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Macbook Pro 14" M1 Pro Colour (?) Flicker Issue

T

torontomax

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 16, 2021
30
14
Hi everyone,

I'm one of the lucky ones could able to nab one of those laptops early and this little device didn't had a single hiccup so far.

I always use it hooked to a monitor in clamshell mode and rarely use it as a second display to watch something etc. Lately I've noticed, when I'm working on my external monitor, I see a colour flicker happening on mac's screen.

I took a video of it. Keep your eyes on the whites. Notice the colour flicker? (it's %1000 more visible normally.)



This phenomenon doesn't only happens on videos though. I've noticed chrome's top bar is flickering too. But weirdly it only flickers whenever I hover on and make the scroll bar show up WHEN the window is not focused. Issue keeps persisting even if I plug the monitor out.

I'm assuming it's a software related (something with transparency maybe?) issue because I tried to screen record when chrome was flickering AND I did actually capture the flicker through the mov (and I think I've deleted it as I can't find it)

Whenever I see this happening again, I'll screen capture this time and and post here as well.

Anyone else also noticed such thing?

edit: tried to switch off/on true tone and screen dimming stuff, even changed the values of these fellas but had the same results.
Screenshot 2021-11-16 at 22.51.04.png


edit2 forgot the mention, whenever I resize the window (even 1 px nudge) the flickering stops. Only resizing though. When moved, it keeps doing it.

update I found the video recording of the colour flicker occurring when hovering onto the scroll bar. It's subtle but it's there. this is a screen cap btw, not taken with a camera.
 
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Sanpete said:
If you think it's transparency related, you can turn that off under Accessibility.
Click to expand...
I have admit that thought about transparency WHILE I was writing the post and by that time flickering stopped :D. I'll def turn it on and off when it starts again. Also forgot to mention, whenever I resize the flickering window, it stops. I'll add it on main post as well.
 
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CMMChris said:
Try turning off ProMotion. If the issue is gone, you are having this problem: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/variable-refresh-rate-freesync-gsync-flicker.2320463/
Click to expand...
ok will def try to turn it on / off when next time happens. Will update here. I'll also check the link as well. Thanks.

I always assumed those freesync stuff were marketing gimmicks, I had those on my monitor as well but never bothered to play with them. The thing is, this issue also kept persisting when I unhooked the HDMI cable. weird... Hope it's a software bug though.
 
The internal screen of the new MacBooks uses variable refresh rate as well. That's why I said disable ProMotion and set your internal screen to a fixed refresh rate. For external screens the setting is just called "Variable".

If disabling ProMotion fixes the video flicker on your internal screen that means Apple's own products are affected by that flicker bug as well which would be quite a bummer. If that's the case, it's time to open a bug report.
 
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Just found the screen recording that I've mentioned on the original post and updated it. still trying to replicate the issue though.
 
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CMMChris said:
You still haven't tried turning off ProMotion?
Click to expand...
Ah no, I still keep it on intentionally so I could reproduce the bug. To be fair, don't know what triggers it so I'm just regularly using my laptop.

That screen capture video is like a week old, this morning I was cleaning my desktop and that's how found it :D
 
CMMChris said:
Okay, keep us posted. Once you encounter the flicker again, stop doing anything and disable ProMotion. If ProMotion is the cause, the flicker should disappear instantly.
Click to expand...
Bad news. Culprit is not ProMotion.

As I could able to capture the issue with screen capture I'm suspecting something wrong with electron wrapped apps. Because this issue only happens in slack, teams, figma, stremio which are all electron wrapped apps. At least what I've noticed. Hopefully this is as the issue happens when | flashes. On my previous figma video it was happening when I was hovering on to the scroll bar on the right. Even though I did capture system info diag during this was happening and reported with videos. (shame that I had to upload a torrent app as an example lol)


 
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Following because I have the same issue. I suspect software. Haven't turned off promotion yet but will do now.
 
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james948 said:
Following because I have the same issue. I suspect software. Haven't turned off promotion yet but will do now.
Click to expand...
promotion might be one of the worst naming Apple might have come with. After reading your comment, got confused and asking myself 'a toggle for promotional stuff in osx?'... then I noticed that you're talking about 'ProMotion' ? They could have added pro at the end instead in front of it - like rest of all their pro lines.

Lmao @ apple
 
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