External camera laggy - low frame rate

I posted at the beginning of this validating the problem. I’ve following the discussion and share in the frustration of an ongoing problem with no acknowledgement from Apple and no apparent resolution in the works.

That being said, I wanted to share a work around. Reincubate (https://reincubate.com/camo/) has created an app for both the Mac and iOS that allows you to use the high quality camera of your iPhone as a web cam for your Mac. The app is “Camo” and it works great. By using a tripod or mount for your phone, the video quality is superior to the MBP internal camera. Free version worked great on Zoom. Upgrade gives you helpful bells and whistle, but the free version does everything you need for video conferencing. Even if the LG external monitor camera was working, I would be tempted to use this Camo app instead. Just thought I’d share.

But still doesn’t make up for the significant oversight of a current, expensive, high quality, Apple promoted external monitor not working with Apple’s newly released MBP. I’m a longtime user of Apple products but this situation has negatively impacted my confidence in Apple. I’ll continue to follow this discussion in hopes a resolution is found. Any way to get further traction of this issue by having AppleInsider or 9to5Mac or other Apple news outlets and blogs do write ups about this issue?

At this point, based on my testing, I think you have two choices:

1. Downgrade you MBP to 2019 or earlier.
2. Upgrade your LG 5k Ultrafine to the latest >hardware< version... 27MD5KL-B.

Yes, both are big purchases. That neither Apple or LG have addresses or even acknowledged this is truly frustrating.

Worse, having you spend all that time troubleshooting a known issue is inexcusably poor customer service and operationally inefficient.

Installed Big Sur, and it seems to be MUCH better in Zoom. And the display is recognized every time I plug it in (which it wasn't doing prior).

So something in MacOS 11 has helped remedy this issue.

Will continue testing and report back, but so far, so good!

Since updating to 10.15.7, my frame rate lag on Zoom went away. Crazy. It now works fine about 85% of the time.

dkaib1 Said:

”Having the exact same issue. With my old 2016 MBP 13-inch, Two Thunderbolt ports, the Ultrafine 5k's camera works flawlessly. With the new 2020 MBP, Four Thunderbolt ports, the camera is nearly unusable most of the time, with one frame per ~5 seconds.”

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Why Risk a Faulty Device?:

With this being a frequent occurrence, I would strongly recommend you send this in to Apple for device support. You have a one-year out-of-the-box warranty. So, most certainly have Apple look into this device.

———-

Perform the following in the order provided:

I. Request Send-In Service:

The only option, as of this post, would be to contact Apple, and have it sent it for service/replacement.

1. Apple: would send you a box
2. You: send it to Apple
3. Apple: would fix it or replace it
4. You: would receive it back from Apple

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II. Contacting Apple Support:

A. Phone Support Info:

• Contact Us - Choose Locations
• USA: 1(800)MY-APPLE
• Proceed from there as Necessary

B. Chat Session Info:

Being that phone calls are taking a moment, perform a chat session with Apple Support.

Setting Up the Cbat Session:

1. Go to: support.apple.com
2. Scroll Down to "Tell us how we can help"
3. Select: Get Support
4. Proceed from there as Necessay

I’ve tested this this evening in using my CalDigit TS3 Plus Thunderbolt 3 dock as an intermediary between laptop and the LG 5K screen. The performance of the camera is much much better. I still see the errors reported previously in the logs for Photo Booth however at a greatly reduced rate, perhaps 5-10% instead of 100%.

Additionally, I fired up Quicktime Player to take a test recording from the camera and observed a number of related errors from that application to do with frame retrieval being both too slow and too quick. A sample of these are below.

default	23:33:33.173865+0200	QuickTime Player	CMIO_Unit_Synchronizer_Video.cpp:1468:SyncUsingIntegralFrameTiming here's the normal bounding info:  3866862083 : 30000 < 3866864740 : 30000 (-0.0886), prev time / dur: 3866863737 : 30000 / 2005 : 30000 : dropping this frame
default	23:33:33.252331+0200	QuickTime Player	CMIO_Unit_Synchronizer_Video.cpp:1459:SyncUsingIntegralFrameTiming observing getting frames too quickly:  3866864085 : 30000 < 3866864740 : 30000 (-0.0218), prev time / dur: 3866863737 : 30000 / 2005 : 30000 : dropping this frame
default	23:33:34.098512+0200	QuickTime Player	CMIO_Unit_Synchronizer_Video.cpp:1492:SyncUsingIntegralFrameTiming observing getting frames too slowly by a lot:  3866890082 : 30000 < 3866883586 : 30000 ( 0.2165), prev time/dur: 3866879777 : 30000 / 2005 : 30000
default	23:33:34.294718+0200	QuickTime Player	CMIO_Unit_Synchronizer_Video.cpp:1444:SyncUsingIntegralFrameTiming getting frames too quickly, but pretending (1):  3866896078 : 30000 < 3866896105 : 30000 (-0.0009), prev time / dur: 3866895110 : 30000 / 1990 : 30000 : dropping this frame
default	23:33:35.087239+0200	QuickTime Player	CMIO_Unit_Synchronizer_Video.cpp:1503:SyncUsingIntegralFrameTiming getting frames too slowly, but pretending (1):  3866920030 : 30000 < 3866917995 : 30000 ( 0.0678), prev time/dur: 3866917000 : 30000 / 1990 : 30000
default	23:33:37.496655+0200	QuickTime Player	CMIO_Unit_Synchronizer_Video.cpp:1492:SyncUsingIntegralFrameTiming observing getting frames too slowly by a lot:  3866991980 : 30000 < 3866988617 : 30000 ( 0.1121), prev time/dur: 3866984826 : 30000 / 1995 : 30000

I've appended this to my bug report (# FB7743077) in Feedback Assistant. I will probably pick up an eGPU in a few days so it will be interesting to see if the issue persists with a dedicated GPU.

TheLittes doesn't know what he's talking about. DO NOT follow the steps he recommends.

This is a WELL DOCUMENTED hardware/driver problem, acknowledged (eventually) by both Apple and LG, that you as a user can do ZERO about. The 2020 MacBook Pro's are NOT compatible with the LG 5k monitor at this time. Nothing anyone here can do about it, except to continue to report it to Apple and LG and hope they will listen someday. Perhaps it's time we all take to Twitter, FB, etc and warn people not to buy 2020 MBP's - perhaps that will get their attention. You can easily duplicate the problem with a brand new machine and monitor purchase from Apple today.

And it definitely is NOT just a laggy camera. Connecting and disconnecting from the monitor also causes problems with ANY hardware connected to the monitor via USB, long startup times from sleep, crashes, and more. It's bad.

Bottom line - there are NO STEPS you, as a user, can take to fix this. We need an update from Apple and/or LG.

Some progress today. After having been out of stock of this monitor, Apple is now shipping them again. I bought another, a 27MD5KL-B and it appears to work without issue. According to the LG Screen Manager App it is using a newer "Monitor software version", specifically (3.04,2.23, 5250,4.13,0.3,43,6.59) where as my older monitor that is NOT working is using (3.04,1.13, 5237,3.04,0.1e).

LG Screen Manager says software on both monitors is currently up to date.

I have a call into LG support to see if I can get the newer firmware for my older monitro, but fear that it won't be compatible with the older hardware.

Hate to be a downer, but many of us have been reporting this since May. You should probably consider a webcam, a different computer, or a different monitor. Even the latest current version of the LG's monitor and Intel MPB's still have issues. Camera works with that combo, but you still have to reboot after every connection to get it to be recognized.

In case it's getting drowned out in the ever increasing thread length, I identified the problem (or at least, a likely candidate for it) back in this post:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251375319?answerId=252878780022#252878780022

Please quote Feedback Assistant case reference FB7743077 in any of your correspondence with Apple; so far there are no related cases linked to it.

My model is 3 years old and it works great. I has the camera lag issue with my new MBP13 2020 but rather than wait for a software solution, I solved that by getting a Logitech pro webcam. With a USB A-C adaptor, it just plugs into the USB-C port on my monitor and, from there, connects seamlessly to my MBP through the one Thunderbolt3 port.

Depending on which presentation software you are using, you may have to select a different 'camera.' I had to do this with Zoom though it worked automatically with Meet and Skype.

My specialist just got back to me. He said that senior engineers (??) are aware of the issue and have received hundreds of similar complaints. He claimed that Apple and LG are working together to resolve the issue, which would come in a firmware/software update. I suppose that’s good news, but there’s no timeline for when this will actually get fixed—and based on this thread, the issues have been being reported for months. I’m just going to return the computer and go back to my 2018 MBP ☹️

There are two different versions off the monitors.

For example, the 5K version includes at least two different models:

- 27MD5KA - This is a Thunderbolt only model

- 27MD5KB - This is the newer model that supports USB-C as well.

For example, only the newer model supports the iPad Pro.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210205

My issues are with the older model. Is that the case with others as well?

As mentioned earlier, I was able to get Apple to accept my 2020 MBP return. I picked up the latest M1 model yesterday and happy to report that the LG camera issues have seemingly resolved themselves. Frustrating that it required so much time & effort, but relieved that I can once again use the display's camera (especially considering the new models still have 720p cameras).

magicmarc Said:

"Definitely sounds like the same issue. What do we do now, I wonder. Perhaps I should contact Apple. I hope it’s a software fix and not a hardware issue. It’s fairly frustrating, especially in a time like this!"

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Report this to Apple as a Bug:

Apple wont get back to you directly, but the more they know of this, the more they will know what is going on, and what needs to be fixed. To report it...

1. Go Here: Feedback - MacBook Pro - Apple
2. Select: "Bug Report" for the "Feedback Type"
3. Select:
4. Proceed from there as necessary.