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Flickering on Netflix after Sierra update

Since updating my MBP 13 yesterday there is a massive amount of flickering when watching Netflix in full screen mode. Updating Silverlight did not resolve the problem.

Has anyone a possible solution for this?

Thanks

MacBook Pro with Retina display, iOS 10

Posted on Sep 22, 2016 1:54 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Feb 21, 2017 5:05 AM

Because it has been more than 2 months since I observed the problem and I reported it via Apple feedback, but it is still unsolved, I decided to contact AppleCare.

They were very helpful and friendly, and they finally identified the problem:

The flickering appears only when the subtitles are on and it happens every time the subtitles appear on the screen. If you disable the subtitles, or if you watch a scene which has no subtitles, there is no flickering.

They told me that they are working on this and it will be fixed in a future update of macOS. They were not able to specify if it will be fixed in the next update or afterwards, but it will be fixed after all.

Fingers crossed. 🙂

82 replies

Oct 5, 2016 4:24 PM in response to plantbased

I have the same problem. I tried reset NVRAM and SMC, but nothing works. It seems to work when the mouse is on the top bar as mentioned in the coms. Also, did someone notice that the screen luminosity seems to flick a bit and that the image flickering seems like when we use to rewind a vhs.


I have a Macbook pro retina early 2015 13 with macOS 10.12 and safari 10.0 (but seems not related to safari, use the bug occur on Chrome as well)

Oct 8, 2016 10:25 PM in response to plantbased

Same problem. MacBook 12" early 2015, macOS Sierra. Flickering with Safari and Chrome in full screen, not with Firefox. I'm having both problems:

Duplicate picture with wiping effect from side to side for a fraction of a second, then back to normal for a while.

Luminosity flickering, a bit harder to notice, but I'm pretty sure I'm having it.

Can be "fixed" by pointing mouse up to show top bar.


I haven't seen much MacBook 12" users to complain about this, anyone else than me?

Oct 9, 2016 2:29 AM in response to relonnro

@plasticdoughnut Let us know if you are able to do this test!


@plantbased Unfortunately not so far I'd love to switch back and have one less program installed.


@relonnro That's interesting, we haven't heard about this issue on a MacBook.


Summary of what we've got so far:


Issue


- Netflix flickering

- Netflix videos rewind like a VHS for about a second

- Happens in medium intervals, from 30 seconds up to 2 minutes

- Happens exclusively on Safari and on Chrome fullscreen

- Moving the mouse to the top of the screen to show the menu bar (hence not being full screen)

- In some devices, changing the resolution from "default for display" to "scaled" and selecting something different than default removes flickering

- Reboot in recovery mode, NVRAM reset and SMC reset didn't work

- Only "solution" so far has been playing on Firefox

- Affects mostly 2015 MacBook Pros, but we have reports of 2015 MacBooks (12-inch) and 2011 MacBook Pros (13-inch, non-retina)


Discussion threads


- Random screen flickering while watching videos.

- Full-screen Netflix video playback bug???

- Re: Flickering on Netflix after Sierra update

- Re: flickering screen while playing netflix


Reported devices with the issue


- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) (Awesomedude415)

- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015, 128GB SSD) (grpires)

- MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch) (teamkillerkk)

- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) (Shinigami195)

- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015, 128GB SSD) (plantbased)

- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015, 512GB SSD) (gabrillo)

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

- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) (rfr.ferreira)

- MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015, 256GB SSD) (plasticdoughnut)

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

- MacBook (Retina, 12-inch, Early 2015)

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

- MacBook Pro (Non-retina, 15-inch, 2011) (broncodude37)

Flickering on Netflix after Sierra update

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