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screen flicker when copying files

Ever since upgrading to Lion. When draging a file from a folder to create a copy on my desktop I get a sudden video style tear/flicker on my screen. It only happens once and only when I release the mouse button after dragging the file to my desktop.


Anyone else get this?

MBP 2011 15, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jul 26, 2011 12:52 PM

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33 replies

Nov 2, 2011 11:42 AM in response to itaylorweb

I've been having the same issue on both a work system which is a Mid 2010 Dual Quad-Core Mac pro with a GeForce GT 120 graphics card and new 2011 home system which is a 2X6 Core Mac Pro with dual Radeon 5770 cards.. so doubt it's graphics cards as that's 3 different cards all having the same issues. Mine seems to primarily be when copying to my desktop. Always get the flicker as drag over desktop from folder just before dropping.

Jan 24, 2012 11:58 PM in response to chrisheninger

I purchased a macbook pro 13" last week for my staff and it had lion on it. Same problem when drag and drop.. but this time the icon got stuck on the desktop and only a reboot made it go away. It is obviously a Lion issue. what perturbs me why did apple release a buggy OS? apparently lion 10.7.3 might address this issue but this should be tackled in the development stage!!! matter of fact snow leopard is still the best. I'm sorry for those who do not have the option revert (NOT downgrade) back to it.

Feb 5, 2012 8:47 AM in response to nhave

Just noticed this glitch after performing a combo 10.7.3 update on my mid 2010 MBA. No issues on my mid 2011 mini. I noticed that this flicker when dragging files over the desktop only occurs when in native resolution. Lower the screen resolution (looks crappy)....but flicker is gone. Thought about reverting to 10.7.2 (maybe it existed, but I never noticed??) or even backtracking to Snow Leopard (excellent OS). Not looking forward to the exercise, I decided to sleep on it. Here's what fixed it for me: switched to an Apple built in desktop background. Not sure if it's the size of my custom photos or what, but switching to an Apple desktop image works!!


Apple really should respond more in these forums. This sort of thing could drive a person insane trying to determine if it's software, hardware, or.....

Mar 9, 2012 3:27 PM in response to itaylorweb

This has nothing to do with the desktop image. I just got my new MacBook Pro 17" 2.5Ghz 3 days ago - latest model - Radeon 6770 and intel 3000. Background image is the "original" one.


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.


This must be some sort of OS flaw with 10.7.3. Looking forward to a patch since it gives the impression that the OS is unstable/flawed.

Mar 15, 2012 4:40 PM in response to itaylorweb

*BUMP*

i have a 13" Macbook Pro 5,5 (2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR, NVIDIA GeForce 9400M 256 MB, Mac OS X Lion 10.7.3 (11D50)) and have the same problem. It happens during the animation of the icon as it switches its orientation, format, etc. This is a new feature of Finder and apparently they have bugs in the graphics accelleration code (my Mac is one of those with noisey GPUs where you can hear high pitched noises from the left beneath the keyboard). The animation doesn't make much sense sometimes because the text wrapping changes depending on where the icon is placed. In fact, sometimes the animation is pointless because the icon changes into the same thing it was already. The glitches look like video buffer junk (small multi-colored rectangles with maybe ASCII-like junk?? it's too fast to really see) and flashes of the icons already on the desktop (flashing randomly around on the desktop) and the one being dragged. It's quite distracting.


EDIT: i just upgraded to Lion a couple days ago. Never had problems with Snow Leopard.


(you gotta be kidding me... this forum disables default Safari context menus and spell check? this is the APPLE forum, so you'd think it would behave with Safari)


Message was edited: added detail.

Mar 16, 2012 3:08 PM in response to Jace Cavacini

I am having the same troubles here too. It was happening before I updated to 10.7.3 but for some reason it stopped. But now after the update to 10.7.3 it is happening again. Weird though, it's only happening on one of my two monitors, the one that is hooked up by dvi. The other monitor is vga to mini display port and does not have any flickering when dropping files onto the desktop. I may need to buy a dvi to mini display port adaptor and try that out.

Mar 20, 2012 3:27 AM in response to itaylorweb

Yes, I've also seen the same kind of flicker since upgrading to Lion when dragging a file from an open Finder window to the Desktop

Only started using Lion 10.7.3 last week booting from a separate internal disk. Never saw this happen using 10.6.x on the same machine:

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


That is some weird flickering - like a graphics card memory is getting filled with some random garbage.

Wondering if having VMWare Fusion 4.1.1 installed has anything to do with it

screen flicker when copying files

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