2019 MacBook Pro Screen Glitches

[SamAaro]

Hello.
Last month I bought a brand new MacBook Pro 2019 from the Apple Store.
It’s only a few weeks old and hardly used.

Today I lifted the lid to wake it from sleep and I saw about a 1inch high strip of screen glitches across the length of the bottom of the screen (also about 1 inch up).

It’s 13-inch, 2019 2x Thunderbolt 3 ports.
It’s running macOS Mojave 10.14.6.
8GB Memory with 1.4 GHz i5 and 256 SSD.

Are there any known issues?
At the moment I can’t seem to reproduce it. But it worries me that it happened as this laptop replaced my old MBP 2011 that suffered a faulty GPU.

Any help or advice would be great.
Thank you for your time.

 

[0906742]

There is a thread in this forum about this problem. Update to Catalina and it will likely fix the problem. If not take it back.

 

[SamAaro]

Thank you for the comment.

Just to follow up for anyone else who’s researching this issue, this thread describes the same issue.

I wasn’t able to capture it when waking from sleep, but here it is happening in Safari:

And here is the frame of what is displayed when using software:

I visited an Apple Store today and they said it’s likely a software issue rather than hardware and updating it would probably solve it.
However they did offer me an exchange for peace of mind which I gladly accepted and truly appreciate.

If you’re experiencing this issue, I recommend trying to catch it on video and take your MacBook into an Apple Store.
I can never fault Apple’s customer service.

 

[Pukar Sh]

i have the same model..no issue on mine.

 

[iMacDragon]

I get occasional flashes in safari on my 2018, been meaning to record and try to examine..

 

[0906742]

I get occasional flashes in safari on my 2018, been meaning to record and try to examine..

Have you tested Catalina yet (or do you see them happening with Catalina too)?

 

[iMacDragon]

Been no change on my occasional flashes, only notice them in safari to date.

 

[0906742]

Thank you for the comment.

Just to follow up for anyone else who’s researching this issue, this thread describes the same issue.

I wasn’t able to capture it when waking from sleep, but here it is happening in Safari:

I was referring to this long thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mb-pro-13-2019-display-artifacts.2194399/
The one you linked seem to have similar issue in the first photo but the second one I never seen happening with mine, so that might have had two issues where one could or not be something else than just OS issue.

Anyway, I had the same looking glitches sporadically as OP had in the thread I linked (like once every 1-2 weeks). After I update to Catalina, I haven't seen it happening.

I visited an Apple Store today and they said it’s likely a software issue rather than hardware and updating it would probably solve it.
However they did offer me an exchange for peace of mind which I gladly accepted and truly appreciate.

If you’re experiencing this issue, I recommend trying to catch it on video and take your MacBook into an Apple Store.
I can never fault Apple’s customer service.

That was generous from them but did you actually get a brand new unit, or just refurbished one?
I guess it is hard to tell the difference but if it was not full sealed retail box with the photo of the product and with all accessories, I think it must have been refurbished.

Also if you want to make sure it was hardware and not OS issue, you should keep running you replacement with Mojave at least as long as you had the original one, since if you right away update the new one to Catalina, you probably never see that glitch again and would think it was about hardware while it might (most likely) have been from OS...
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Been no change on my occasional flashes, only notice them in safari to date.

Do they look exactly like in the thread I linked and so that they sporadically and rarely happen (like once every 1-2 weeks) and last like split of a second at the time?
I mean there are also real hardware problems that can and will cause many kind of flickering issues and it is important to to find out which one it is. Since Catalina did not make any(?) difference it is likely something else in your case than just OS issue.

 

[SamAaro]

I was referring to this long thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/mb-pro-13-2019-display-artifacts.2194399/
The one you linked seem to have similar issue in the first photo but the second one I never seen happening with mine, so that might have had two issues where one could or not be something else than just OS issue.

Anyway, I had the same looking glitches sporadically as OP had in the thread I linked (like once every 1-2 weeks). After I update to Catalina, I haven't seen it happening.


That was generous from them but did you actually get a brand new unit, or just refurbished one?
I guess it is hard to tell the difference but if it was not full sealed retail box with the photo of the product and with all accessories, I think it must have been refurbished.

Also if you want to make sure it was hardware and not OS issue, you should keep running you replacement with Mojave at least as long as you had the original one, since if you right away update the new one to Catalina, you probably never see that glitch again and would think it was about hardware while it might (most likely) have been from OS...
[automerge]1572875512[/automerge]

Do they look exactly like in the thread I linked and so that they sporadically and rarely happen (like once every 1-2 weeks) and last like split of a second at the time?
I mean there are also real hardware problems that can and will cause many kind of flickering issues and it is important to to find out which one it is. Since Catalina did not make any(?) difference it is likely something else in your case than just OS issue.

It was definitely a brand new unit. It was factory sealed and the whole thing was refunded and resold at retail price. They ever restarted my Apple Care from the beginning
Very generous of them.

I used my time machine to get everything back and will continue to use Mojave for a few weeks before updating. Just to see.

I do have a new issue though. My lid seems slightly loose.
If I hold the closed laptop upright (so the hinge is resting on the desk) the lid opens a few mm by itself. Is this normal?

 

[0906742]

It was definitely a brand new unit. It was factory sealed and the whole thing was refunded and resold at retail price. They ever restarted my Apple Care from the beginning
Very generous of them.

OK, I see. Definitely then brand new unit you got.

I used my time machine to get everything back and will continue to use Mojave for a few weeks before updating. Just to see.

Good idea. Please report back here your findings. I'm pretty sure you'll see it again with your new unit until you update it to Catalina, if the flickering with your first unit was the same what I had.

I do have a new issue though. My lid seems slightly loose.
If I hold the closed laptop upright (so the hinge is resting on the desk) the lid opens a few mm by itself. Is this normal?

No. But it is might be hard to find a unit that has absolutely nothing to complain about. Mine has some marks on the bottom case, uneven trackpad and pretty low battery run time (does drop FCC under load often) but it has nice display without any backlight bleeding and pretty even colour across the screen so I did not want to take a another risk in the "screen lottery".

 

[oldtime]

Have the same issues. Updated to Catalina and it nearly bricked my device. Spent half a day fixing everything to just get back to square one since Time Machine, like Catalina, is also a fickle bitch. I think I'll stick it out with the screen glitches for a few more months until a more stable version of Cat is out. Should know better than to upgrade before a .3 release at this point.

 

[0906742]

I haven’t got any real problems with Catalina. Only positive experience so far, just downloading it was painfully slow. Solved problem with rare screen glitches.

 

[SamAaro]

Well, unfortunately my brand new replacement is also flickering now too.
In fact this is worse than the machine I took back a couple of weeks ago.

That's 2x 2019 MacBook Pros in 5 weeks.

The question is, do I return it again? or upgrade to Catalina?
It infuriates me that a £2000 machine does this.

 

[0906742]

Well, unfortunately my brand new replacement is also flickering now too.
In fact this is worse than the machine I took back a couple of weeks ago.

That's 2x 2019 MacBook Pros in 5 weeks.

The question is, do I return it again? or upgrade to Catalina?
It infuriates me that a £2000 machine does this.

I'm pretty sure you'll see it again with your new unit until you update it to Catalina, if the flickering with your first unit was the same what I had.

Just like I told you earlier (see quote above) you will like have the same issue with your new unit because this is caused by sw bug. So just update to Catalina and I’m pretty sure you will not see the glitches again. Please report back your findings after you tested Catalina?

 

[Jordi Farràs Mañé]

I haven’t got any real problems with Catalina. Only positive experience so far, just downloading it was painfully slow. Solved problem with rare screen glitches.

any new flickering during these days?

 

[Vivicute1234]

Same thing goes for me. the day I bought my mac book pro 2019 it glitched the first day on the side. how do I update Catalina?

 

[0906742]

any new flickering during these days?

Nothing so far! Catalina fixed that completely for me.

BTW. Sorry for delay, I don't know how I did not notice your post before.

Same thing goes for me. the day I bought my mac book pro 2019 it glitched the first day on the side. how do I update Catalina?

Click the Apple logo on the upper left and select first menu item there and you should find up update software button there.