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Mac Book Pro 2019, Touch Bar started flickering and won't stop.

MacbookPro 2019, Touch Bar started flickering and won't stop.


I've been looking for answers to this issue and can't find anything helpful. I tried recommendations to force-quit it via terminal and other suggestions, but it just continues to flicker.



Possible Fixes: SMC/NVRAM/PRAM or the Activity Manager

Resetting the SMC Reset the SMC of your Intel Mac or resetting NVRAM/PRAM Reset NVRAM on your Mac does not seem to help for to long before the flickering starts again.

Nor does quiting the Control Strip or Touch Bar Server in the Activity Monitor.

All current resolves do help for the short periods of time but there are none which fixes the issue.


Possible Fix: Update your OS

I honestly do not want to update my mac as apple has presented that as one of the options. Due, to this flickering annoyance was initially caused by an update. Until more posts turn up about a specific OS update resolving this issue.



Can I turn it off? Why is it suddenly flickering? Why does Apple not provide more lasting resolves for issues these days?



[Re-Titled by Moderator]

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 12.6

Posted on Jul 9, 2023 10:53 PM

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Question marked as Best reply

Posted on Oct 26, 2023 6:20 AM

This happened with a 2020 Macbook Pro of mine. I took it to Apple and the tech reset all kinds of things, SMC, NVRAM, thought my battery needed to be replaced and seemed surprised it was in great shape.He did things for an hour and then told me I need to have the whole thing bottom of my Macbook replace for $1000. I was livid! I just bought this a few years ago! I couldn't afford the "repair", so they told me to buy a back up...and a back up for the back up. Sure enough, my macbook died soon after. The flickering touch bar makes the 2020 macbook a LEMON and Apple needs to recall it. I noticed they are not including it going foreward. We should be reimbursed. Apple products are not cheap and in this financial day and age, I already have friends who are choosing other less expensive products from other companies because of my experience. Shame on you Apple for not recalling this obvious failure.

35 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Oct 26, 2023 6:20 AM in response to AU-FUA

This happened with a 2020 Macbook Pro of mine. I took it to Apple and the tech reset all kinds of things, SMC, NVRAM, thought my battery needed to be replaced and seemed surprised it was in great shape.He did things for an hour and then told me I need to have the whole thing bottom of my Macbook replace for $1000. I was livid! I just bought this a few years ago! I couldn't afford the "repair", so they told me to buy a back up...and a back up for the back up. Sure enough, my macbook died soon after. The flickering touch bar makes the 2020 macbook a LEMON and Apple needs to recall it. I noticed they are not including it going foreward. We should be reimbursed. Apple products are not cheap and in this financial day and age, I already have friends who are choosing other less expensive products from other companies because of my experience. Shame on you Apple for not recalling this obvious failure.

Nov 4, 2023 7:42 AM in response to Luis Sequeira1

Maybe it doesn't happen to everyone. You are lucky. I was not and I am not the only one.

The flickering light is like a strong strobe light that lit up my whole room. I worry that this problem may cause a seizure in some poor person. Not everyone in a movie theatre has seizures, but they often put warnings before shows now to avoid litigation because someone had a seizure.

Apple should figure this out and provide a PERMANENT fix or warn people with seizure disorders before this happens.

No one should have to hold a flashlight on a $2000 new laptop for it to stop flickering. Come on Apple...

Nov 18, 2023 8:50 AM in response to ddgiants

  1. I turned off the light sensor after reading this post (Turn off Automatically adjust Brightness in display: Click on the main Apple menu and choose System Settings.
  2. Select Displays.
  3. Turn off Automatically adjust Brightness.
  4. Quit System Settings.
  5. )

the flickering stopped. Restarted, some flicker during start up then fine, no flicker, touchbar worked normally.


Started up today and the flicker was back. Currently not flickering but touchbar is blacked out, so, useless.


Apple? are you there?

Dec 13, 2023 4:11 AM in response to AU-FUA

I have some improvement after turning off Touch Bar zoom.


Saw this on here


"Sonoma upgrade turned the Touch Bar zoom on, which impacts ability to interact with it. To turn it off (or see if it's turned on) go to Settings > Accessibility > Zoom > Touch Bar zoom "


The flicker stops when I touch the touch bar...


People are reporting a touch bar flicker after upgrading to Sonoma.



Nov 18, 2023 12:12 PM in response to Sven9

  1. Turning off automatic brightness does not turn off the light sensor
  2. Even if it did, there are some other scenarios, when touchbar dims, which is the cause of the problem for mem such as 60 seconds of inactivity.
  3. When the touchbar is blacked out, this means that the OS lost connection to it as you even cannot start the settings, where you configure the control strip. In addition, if you kill the ControlStrip process when it is blacked out, it won't start back. A solution to this scenario I found is turning off the Mac, resetting the SMC by holding the power button for 10 seconds, and starting the Mac again.
  4. I am currently using the script from https://medium.com/macoclock/macbook-touchbar-flicker-fix-bafa754aae13, so the only cases when I get the flickering issue is the sleep mode.


Maybe this will help you and help someone else to use this to find a better solution.

Nov 18, 2023 12:02 PM in response to ddgiants

This makes so much sense. I am using the fix from the medium, where you run a script which restarts the touchbar process after 59 seconds of inactivity, because after 60 seconds of inactivity, the touchbar dims and this is what causes it to flicker. I could not figure out why my mac was crashing in sleep mode with the lid closed. But now it makes sense, as it probably triggers the light sensor trying to dim the touchbar, which leads to flickering. Now I wonder if there is a way to overwrite the touchbar instructions to dim or override the light sensor to fix the issue.


However, I am still not sure if the problem is purely software. After each crash, my touchbar is usually gone and it takes a few minutes before the next kernel panic and crash, after which I reset the SMC key by holding the power button for 10 seconds, and the issue is always fixed until next sleep mode and kernel panic.

Jan 29, 2024 9:29 PM in response to AU-FUA

Same issues here for me with the suggestion to just buy another one. Not impressed as this is my first mac after making the switch from a windows PC. I bit the expensive price tag because they’re known for lasting a long time. Now my mac book is constantly restarting unexpectedly and flickering touch bar issues. Very disappointed that Apple refuses to issue a covered fix for their faulty technology. I am now less likely to purchase another macbook.

Feb 2, 2024 8:01 AM in response to AU-FUA

Hello! So I found a very interesting workaround for this super annoying issue. Until now I had been working with this computer in clamshell mode with a monitor, in part because I couldn't stand the flashing anymore. However, I need this one as a travel laptop and so out of frustration I put a piece of black electrical tape across the Touch Bar, leaving the Touch ID button exposed. Lo and behold I opened my laptop this morning and no flashing (you could still see a tiny bit of it yesterday) and it didn't crash after I closed the laptop -- like it does EVERY TIME. I hope this weird workaround works for you. I programmed the "fn" button as my new Escape key and I use the uppermost bar at the top for sound, display, etc.

Mac Book Pro 2019, Touch Bar started flickering and won't stop.

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