Macbook 2016 HDMI output flickering

I also got this problem.

Have tested with two different macbook 2016 with the official apple usb-c -> hdmi adapter and the problem is the same on both. Everything is up-to-date(10.11.6 osx and 2.33 on multiport although under graphics it says 2.35?).

A full restart or/and PRAM works until next sleep as stated from others aswell.

My screen is a Samsung S27C650 with resolution 1920x1080 and i only have the screen on the external monitor.

Hope apple can figure out a solution soon, kind of annoying when the screen goes black for a sec.

I dont know if its even related but my external screen also got blurry text everywhere.
Ran defaults -currentHost write -globalDomain AppleFontSmoothing -int 2 but it did minor improvments.

Has anyone else noticed that if you tolerate the display issues after several hours it leads to general instability, hang ups and you end up having to force reboot anyway? I've had it a few times now. It's wildly annoying. Think I might speak to Apple about it tomorrow as it's impacting usage pretty significantly.

I know Apple fixed a memory bug in 10.11.5(which really annoyed me) so if you dont run the latest version i would suggest you update.

You can run "top -o cpu" in a terminal to identify which application is stealing cpu-power, if its idle and you still got problem, then there might be a memory issue. Could be related to bad drivers if you are not using the official multiport.

Back to your question, no, atleast i havent experienced any symptoms that you describe yet. Maybe others could verify their experience to see if you need to open another case to Apple about it.

Apple has now sent me a program called Timing Snoop which does all sorts of detailed logging on the video settings. They had me delete the following files:

com.apple.windowserver.plist (in Macintosh HD\Library\Preferences\)

com.apple.windowserver.*.plist (in user\Library\Preferences\ByHost\)

They also had me reset the PRAM.

I then rebooted and triggered the flashing screen problem then ran Timing Snoop, then rebooted (thereby solving the flashing screen issue) and ran Timing Snoop again and I then sent them the log files.

I also did a file compare on the two log files and you can see that there is a definite difference in the driver timings. This is good because it brings us a step closer to solving the issue (we just need to figure out what is causing the incorrect driver timings).

To whet your appetite, attached is a screen grab from comparing the two files. The "Flashings" settings on the left and the working settings on the right. There is actually a lot more that is different, but this gives some insight into the issue.

-ambanmba

Thanks for sharing with us and updating Apple about the issue.

Hope to hear a solution soon 🙂

Anyone running the Sierra beta? Wondering/hoping perhaps it's a non issue there? It's really tarnishing my love for the new laptop :-(

Cheers,

A

I was hoping installing the Open Beta would fix the screen flickering issue. On some Monitors and Computers I get a screen slide as if I am switching between different spaces but is the same screen.

So far this does not fix the issue but it does not make it worse

Ok.... so getting a bit warmer now. Apple has asked me to rename the following folders:

Macintosh HD\Library\LaunchAgents

Macintosh HD\Library\LaunchDaemons

Macintosh HD\Users\[myusername]\Library\LaunchAgents

This has the effect of disabling some software on the reboot. I'm happy to report that doing this solved the problem. The bad news, of course, is that this means that I have to now figure out which piece of software is causing the problem.

I've attached screen shots of what's in my directories. Would be interesting to know which ones you guys have so we can narrow down the culprit. Would be also good to know which ones you DONT have as it will help narrow it down even more.

-ambanmba

Appreciate you trying to solve this...actually just searched this today as I noticed the problem yesterday (first time using an external with my rMB). Pretty crazy coincidence this was posted today.

Unhappy to report that I had no overlap with hardly any of the files included in your LaunchAgents, LaunchDameons, and User/Libarary/LaunchAgents folders. Literally the only overlap was the 2 microsoft files in LaunchDameons, and the com.google.keystone.agent.plist file in Macintosh HD\Users\[myusername]\Library\LaunchAgents.

These are both from very reputable sources....but I suppose there's a chance it could be the culprit? I have not disabled them on my machine YET.

Here are mine:

Adams-MacBook:Library AdamM$ ls -al LaunchAgents

drwxr-xr-x 5 root wheel 170 13 Aug 15:08 .

drwxr-xr-x+ 61 root wheel 2074 16 Aug 10:39 ..

-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 588 29 Jun 2009 com.epson.epw.agent.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 668 6 Jul 11:15 com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 779 6 Jul 11:15 com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist

Adams-MacBook:Library AdamM$ ls -al LaunchDaemons

drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 16 Aug 10:39 .

drwxr-xr-x+ 61 root wheel 2074 16 Aug 10:39 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 653 16 Aug 09:54 com.bombich.ccchelper.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 657 9 Jul 08:42 com.microsoft.office.licensingV2.helper.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 655 24 Jan 2016 com.tclementdev.timemachineeditor.scheduler.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 544 6 Jul 11:15 com.teamviewer.Helper.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 611 6 Jul 11:15 com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist

lrwxr-xr-x 1 root wheel 76 3 Aug 00:24 org.virtualbox.startup.plist -> ../Application Support/VirtualBox/LaunchDaemons/org.virtualbox.startup.plist

Adams-MacBook:Library AdamM$ cd

Adams-MacBook:~ AdamM$ ls -al Library/LaunchAgents

drwxr-xr-x 3 AdamM staff 102 3 Aug 10:18 .

drwx------@ 57 AdamM staff 1938 4 Aug 18:36 ..

-rw-r--r--@ 1 AdamM staff 802 3 Aug 10:18 com.google.keystone.agent.plist

Not necessarily a lot of overlap, but here are the files in those directories from my 2016 MacBook, which exhibits the same flickering monitor issue:

ls -al /Library/LaunchDaemons/

total 48

drwxr-xr-x 8 root wheel 272 Jul 29 14:38 .

drwxr-xr-x+ 64 root wheel 2176 Jul 19 10:53 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 474 Jul 11 11:38 com.adobe.ARMDC.Communicator.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 486 Jul 11 11:38 com.adobe.ARMDC.SMJobBlessHelper.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 462 Jun 28 20:37 com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 818 Jul 11 20:48 com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 568 Aug 25 2010 com.microsoft.office.licensing.helper.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 618 Sep 18 2015 com.xrite.device.xrdd.plist

ls -al /Library/LaunchAgents/

total 32

drwxr-xr-x 6 root wheel 204 Aug 10 21:47 .

drwxr-xr-x+ 64 root wheel 2176 Jul 19 10:53 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 577 Jul 11 11:38 com.adobe.ARMDCHelper.cc24aef4a1b90ed56a725c38014c95072f92651fb65e1bf9c8e43c37a 23d420d.plist

-rw-r--r--@ 1 root wheel 792 Jul 11 20:48 com.google.keystone.agent.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 691 Aug 5 20:21 com.logitech.manager.daemon.plist

-rw-r--r-- 1 root wheel 645 Sep 18 2015 com.xrite.device.softwareupdate.plist

ls -al ~/Library/LaunchAgents/

total 8

drwxr-xr-x 3 marinerblue staff 102 May 24 18:36 .

drwx------@ 62 marinerblue staff 2108 Jun 17 11:04 ..

-rw-r--r-- 1 root staff 448 Jul 11 14:38 com.lastpass.LastPassHelper.plist

Sorry... false alarm. The flickering is back even with the empty LaunchAgents and LaunchDaemons... I guess the good news about this is that it's still an "Apple" problem and they can't just blame 3rd party software.