M1 13” MacBook Pro Webcam Flickering

Hi All,

I can confirm that the latest 11.2 update has addressed this issue.

No more flickering when sitting under 50Hz lights.

Cheers.

Keith

Hi tibor72,

You have the same machine and macOS as me (well, I have 8GB memory more, but that should not make a difference).

To repeat my steps, I did the following:

1. open OBS
2. Sources > "+" > Video Capture Device > {somename} > OK
3. Device = FaceTimeHD Camera, preset = 1280x720, use preset = UNTICKED, Frame Rate = Simple FPS 25 > OK
4. open FaceTime > call

after step 3 .. you should see your webcam working in OBS without flickering.

after step 4 .. you should be able to make/receive FT calls.

Note : I did not "Start Virtual cam" .. could that be the difference?

Hello everybody, perhaps good news, it seems to be a software issue. I have updated to Big Sur 11.1 RC this morning and the webcam flickering in OBS Studio (26.0.2) is gone (on a MBA M1).

Michael

THANKS! I have done that. The more people who do it the better. It took me just 2 minutes.

EXAMPLE TEXT TO COPY-PASTE AND AMEND AS YOU WISH:

The webcam in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with M1 chips flickers when it's used in certain countries where the frequency is 50hz rather than 60hz (UK, Europe, Japan and others).

Please see this thread to get an idea of the extent of the issue: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252075489?answerId=254256107022&login=true

My webcam works well with LED by OSRAM, IKEA but not with cheep unknown brand and with neon.

It's not a solution at all, but turning off nearby LED lights removes the horizontal 'scan-lines'.

Don’t worry, it’s most definitely NOT A HARDWARE issue. The 50hz/60hz configuration is a SOFTWARE change. So it should be rectified soon :-)

Third party apps like WEBCAM SETTINGS do this for other cameras already, but not for the integrated webcam for some reason.

APPLE should be able to fix this in a software release soon.

Me too: I have the flickering problem from the webcam as well (it shows up in all software using the builtin webcam). This is almost certainly related to the webcam software not adjusting the framerate for UK electrical frequencies correctly. The issue appears in both 11 and 11.1 for me. All of the standard troubleshooting does not help (resetting PRAM etc). I spent over an hour with customer support to no avail.

I do not have this issue with my three other intel macs.

I will have to return and wait until this issue is resolved before repurchasing. This is especially a shame, because I bought another one for my wife as an Xmas present :(

The only thing I can tell you guy's is that halogen spot lights in my bedroom don't cause this issue, only the LED's in my living room (and I've tried a different type of LED without any joy) so it's back to expensive halogen spot lights or flickering 😡

40DOMI, I used the OBS virtual camera with the Zoom and google meet apps and everything works fine. The problem is with FaceTime, because although OBS is active and minimized, when I answer the call FaceTime shows "call failed". I don't know why.

Apple have attempted to fix the problem in Big Sur 11.2, however they have only half fixed it 😒, I have downloaded 11.2 and it now flickers approx every 5 seconds for approx 1 second, which is really no better. I have reported the continued bug on Apple feed back, I would suggest everyone with the problem does the same.

Updated macOS Big Sur to 11.2 on M1 Air. Tested 10 minutes with a few apps. Webcam works fine now in same lightning. After cam is ON, there is flickering for 0.3-0.5 seconds and then it's works fine.

So, as for now, I can say Apple fixed it.

25FPS is what works. Apple needs to fix this. For now I've achieved this using OBS.

Post your observation and complaint at https://www.Apple.com/feedback/

Same here, contacted apple and they have sent me a new one, and it has the same problem!!! They didn't mention this was a problem with all the m1 MacBooks