kenofstephen

Q: Macbook 2016 HDMI output flickering

I have both MacBook 2015 and MacBook 2016,

 

and I've purchased the original Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter.

 

I've loaded both MacBooks with genuine copies of Windows 10 Pro with bootcamp, partition cut into half between Mac OS and Windows 10.

 

The new MacBook 2016, while doing screen cloning using the Multiport Adapter under Windows 10,

 

the output always flickers, and the pattern is always consistent:

 

1.) Waking up from sleep, always flickers once;

2.) And then will at least flickers 2-3 times more;

 

It doesn't happen with the MacBook 2015,

 

is this is hardware design flaw of the new MacBook 2016?? Or is it a software (driver) issue?

 

All drivers are being updated to the latest.

MacBook, Windows 10

Posted on Jul 17, 2016 9:32 PM

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Q: Macbook 2016 HDMI output flickering

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  • by adam_m,

    adam_m adam_m Aug 16, 2016 1:41 AM in response to mr.olof
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 16, 2016 1:41 AM in response to mr.olof

    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

  • by khadley,

    khadley khadley Aug 21, 2016 6:01 AM in response to adam_m
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 21, 2016 6:01 AM in response to adam_m

    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

  • by ambanmba,

    ambanmba ambanmba Aug 22, 2016 4:36 PM in response to kenofstephen
    Level 1 (13 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 22, 2016 4:36 PM in response to kenofstephen

    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

     

    Screen Shot 2016-08-22 at 18.26.20.pngScreen Shot 2016-08-22 at 18.26.45.pngScreen Shot 2016-08-22 at 18.27.41.png

  • by TreyMoczy,

    TreyMoczy TreyMoczy Aug 22, 2016 6:29 PM in response to ambanmba
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 22, 2016 6:29 PM in response to 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.

  • by adam_m,

    adam_m adam_m Aug 22, 2016 10:58 PM in response to ambanmba
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 22, 2016 10:58 PM in response to ambanmba

    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

  • by kenofstephen,

    kenofstephen kenofstephen Aug 23, 2016 12:45 AM in response to ambanmba
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 23, 2016 12:45 AM in response to ambanmba

    Hi ambanmba,

     

    I don't have any issues with Mac OS,

    only have troubles with Windows 10 during sleep -> wakeup,

    renaming/disabling those files in Mac OS would help the situation??

  • by marinerblue,

    marinerblue marinerblue Aug 23, 2016 7:45 AM in response to ambanmba
    Level 1 (12 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 23, 2016 7:45 AM in response to ambanmba

    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

  • by ambanmba,

    ambanmba ambanmba Aug 23, 2016 5:01 PM in response to kenofstephen
    Level 1 (13 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 23, 2016 5:01 PM in response to kenofstephen

    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.

  • by jw81,

    jw81 jw81 Aug 25, 2016 11:33 AM in response to kenofstephen
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 25, 2016 11:33 AM in response to kenofstephen

    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!

  • by Dr.Mac.,

    Dr.Mac. Dr.Mac. Aug 25, 2016 2:39 PM in response to kenofstephen
    Level 3 (616 points)
    Aug 25, 2016 2:39 PM in response to kenofstephen

    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.

  • by AurelioB90,

    AurelioB90 AurelioB90 Aug 25, 2016 4:26 PM in response to kenofstephen
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 25, 2016 4:26 PM in response to kenofstephen

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

  • by AurelioB90,

    AurelioB90 AurelioB90 Aug 25, 2016 4:32 PM in response to AurelioB90
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 25, 2016 4:32 PM in response to AurelioB90

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

  • by jw81,

    jw81 jw81 Aug 25, 2016 4:52 PM in response to kenofstephen
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 25, 2016 4:52 PM in response to kenofstephen

    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.

  • by ambanmba,

    ambanmba ambanmba Aug 25, 2016 5:03 PM in response to Dr.Mac.
    Level 1 (13 points)
    Notebooks
    Aug 25, 2016 5:03 PM in response to Dr.Mac.

    "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

  • by kenofstephen,

    kenofstephen kenofstephen Aug 25, 2016 10:35 PM in response to ambanmba
    Level 1 (27 points)
    Apple TV
    Aug 25, 2016 10:35 PM in response to ambanmba

    Hi ambanmba,

     

    Thanks for updating us.

     

    Well, actually I got 4 different adapters (1 Apple's + 3 of other brand names)

     

    and they all having the same issue.

     

    YES! It's the problem of the MacBook 12" 2016 because they work fine with MacBook 12" 2015!

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