Display Issue - Horizontal blue lines in application windows

This appears to be a chromium issue - any app that is written on the back of chromium has this issue - goggle chrome browser, brave browser, Notion.so.

it will temporarily reset when the machine is rebooted and I have found only occurs after the machine has been left on for a couple of days and therefore has been in and out of sleep mode.

It seems all we can do is await macOS 11 Big Sur!!

I have had the same issue for months now (and yes, on macbook pro 16'' 2019). I have entered 2 tickets with Apple in the past few months (with no real resolution from Apple). When this happened again this morning, I decided to search and see if others are seeing this problem, and indeed, there are many people facing the same issue, as I see on this page!

So, I decided to open yet a new ticket with Apple and wanted to direct the support person to this page to show that many other people face the same problem. Frustratingly, after I informed them that reset of NVRAM and other steps didn't work in the past, they asked me to *REINSTALL* the system. I told them this is ridiculous.. many people are seeing the issue and your response is to throw this issue back at the user and ask them to wipe their computers first to see if the problem persists! I refused to take hours and hours re-installing, considering I keep my OS up to date with every new update!

So, long story short: has anyone re-installed and did that solve the blue-lines distortion in your case? Additionally, did you have to just re-install the OS, or did you have to reset the computer to factory default; i.e. wipe it clean?

That's the proof I was waiting for; i.e. reinstalling OSX doesn't solve the problem! My theory is that it has to be either a hardware problem in the GPU installed on MacBook pro 16, or a software bug in how the device access and uses the GPU! The SW bug is much easier to fix since it is basically a fix that can be included in a next release of the OSX. The hardware problem is only solved by exchanging the motherboard with one that uses a different GPU. And it is an "if" that different GPUs are pin and function-compatible with the one installed in the 16" units. If it is not, it means a new design of the motherboard, hence the delay!

How can we get an official response from Apple on how they intend to resolve this problem?

That also is another confirmation! The issue is not having a faulty chip on your motherboard! Apple replaced your computer's motherboard with an identical one (that has the same chip). So, they basically didn't do anything!

I am interested in your experience after upgrading to Big Sur; I am really hoping it is a software fix (driver).

Also, out of curiosity, did you go back to Apple support and tell them the issue was not solved by replacing the motherboard, and what was their next step? If I were to guess, they recommended waiting for the next upgrade in the OS.

Hi Everyone, just to clear things out. After a PRAM reset etc it dit not happen again, the macbook only gets Really hot, like keys and chassis, so hot it hurts if you leave your finger on it for more than 5 secs. Afterwards i tried bootcamp and run Windows 10, under windows 10 the card makes little more noise but keeps kinda cool. Playing games heats it up like in mac os running a browser or teams or other low profile apps... I think it is rather a software problem for the heat at first, and then there is the heating problem, it seems AMD still hasn't solved their heating problems they face from start, which is 1969 or what? I do not understand why Apple who stands for quality and high niche prices chooses AMD over NVIDIA and to do what skimm prices ?? isn't apple proud statement they stand for quality? I really do not want to be the person who thought, hey, AMD is good, let's choose this for a GPU. AMD is good for one thing and one thing only, mining cryptocurrency and nothing else... for now we are stuck with a (and I didn't choose to buy it, my company did it for me..) 200 dolar windows like performing laptop that we (they) bought for 2600 dollars... thanks Apple...

I have been using Big Sur since the first beta. Beta 1 and Beta 2 have resolved the issue, however it came back in Beta 3 and Beta 4 (the public beta). They know about the issue so hopefully it is resolved before we get out of beta.

One way I found that does fix the issue, at least temporarily is to force the macbook to sleep (Apple menu -> sleep), and wait for it to totally sleep (external peripherals are off). On wake of the laptop, there is a good chance the issue will be resolved. I found that this is triggered by the macbook sleeping - can cause, or fix the issue.

Resetting PRAM, etc. does not help.

Try to disable "hardware acceleration"

Chrome -> Settings -> Advanced -> System -> Use hardware acceleration when available -> Off

This helped me

from https://macreports.com/google-chrome-showing-blue-horizontal-lines-fix/

the issue is that its not just restricted to Chrome - ultimately I find that it happens if the machine is not shut down for more than 3 days and then it will appear across random programmes - at first i thought it was restricted to programmes that are based on Chromium however i have now also experienced in in others as well.

For the love of God! I can't unfollow this thread! I unfollow, and then reload the page, and it says I'm still following it! I've been getting these email updates on thais thing since APRIL. STOOOOOOOP!

I'm using the latest Chrome "Version 85.0.4183.121 (Official Build) (64-bit)" – I followed your direction, went to chrome://flags and typed in "Metal" but nothing shows up.

Anyone else having the same issue?

Did someone else find a different solution?

thanks

Big Sur Beta 9 dropped the other day. Issue is still present.

I found an easier fix though for those wanting to use acceleration.

Since this occurs with external displays (Radeon GPU in use), simply unplug your external display USB-C to DP or HDMI connector, and once everything jumps over to the main macbook display, you can plug it back in. This almost always resolves the issue until the next time the macbook sleeps.

Interesting; I saw this with Chrome on my last MBP and thought the site I was visiting had some sort of hack messing with the display. Now it's starting to fuzz MS Teams, and this is a brand new 16" MBP. Doesn't seem to have an option to turn off hardware acceleration, though resizing the window seems to nudge it

I agree with Tallmacdude. This issue appears in Microsoft Teams and 1Password as well. For Mircrosoft Teams I read somewhere that disabling the GPU Hardware acceleration within the general settings section of teams would fix the problem, however forget about using teams for video calls or screen-share. It's near impossible to view the screen as the video feed is so choppy and bad.

Here are some links corroborating evidence towards this issue:

Google Chrome users, reporting this issue since April 2020

https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/39447594?hl=en

Macrumors forums, reporting the same since April 2020

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/sudden-graphics-corruption-16-macbook-pro.2230856/page-2

Google Chromium bug tracker, also first reported April 2020:

https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=1068170#c179

Apple support was absymal – I was told my request will be forwarded to 'Apple Engineers' (where? when? no follow-up?) when the support session never got anywhere. There needs to be a concerted effort to highlight this known issue to Apple, and for Apple to acknowledge that there is either an issue with the mbp 16" hardware, or why Chromium is seemingly misbehaving with the mbp 16". For what it's worth, this could be an issue in Chromium, but a priority 1 bug that's open since April 2020 doesn't bode well. Are mbp 16" owners left with a lemon?

Restarting the laptop makes the problem go away, but the glitch will return, especially after a long period of sleep – this behaviour can be consistently repeated especially when your laptop is running a Chromium application and it goes to sleep, with or without a second display. Sometimes the glitch just shows up even after a period of regular use.

What seems to be the most viable interim solution is to disable "Out of process rasterization" in chrome://flags

This will 'resolve' the situation for a while. But the glitch has returned on my mbp 16" after a few weeks, exhibiting the exact same issues as above. For those asking where to disable 'Metal', Chrome's recent updates have removed that option.

'Disabling hardware acceleration' on Chrome is not feasible – as mentioned by the previous post, so many apps rely on the Chromium framework. Running most of them without HW acceleration is impossible. Therefore, not a solution.

Also please don't provide the advice of resetting the NVRAM – this has been tested to not work, and comes across as an uninformed, untested bandaid 'fix'.