OSX Yosemite flickering colors on MBP Retina

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Level 1

7 points

OSX Yosemite flickering colors on MBP Retina

I have a recently bought 13" MacBook Pro Retina. I've been using it for my work which is mainly web development, so I have a bunch of tools that I had to set up.

On its second week of use (8-9hrs a day), there has been some intermittent flickering colored bars on the screen. Im not sure how to trigger the buggy behavior exactly, it just seems random. Sometimes it would appear on the log-in screen, sometimes in the middle of doing something. It affects the entire screen rather than an app window.

Things Ive tried:

I tried resetting NVRAM, running Apple hardware test, etc.. everything passed.
I've uninstalled some apps that I previously had suspicions of (Photoshop, Lightroom, Microsoft Lync for Mac 2011), to no avail.
I've plugged an external display (HDMI to DVI) to isolate the problem. As soon as the macbook screen refreshes to extend the display to the connected monitor, the flickering colors disappear. If I remove the HDMI connector, the flickering colors come back. So basically, I haven't been able to reproduce the behavior on an external display, but at the same time, it does not happen on the Macbook display when connected to a 2nd monitor. I assumed tat the macbook display itself is not faulty, since the bug goes away when I connect a 2nd monitor. Plus, the earliest time I encounter it when the macbook is on is on the log-in screen, so I assume it might be software-related (bug does not appear when on recovery mode too)

Took it to Apple service center and they just reinstalled the OS, and the bug went away, at least based on their observation. But now, after setting up my tools again, I've encountered it again. Anyone else had a similar experience? I don't want to go back to the service center without trying to understand the bug more, since I'm sure they would just reinstall the OS again.

Software that I installed:

From Appstore:

XCode

Downloaded From Identified Developers:

Homebrew

MongoDB

NodeJS

Atlassian Sourcetree

Sublime Text 2

Skype

Google Drive App

From Unidentified Developers (I had to manually allow installation on System Preferences):

Lync for Mac 2011 (Uninstalled and cleaned up files since bug appeared)

Below are the details of my Macbook:

Model Name: MacBook Pro

Model Identifier: MacBookPro12,1

Processor Name: Intel Core i5

Processor Speed: 2.7 GHz

Graphics: Intel Iris Graphics 6100 1536 MB

Number of Processors: 1

Total Number of Cores: 2

L2 Cache (per Core): 256 KB

L3 Cache: 3 MB

Memory: 8 GB

Boot ROM Version: MBP121.0167.B07

SMC Version (system): 2.28f7

MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch,Early 2015)

Posted on Sep 3, 2015 6:03 PM

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Answer 1

mbpuserph Author

Level 1

7 points

Sep 3, 2015 6:09 PM in response to mbpuserph

One more thing, when I try to get a screen shot of it while it's happening, it goes away. I've tried this several times already, once the drag cursor for the screen capture appears, the flickering colors go away.

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Answer 2

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Sep 3, 2015 7:31 PM in response to mbpuserph

When you see the display artifact, note the exact time: hour, minute, second.

These instructions must be carried out as an administrator. If you have only one user account, you are the administrator.

Launch the Console application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

The title of the Console window should be All Messages. If it isn't, select

SYSTEM LOG QUERIES ▹ All Messages

from the log list on the left. If you don't see that list, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar at the top of the screen.

Each message in the log begins with the date and time when it was entered. Scroll back to the time you noted above.

Select the messages entered from then until the end of the episode, or until they start to repeat, whichever comes first.

Copy the messages to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. Paste into a reply to this message by pressing command-V.

The log contains a vast amount of information, almost all of it useless for solving any particular problem. When posting a log extract, be selective. A few dozen lines are almost always more than enough.

Please don't indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Please don't post screenshots of log messages—post the text.

Some private information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting.

When you post the log extract, you might see an error message on the web page: "You have included content in your post that is not permitted," or "The message contains invalid characters." That's a bug in the forum software. Please post the text on Pastebin, then post a link here to the page you created.

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Answer 3

mbpuserph Author

Level 1

7 points

Sep 3, 2015 8:32 PM in response to Linc Davis

Hi Linc, thanks for your advice. I have followed your instructions, on the exact time that the display bug appears, I can't see any log on the Console. I've encountered the behavior several times since I've opened up Console, but on the exact second, there's no log entry.

Also, an updated observation, I was able to take a screen cap while it happens, the image I got does not show the glitch. This makes me sad as all it tells me is that it manifests in the display only.

Are there any more possible reasons why the screen capture did not get it, but it was evident on my screen?

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Answer 4

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Sep 3, 2015 9:13 PM in response to mbpuserph

You've ruled out everything except a hardware fault.

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Answer 5

mbpuserph Author

Level 1

7 points

Sep 3, 2015 9:47 PM in response to Linc Davis

Yeah, what doesn't make sense is on a freshly reinstalled OS, it does not occur. That's what Apple service center claimed after putting it to a few days of "stress tests", but I never had the incident during the first couple of days of getting my Macbook back either.

The behavior resurfaced a day after I installed Lync for Mac 2011, but I've uninstalled it since. I'd hate to bring this again to Apple service guys since they would just reinstall the OS and claim there's no hardware fault. After that, the behavior's back to normal, can't argue with the results.

I'll keep on observing, I might be missing something.

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Answer 6

mbpuserph Author

Level 1

7 points

Sep 4, 2015 4:24 PM in response to mbpuserph

I narrowed it down to one specific scenario where the flickering colored boxes appear and disappear.

When I hot-plug an external display (HDMI to DVI), the flickering boxes go away. I never encounter them when in multiple monitor mode.

If I unplug the HDMI, the flickering appears, sometimes instantaneously, other times after a few minutes. But as soon as I plug in the monitor, the flickering goes away.

I tried shutting down the macbook before unplugging the display. Still doesn't fix the problem.

Tried removing the color profiles created when I plugged in the monitor. Still doesn't fix the problem.

Safe Boot runs perfectly normal - no flickering.

Booting to Internet Recovery is normal too.

Is there any way that my external monitor somehow hijacked display controllers on my Macbook? Reinstalling the OS once fixed the problem so Im guessing it's still all just software. Also, can't recall encountering the color flickers before the first time I hot-plugged the monitor.

My monitor is HP w1907, connected via HDMI to DVI.

Thoughts?

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