16": Intermittent washed out screen after unlock, also nightshift

[Glenny2lappies]

Had the 16" for nearly two weeks now and am getting less impressed as time goes on.

When unlocking the screen - work in an office, so a common occurrence -- I've had the MBP screen go all washed out, like I've completely reduced the contrast. The Thunderbolt "Cinema display" is fine. Running System Preferences / Displays / Colour and selecting one of the profiles doesn't fix it. Have to sleep the machine and restart. I've had this three times thus far.

I'm now noticing the NightShift affect, changing the colour temperature intermittently. In a bright office it occasionally flickers.

One thing I do have is a privacy shutter over the camera. I hope Apple are not using the camera to detect the ambient light.

Using it in a meeting the other day the keyboard and mouse completely locked up. The touch bar worked, but the trackpad and keyboard didn't work. Had to shut the lid, wait for a while and then it worked again.

Obviously it's got the popping sound malarkey. Stop/start a video and it pops.


Unrelated; this is a space grey machine. I've had sliver Macs since 2004 and every one of them looks as new, even my trusty old 17" machine. This space grey machine already has scratches and it's awful for showing smudges and looking quite dirty. If I didn't know any better, it looks as if the anodising on the 16" is far inferior to the anodising on all of their older machines (I skipped the 'new' 15" machines as I couldn't stand the keyboard -- bought one and gave it to the wife).

 

[7even]

MacBooks don’t use cameras to detect ambient light, but the ambient light sensor is close to the camera, to the right of the light. Make sure your cover doesn’t accidentally cover this sensor as well.

NightShift should hold the colors constant during specific time ranges so any flickering is probably just software issues (as well as the washed out display probably). Generally Catalina has felt a bit buggy for me so I expect all this to get better over time.

As far as the space gray finish, I had a space gray 15” for several years and this finish will look just fine as long as you keep it clean and don’t wear metal on your hands/wrists when using it (which would affect either finish anyway). Smudges yes, but that’s a function of color rather than differences in finish IMO.

 

[Lobwedgephil]

Your "privacy shutter" could very well be casing a lot of those issues, as those sensors are very close to the camera.

 

[seangrimes590]

I've been having the occasional issue with the color changing after unlocking / waking from sleep however selecting a different color profile and going back to the original one always solves it. I haven't noticed any night shift issues myself but I've seen a few other complaints on this with the 16" and 15" which seems to indicate a catalina issue.

 

[mightyjabba]

I think most of these are Catalina issues to be frank. I've had the washed out screen thing once and I don't have the webcam covered. I don't think the space gray should be THAT much different in durability. My 2016 MacBook Pro still looks like new.

 

[Glenny2lappies]

Cortana^H^H^H Catalina feels like a beta release that's not finished yet. TBH I'd prefer to have stayed on Mojave but I'm not sure it'll work on the 16" -- and in any case how would it be installed?

This morning when coming in to the office early for a phone call, I plugged my 16" MBP into the two USB-C cables for power and the cinema display and it went into an endless loop of 'flash' 'blank' 'black' repeat over a 5 second cycle. Disconnecting the cinema display brought up the screen on the MBP. Connecting it again went back into that cycle.

So I've just done a technique normally reserved for Microsoft... turned it off and back on again. Working now.

So many niggles with this machine. I'm feeling like I'm a beta tester.

 

[jerryk]

Catalina or later are the only OS versions supported on the 16".

 

[Glenny2lappies]

Catalina or later are the only OS versions supported on the 16".

Pity. Hopefully we'll have a working version before they inflict the next half-baked "update" to the OS next September.
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Serious one... I've noticed that my laptop, when sitting in my bag overnight, seems to be consuming power. Last night I left the office late, disconnected from the power, etc. and put it in my bag. This morning the machine's warm and only 37% left in the battery.

This is very worrying as the bag, obviously, has no ventilation and the temperature will rise.

 

[Hakiroto]

I have mine connected to an external 4K LG monitor (Thunderbolt to DisplayPort) and a couple of times over the past week I woke the MacBook and the colours were super pale and washed out. I pulled the cable, put it back, and it was fine. Guessing it's software and that it'll be fixed in an upcoming update.

 

[-narcan-]

I've been having the occasional issue with the color changing after unlocking / waking from sleep however selecting a different color profile and going back to the original one always solves it.

Yeah I've been having the same issue, have also been resolving it via changing colour profiles. Think it's a Catalina bug.

 

[spaceballl]

Here just to say that I'm on a 16" MacBook Pro w/ Catalina, and I'm having this issue. I'm of course on the most recent update. Catalina has been the worst version of OS X for me in a LONG TIME. SO MUCH NONSENSE. My Chromebook is more reliable.

 

[Alex W.]

can you take a photo and screenshot of this?

 

[MrGimper]

can you take a photo and screenshot of this?

A screenshot will be a dump of the video memory and highly unlikely to show any screen effect of this. And I'd imagine a photo would be at the mercy of the camera's sensor/light/colour adjustments.

 

[Glenny2lappies]

This contrast issue - either way, either too little contrast (washed out) or too much contrast (dark, heavy) is quite intermittent - now once a month or more (it's now May) - and always happens when waking from sleep.

The other problem; Cinema Display blank when waking from sleep (connected using Apple Thuderbolt to USB-C adapter) happens almost daily. Disconnecting and reconnecting the display forces it to re-initialise.

The 16" MBP also reboots about once a month when resuming from sleep.

All of the above looks like driver problems.

 

[spaceballl]

Not sure if this makes you feel better or worse... but I literally have ALL of those same problems, with about the same frequency. My rebooting on resuming from sleep is actually way more common. Once every few days.

 

[jgorman]

This contrast issue - either way, either too little contrast (washed out) or too much contrast (dark, heavy) is quite intermittent - now once a month or more (it's now May) - and always happens when waking from sleep.

The other problem; Cinema Display blank when waking from sleep (connected using Apple Thuderbolt to USB-C adapter) happens almost daily. Disconnecting and reconnecting the display forces it to re-initialise.

The 16" MBP also reboots about once a month when resuming from sleep.

All of the above looks like driver problems.

Regarding the color temperature fluctuations that happen with Night Shift, have you tried the command in this post?

 

[Glenny2lappies]

Not sure if this makes you feel better or worse... but I literally have ALL of those same problems, with about the same frequency. My rebooting on resuming from sleep is actually way more common. Once every few days.

Couldn't possibly upvote you for this. I feel your pain.

In fact the reboot's happened twice in the past 5 days. Getting to the point of making sure the applications are saved and that any VMs are paused prior to leaving it.

Has to be said: $5k for this level of unreliability isn't funny. Definitely never had these kinds of problems with other Apple kit going back 15 years.

 

[simonmet]

If I didn't know any better, it looks as if the anodising on the 16" is far inferior to the anodising on all of their older machines (I skipped the 'new' 15" machines as I couldn't stand the keyboard -- bought one and gave it to the wife).

Your poor wife!

 

[sdp77]

I got a new MBP 16" three days ago and, twice within one hour, while simply browsing the internet, I have already noticed that, suddenly, the frame of Safari turned noticeably bluish and, then, faded back to grey. At first I thought I may have touched the light sensor but I was nowhere near it. I have no stuttering in Safari but, I do have it in the News app.
Is this a hardware issue?

 

[Glenny2lappies]

I got a new MBP 16" three days ago and, twice within one hour, while simply browsing the internet, I have already noticed that, suddenly, the frame of Safari turned noticeably bluish and, then, faded back to grey. At first I thought I may have touched the light sensor but I was nowhere near it. I have no stuttering in Safari but, I do have it in the News app.
Is this a hardware issue?

I think we're all suffering from some obscure driver issue where the hue flickers randomly. I think (that's think, not know) that it's when the light's reducing and maybe triggering the night shift even though it's turned off.

 

[poorcody]

I have this issue occasionally. It only happens when exiting out of sleep (not every time). Switching Color Profiles doesn't always fix it though. Even had it persist through a reboot once.

 

[sau93]

Fixed with 10.5.5? Is it a widespread problem?

 

[zjack]

I've had a MBP 16" for less than a week and have had the faded screen issue a few times. I have the laptop hooked up to a Dell monitor via DisplayPort with a simple USB-C video adaptor from StarTech. Please note that it only affects the MBP's retina display, not the external monitor. The first two times the issue arose I fixed it by unplugging and reinserting the display adaptor, but this time I toggled the True Tone setting off and on under Displays Preferences pane and that fixed it (temporarily, I assume). To me, this suggests that either it is an issue with True Tone or that toggling this setting resets the colour profile as other users have reported as a fix.

I thought it might be helpful to include some photos of the screen with the external monitor for comparison. Hopefully adding this info may help Apple's devs troubleshoot the issue.

Issue pic #1

Issue pic #2


Resolved issue by toggling True Tone off/on (left display now looks more faded by comparison to the MBP screen, but I assure you it remained the same)


I suppose it may also be worth mentioning here for the sake of a keyword search that my MBP 16" was incompatible with my Dell WD15 dock, causing flashing/flickering of my external monitor. I tried HDMI/DisplayPort, every possible setting on the monitor, different USB-C ports and many more fixes until I realised changing to another (unpowered) display adaptor fixed the issue.
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I should add that the MBP 16" had the faded screen issue twice on 10.15.4 and now again today on 10.15.5 so there has not been a fix applied with the update.

 

[graysong]

I've seen this issue occasionally as well. Today I was able to get a good picture documenting the difference. It has always reset after a restart. The top screen is what I saw when I woke the computer, the bottom is after a restart.

 

[Alex W.]

I got a new MBP 16" three days ago and, twice within one hour, while simply browsing the internet, I have already noticed that, suddenly, the frame of Safari turned noticeably bluish and, then, faded back to grey. At first I thought I may have touched the light sensor but I was nowhere near it. I have no stuttering in Safari but, I do have it in the News app.
Is this a hardware issue?

its when the gpu switches, download gswitch and manually toggle the change to see this effect. The I gpu and dgpu aren’t calibrated correctly.