Macbook 2016 HDMI output flickering

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.

I'm having the same issue, and its incredibly frustrating. If my laptop was less than 30 days old I'd return it. Hopefully someone figures out a fix soon. If anyone figures anything out pease let us all know!

The Issue :External monitor attached to the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter causes flickering.

My Analysis : When an external monitor is connected, the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter sends more than one Hot Plug Detect interrupts. Also, when the external monitor is turned off, the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter occasionally does not communicate any Hot Plug Detect interrupts and fails to re-establish the connection when the monitor is actually turned on. The Hot Plug Detect feature is a communication mechanism that makes the source device aware that it has been connected/disconnected to/from the sink device. When the HDMI cable is inserted between the devices, the resulting hot-plug detection instantiates a start-up communication sequence. The Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter takes some time to address these multiple Hot Plug Detect interrupts which may cause flickering on the external monitor. No workaround is available for this issue.

Is anyone else using Google Chrome when the screen flickers? If I close it completely (including chrome apps), the problem seems to stop.

Never mind, I got it again, but its a lot less frequent. I think it has to do with resource intensive tasks

I've gotten it after a fresh restart with nothing running. From my experience it doesn't seem like theres a correlation between running tasks and this problem.

"No workaround is available for this issue."

The workaround is to reboot the machine. Surely whatever gets cleared/reset in a reboot could be cleared/reset at other times as well?

Also, this doesn't only happen with the Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter, I also have a Minix Neo C (http://minix.com.hk/en/products/neo-c-usb-c-multiport-adapter) which has exactly the same symptoms under the same circumstances. (Indeed, I bought this second adapter to see if it would solve the problem). This makes me think that the problem is in the computer, not the adapter.

Anyway, I've sent another series of log files to Apple with all 3rd party stuff disabled. Hopefully they will realise it's at their end and start getting on with identifying a root cause.

-ambanmba

You guys should all be opening service tickets with Apple. You can maybe even reference mine (Apple Care Case 1184045304) or this forum. I don't think they read this forum and unless they get a bunch of people complaining this issue may not float to the top of the priority list. The guys at the local Apple Store claim they've never heard of the problem and it wasn't until I escalated through a few levels of support that they started paying closer attention.

-ambanmba