Strange vertical line appears on MacBook Pro Screen

Hey affan246,

I'm afraid to suggest this sounds a lot like a damaged screen or the connecting cables (which are all integrated into the same part - ie, the fix is the same; replace the built-in display).

A good test you could try is to connect it to an external monitor (you may need a USBC to HDMI adaptor or something suitable to connect you Mac's USBC port to a port on the back of an available display).

If the line never appears in the external display, I would be getting a quote from Apple for changing the display.

Over the years, every new revision of Mac laptop have had increasingly fragile displays. It is highly recommended to use a 'hard shell' type case, though this certainly doesn't guarantee trouble free use!

Good look with the issue - if you test on an external, let us know how it went!

Edit;

kaz-k's suggestion is great too - Safe mode will help rule out a lot of software issues and Apple Diagnostics, is far from perfect but still can give very useful feedback in some cases, I run this for almost every issue unless I'm already 100% sure of the issue at hand

Hi,

Try to startup in Safe mode if still the vertical black line appears.

Start up your Mac in safe mode – Apple Support (AU)

If it doesn't help, try to run Apple Diagnostics if it's a hardware related issue.

Use Apple Diagnostics to test your Mac – Apple Support (AU)

The Apple Diagnostics wouldn't detect physical damage (I suppose it could in some cases however I would not expect it to give a result for a physically damaged screen)

It's good the line has been gone for now, hopefully it stays that way!

Do try the external display test if it comes back and I wouldn't 100% rule out the trackpad result from the Apple Diagnostics - I do agree in most other non-Apple laptops, a faulty trackpad wouldn't be expected to interfere with the display. However in Apple devices almost every component has it's own firmware or controller on it and these going wrong can often invoke some seemingly very disconnected symptoms.

Physically disconnecting the trackpad would introduce it's own set of issues (a missing temperature sensor will cause the system to boot and run very slow and the fans to run at full) but disconnecting the trackpad would not cause an issue with the display. If you see the line with the trackpad disconnected then you can rule out that trackpad result in the Apple Diagnostics, if the line does not come back with the trackpad disconnected then this could be the cause.

If the line is an intermittent problem (sometimes there, sometimes not) you will want to test for long enough that you're sure the line should have appeared in that time.

Good luck and I have my fingers crossed the issue does not return for you!

Vertical artifacts that are always present correlate VERY strongly with defects in the display module itself.

This is because the pictures you see are never stored or transmitted as Vertical anything. Vertical things are only created on the display when the many horizontal rows of data line up absolutely perfectly and each successive row has the same vertical 'feature'.