screen flicker when copying files

Also can see this flickering icon on lower left of Desktop on my system

Nitnellav wrote:

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Screen only flickering sometimes when dragging a file to a folder on desktop, but having a flickering file icon of some sort down in left corner every single time i drag a file to a desktop folder.

The whole Desktop flickering with garbage seems to be happening when the disk is spinning doing other stuff. This could be related to bug in memory management - a missing lock to shared (screen?) resource.

I've made a screen recording with QuickTime. Result: I clearly saw the Desktop flickering during the recording, but the recording itself shows no flickering! So flickering seems to be related to incorrectly filling (or reading) screen (memory) buffer.

• Mac Pro
• 2.66 GHx Quad-Core Intel Xeon
• NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 512 MB
• VMWare Fusion 4.1.1

JStole: i think VMware Fusion has nothing to do with it, since I have this issue but not VMware Fusion. Good idea to try getting video of it. Sounds indeed like video buffer garbage is the problem. Apple released 10.7.4 to developers & testers and noted the area of "graphics" should be tested. I wonder if this is our problem area.

http://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/16/apple-seeds-first-developer-beta-of-os-x-10- 7-4/

Same problem here on a late 2009 iMac 3.06Ghz / 4GB RAM / ATI Radeon running 10.7.3. Only seems to happen when dragging a file from the downloads folder in the dock. I don't have VMware so it can't be related to that.

On the other hand, it does not happen on our 2011 13" MBP and 2012 13" MBA.

Same prob here

As above.

i have the same issue, after a mother board and video card still not joy

Changing the background under System Preferences -> Desktop and Screen Saver to a different background seems to have provided a remedy for the file dragging issue causing the flicker on my 27-inch iMac. Not sure if will solve the other issues, or the MBP issue you're experiencing, but it worked solidly on the file dragging to the desktop for me.

The issue I was experiencing was 100% reproducable every time I would take a file and drag it to the desktop. If you aren't experiencing that issue, this likely isn't your fix. Good luck!

Cheers!

As an update, I was having the issue. But a simple graphic chance for the desktop image seemed to resolve the issue. Very strange, but thanks for the post above, it was something v simple.

Same issue on a mid-2011 iMac. I've the same problem you all describe when dragging files from a window of a USB disk on the desktop or - more often - into another folder holding the mouse down and dragging around.

The flicker occurs TWICE, just like the animation of the opening folder and while the folder is opening.

Very annoying.

Jace

You are right it has nothing to do with VMWare installed. I've got several network accounts using the same computer. Users with default settings 'out of the box' don't experience screen flicker. It must be related to a user dependent setting on my machine.

I tried changeing the desktop picture - at first there was no improvement. Then I tried Solid Colors/Solid Gray Light. This must have changed some relevant buffer/setting. Now I can use any predefined Desktop Picture. There is only an occasional ghost icon on the bottom left corner of the screen. Much better.

Hello all,

Just going off what LuckyMan94 was saying. i just bought a 27" iMac i5 Thunderbolt display and immediately starting having flicker issues when dragging a file from a folder onto the desktop. The flickering mostly came from icons already on my desktop and sometimes i would get weird pixelated boxes for a split second. Very frustrating to have something like this on a brand new computer. So i tried changing the desktop image like LuckyMan94 suggested and noticed that the flickering wasn't as bad with some images but it was still present nonetheless.

Then i had a brainstorm when i noticed that 2 icons on the desktop were the worst offenders. what if i just moved them to a different location on the desktop? VOILA! They stopped flickering. So the logical conclusion hit me like a thunderbolt (pun) -- what if i just shift all icons and move them back? Problem completely solved.

Now i should mention that I set up my new computer with my most recent Time Machine backup from my older system. This just replaced all of the icons i had on my old comp to the new desktop. I have a feeling the system was having some kind of conflict with the new screen orientation or something. Either way i felt compelled to share as I know how frustrating this is and maybe it'll help. It would also prevent wasted time and energy running back and forth to the apple store having them replace your whole system and you come home to restore and have exactly the same problem. Give it a try.

I think it's pretty clear this isn't a hardware issue. It's something in Lion. My affected system indeed has a photographic desktop background (one of the included b&w photos), in case that matters to anyone, but I've not bothered to change it as the problem is intermittent & I'm awaiting Apple's next OS update to see if it resolves the problem.

In a previous post I stated changeing the desktop picture fixed my issues. It did - but only for a short time. A day later, I noticed screen flickering was back.

Today I tried a tip mentioned in chapter 17 from the Maccast podcast show #393: when Launchpad is active the key combination control-option-command-b will cycle through 4 different background settings.

Doing this fixed some issues with screen flickering - probably not for long - we will see. It's a quicker workaround than manually cycling through background pictures to clear out some display buffers.

hey all...just adding my name to the list. I see this issue on both my mid 2011 MBA and my 2011 imac.

I upgraded to 10.7.4 today on hopes it would fix it...no dice.

Here is a link to a youtube video that shows the problem so we are all on the same page..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXhzTDbuhIA&feature=feedlik

Hope Apple helps us out soon.

Here's another thread with video of the issue.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3745689

I resolved the issue by doing a 'Clean Up' of the icons on my desktop.

Pretty sure it has something to icon positioning / window manager etc.