow or hand) is brilliant blue-white, which is such a stark contrast that it makes f.lux unusab...

forum.justgetflux.com

Flux white cursor on MacOS Catalina 10.15.6, when using HDR.

I find that the cursor is white (not affected by the blue light dimming) when using an HDR display on MacOS Catalina. This isn't a problem that happens when I use the builtin display or even a non-HDR external in my Macbook Pro but I was wondering if ther...

forum.justgetflux.com

Cursor is bright white - doesn't dim with screen

A new issue that started for me today is with my cursor/pointer. It is bright white, even though the rest of my screen is dim. I saw in the FAQ that this can...

forum.justgetflux.com

And deeper down there were topics about YouTube artifacts on Mac, I could not find them now.

 

[vanasian]

I noticed this last night when I was browsing on safari with full screen size mode.
Night mode was on, night shift was on and True Tone was on.
It happened when I moved my mouse to the left size edge to get my bookmarks.
When my webpage background is black then bookmark text is white.
When my webpage background is white then bookmark text is blue- greenish. (just like your picture)

 

[tyron]

My macOS just updated to 11.1 RC and the issue seems to be gone!!! Hooray!

Hope you all have the same results (except the negationist above, coming back trying to convince everybody that by not having themselves an issue, all of us were crazy or stupid)!

 

[Gosa171]

I am still experiencing the issue, even after the update...Do you guys think it's something wrong with my unit as the patch was supposed to fix the issue?

 

[tyron]

I am still experiencing the issue, even after the update...Do you guys think it's something wrong with my unit as the patch was supposed to fix the issue?

That seems unlikely. It really seemed to be a software issue -- at least if you have the exact same issue. Just to make sure, can you take a screenshot while the problem is happening (cmd + shift + 3) and validate the screenshot does not present the issue? That was my conclusion: the problem only happened on the text rendering piece, not on image.

Also, my macOS version is 11.1 (20C69), which is the RC. Can you double-check you are in the same build?

 

[Gosa171]

That seems unlikely. It really seemed to be a software issue -- at least if you have the exact same issue. Just to make sure, can you take a screenshot while the problem is happening (cmd + shift + 3) and validate the screenshot does not present the issue? That was my conclusion: the problem only happened on the text rendering piece, not on image.

Also, my macOS version is 11.1 (20C69), which is the RC. Can you double-check you are in the same build?

Yep, just did it, exactly the same thing you had - the greenish-blueish white on the text, and the normal white on screenshot. But I just noticed my OS version is actually 11.0.1, so I think I should wait until I'll be able to download the 11.1 one?

 

[Andrey_K]

Yes, the glitch is gone in the last 11.1 public beta version.

It is also nonexistent in f.lux.
By the way, NightShift preserves a noticeable amount of blue light. It looks better, but might not be useful in terms of circadian patterns.
F.lux cuts it all, and separates evening and night time settings. It is actually a better tool.

 

[pelowj]

Alright. I disagree with everyone in this thread. We will wait and see if Apple rolls out a "fix." However, if they don't, it doesn't really nullify your hypothesis as one can't easily separate "failure to fix a problem" and "no problem existing." Thus, only my hypothesis can be nullified by a fix being rolled out, so I have nothing to gain further in this discourse after claiming my position as "it's not a problem."

Fixed in 11.1... so there you go.

 

[Gnattu]

I've tested this, weird pink is gone in 11.1.

 

[kakaku]

please tell your cinebench r23 score 10 min render if you have the one with 7 cores

I've noticed the same with my M1 Air the first day. Good to see I am not alone.