M1/M2 flickering, ghosting with external display [Merged]

[marcosatanaka]

Going to post my issue here to document what happens with my setup.

I have this same issue of vertical lines appearing and the screen flickering. Apparently it happens randomly, and luckily only just three or four times per month. Today it happened when I visited the Slack website using Safari. If I do a LCD Conditioning procedure from my monitor's OSD the issue goes away. But it happens again when I visit the same Slack tab.

My setup:

• MacBook Air M1
• 8GB RAM
• 512GB SDD
• 8-Core GPU
• External Dell P2721Q via USB-C (clamshell mode) running at scaled resolution of 2560x1440 @ 60Hz.

I'm using the USB-C cable that Dell sent with the monitor.

After the issue happens I can even disconnect the laptop and the ghost images remain on the screen. I even connected it to my iPad Pro and the ghosting effect were still there. Unplugging the monitor from the outlet also didn't help. Just after executing the LCD Conditioning procedure I managed to get it to work as it should.

Given the number of different monitors and cables with this problem, I think there is probably something wrong with these machines, or with macOS itself. I captured a sysdiagnose when the problem was happening, and sent it to Apple in a feedback.

 

[rkneipp]

Same here...

M1 Macbook Air + Dell P2721Q

For me turning of true tone seems to have resolved the issue by 99%.. It still happens sometimes.

What I did notice was that when I turned on the lights in my room the flickering started, I was able to reproduce the issue a couple of times by just turning the lights on and off (true tone enabled). Sadly I am not able to reproduce this now but I will try again tomorrow.

Very strange issue indeed.

It worked perfectly for me, it's been a week and no more ghosting.

M1 Mac mini (16GB RAM) -> HDMI -> Dell U2721Q.

 

[M1-Flicker]

Hello Everyone, same problem here, thanks for all your input so far.

I am having the mentioned issues with a Samsung U32R594CWU (32") 4K TFT. The same screens works without problems being connected with a Lenovo Windows PC. The first Apple Support agent advised me to buy cables by Belkin or Moshi. I have ordered a Moshi USB-C to DP, will be arriving tomorrow (my last hope). In the meantime I have tested the following settings:

.- MBA M1 and Samsung U32R594: flickering and stripes, especially when playing videos
- Mac mini M1 and Samsung U32R594: flickering and stripes, especially when playing videos
- MacBook Pro 2018 and Samsung U32R594: no problems
- Samsung U32R594 and Windows PC: no problems
- MBA M1 and Sony Bravia TV: no problems
- MBA M1 and LGUL950-W 32": no problems
- MBA M1 and some Ilyama 4K monitor: no problems
- MBA M1 and some DELL HD Screen: no problems

The problems with the Samsung Screen appear both being connected via USB-C and HDMI (via dodocool hub).
Yesterday, I though that Apple support found a solution as we were playing around with the color profiles. As one of the other members mentioned this was only of short positive effect. toggling the color profiles makes it better for seconds, but then it comes back, not as severe as before, but of course not acceptable. In my last call Apple admitted, they have no solution for it. My last hope is the expensive Moshi USB-C to DP Cable, but it's only a very small hope.

I contacted Samsung, they admitted, that there might be incompatibles, but nothing more. I contacted the store where I bought the screen (cyberport) and the guy said, they have tons of calls about problems with screens and M1. Samsung will pick up the screen now for "repair". Lets see what they will be doing if "repair" will not be possible. Returning the M1 for refund is an option too. But what then? Waiting for M2?

Cheerz

 

[revs]

Sigh... just tried the HDMI port on my Dell DA300 USB-C hub and its flickers, I get lines across the screen, and randomly the screen turns off for a moment.

Works perfect on other laptops.

Question is - is this something apple might fix, or do I get rid of the hub and find another. (I'm not actually a big fan of the hub anyway, but is this an issue with other ones?)

 

[M1-Flicker]

Update: the Moshi USB-C to DP port cable for over € 60 which had been recommended in my first call with apple support and which should be helping just arrived. nothing better, same flickering and stripes as b4. I give up now and will be asking for refund for the screen 🤬😭

 

[w1111amh]

MONITOR : LG UME7300PUA (2019)

CABLE: HDMI

APPLE 3 WAY DONGLE: USB-c | HDMI (x) | USB 3.0

CALDIGIT MiniDock: USB-c | HDMI (x)

M1 MAC PRO 16G - Flickering, Intermittent Off/On, Loses Complete Connection and Re-establishes it, Lose Picture and Sound as connected to monitor speakers as well.

Also I've tried using Airplay to get it to work, and its works ok except the resolution choice is suboptimal and it loses connection also and i have to recycle the monitor completely off to reestablish connection. But its not really a choice because the resolution is so poor. Not even sure why it is Apple doesn't make it better to watch pictures, movies and so forth. But they confirmed the supported resolution isn't ideal.

View attachment 1740518

I ordered a StarTech 4k 60hz USB 3.0 to 2x Display Port adapter, and tried hooking up to the monitor display port to HDMI, and I also turned off the Hi Dynamic Range (HDR) to see if the frequency of the Flicks on to off stops. I though it did, but I guess rebooting everything seems to help, but after a couple of hours it was back to flickering, however the length of the flicker wasn't as long and deep as in the video above. I'm going to wait until I try a display port to display port configuration. Although now I'm pretty convinced it is an Apple M1 issue, especially seeing how many different monitors on here have a problem. I will also try turning off the true tone as well to see if that helps. Hopefully its a software and not a hardware issue.

 

[w1111amh]

I ordered a StarTech 4k 60hz USB 3.0 to 2x Display Port adapter, and tried hooking up to the monitor display port to HDMI, and I also turned off the Hi Dynamic Range (HDR) to see if the frequency of the Flicks on to off stops. I though it did, but I guess rebooting everything seems to help, but after a couple of hours it was back to flickering, however the length of the flicker wasn't as long and deep as in the video above. I'm going to wait until I try a display port to display port configuration. Although now I'm pretty convinced it is an Apple M1 issue, especially seeing how many different monitors on here have a problem. I will also try turning off the true tone as well to see if that helps. Hopefully its a software and not a hardware issue.

Update:

So got the StarTech loaded it up, but resolution on the LGUM7300PUA looks terrible and had to adjust it to 50mhz refresh rate to look decent, the Samsung worked like a champ, but in the end, I couldn't get it to work right. I made a mistake thinking the LG had a display port, but its only HDMI, but still didn't work. Tried it through the Apple 3way and the Caldigit minidock. However, while I couldn't get two monitors to run "decently" on my M1, the other issue with the flicker on/off seemed to go away. I turned off "true tone" and at least the setup got really stable. It seems to have made it also to the LG direct connected to the M1. So I am guessing TrueTone might be the culprit. I am even able to turn on High Dynamic Range and all seems well.

However one sinister development has come afoot. In the process of troubleshooting, my think or swim TOS (trading app) doesn't launch properly. It goes through all the motions loads up oll the components ok, and then initializes, but at the point my screens would fill up with TOS charts, the initialize box disappears and then nothing... The TOS icon in the dock has a "dot" showing its launched and active, sometimes, and the screen at the top shows the app name. But that is it. I've tried it with one, two and three screens and removed all the virtual desktops, rebooted reloaded a lot of things, but no successful launch....

Will tackle tomorrow I cannot believe how much time this is taking... this reminds me of troubleshooting windows 3.0, it was really cool, but what a high maintenance piece o _________. This is a new experience for me on anything Mac... I hope this isn't a trend...

 

[roderik]

I had the same thing yesterday with a 1,5 day old Dell U4021QW. While a replacement is underway from dell (great service), the stripes and flickering dissapeared. Heavy use, while playing video's in plex.

One thing which connects to one of the previous messages is that I first reused a power cable from another monitor that was already plugged into the desk. It had been a bit flaky before, but just when touching it, maybe the internal connectors were old/damaged?

What if, while heavily in use, it draws a lot of power, and due to unstable power, it starts doing this? It went away after a while combined with switching the power cable to the one from the actual monitor. (not shure which of these two fixed it) That hypothesis would match up with the lights on/off message, a change in powerdraw makes the power fluctuate confusing the monitor?

-> Never mind, after a full day of working perfectly, went to make dinner, when i came back and the monitor/computer woke up again, it happened again

 

[w1111amh]

Update:

So got the StarTech loaded it up, but resolution on the LGUM7300PUA looks terrible and had to adjust it to 50mhz refresh rate to look decent, the Samsung worked like a champ, but in the end, I couldn't get it to work right. I made a mistake thinking the LG had a display port, but its only HDMI, but still didn't work. Tried it through the Apple 3way and the Caldigit minidock. However, while I couldn't get two monitors to run "decently" on my M1, the other issue with the flicker on/off seemed to go away. I turned off "true tone" and at least the setup got really stable. It seems to have made it also to the LG direct connected to the M1. So I am guessing TrueTone might be the culprit. I am even able to turn on High Dynamic Range and all seems well.

However one sinister development has come afoot. In the process of troubleshooting, my think or swim TOS (trading app) doesn't launch properly. It goes through all the motions loads up oll the components ok, and then initializes, but at the point my screens would fill up with TOS charts, the initialize box disappears and then nothing... The TOS icon in the dock has a "dot" showing its launched and active, sometimes, and the screen at the top shows the app name. But that is it. I've tried it with one, two and three screens and removed all the virtual desktops, rebooted reloaded a lot of things, but no successful launch....

Will tackle tomorrow I cannot believe how much time this is taking... this reminds me of troubleshooting windows 3.0, it was really cool, but what a high maintenance piece o _________. This is a new experience for me on anything Mac... I hope this isn't a trend...

Well good news so far, while eliminating True Tone seemed to work, I was luck to get a really thorough apple "Second" level tech guy, who came up with deleting several "window server plist" files. So far so good its been about three hours and so far so good. I learned too a bit about the fact that software running through Rosetta will have weird issues which seems to be the case with my TOS platform. Particularly with the GPU processing....small surprise seeing my charts above, but looking under the covers the brought to light some issues with the "paint" aspect of rendering stuff to screen, and was hitting periods of 100% utilization often and long enough to cause significant slowness. I hope this gets fixed soon by Think or Swim updating for M1 or Mac meeting them in the middle until then I'll be limping along. I'll keep you updated.

 

[Wehmut]

I had the vertical banding happening with an Asus PB287Q using a DP to USB-C cable and almost going to buy a new monitor. In the end I changed both the picture mode of the monitor to sRGB and the MacOs display profile to sRGB IEC61966-2.1 and the banding magically stopped. I hope this helps.

 

[roderik]

I had the same thing yesterday with a 1,5 day old Dell U4021QW. While a replacement is underway from dell (great service), the stripes and flickering dissapeared. Heavy use, while playing video's in plex.

One thing which connects to one of the previous messages is that I first reused a power cable from another monitor that was already plugged into the desk. It had been a bit flaky before, but just when touching it, maybe the internal connectors were old/damaged?

What if, while heavily in use, it draws a lot of power, and due to unstable power, it starts doing this? It went away after a while combined with switching the power cable to the one from the actual monitor. (not shure which of these two fixed it) That hypothesis would match up with the lights on/off message, a change in powerdraw makes the power fluctuate confusing the monitor?

-> Never mind, after a full day of working perfectly, went to make dinner, when i came back and the monitor/computer woke up again, it happened again

FYI Replacement monitor solved this for me

 

[Fille]

Same here...

M1 Macbook Air + Dell P2721Q

For me turning of true tone seems to have resolved the issue by 99%.. It still happens sometimes.

What I did notice was that when I turned on the lights in my room the flickering started, I was able to reproduce the issue a couple of times by just turning the lights on and off (true tone enabled). Sadly I am not able to reproduce this now but I will try again tomorrow.

Very strange issue indeed.

Currently using a Dell U2715h and had some flickering issues earlier today with true tone off. No issues with this display on my previous intel macs.

It all started when I changed theme in VSCode, and as you can see in the video it gets worse with the blue theme active.

 

[Falcon9]

Has anyone tested to see if the 11.3 beta 5 fixes the vertical lines or flickering issues?

 

[Wirt7]

I've got a flickering issue on Macbook Air M1 connected to Dell p2721q 4k monitor.
The monitor is connected using Usb C <-> Usb C cable.
Once it starts i've to disconnect the monitor for a few minutes to get rid of flickering.
Sometimes flickering stays for some time even if I connect the monitor to Dell (Windows) laptop, although it never starts on a Windows laptop.
I'm really curious what is the cause ? Is it Monitor, Mac or both ?

 

[oz_rkie]

So I came across this thread researching similar issue. I am using an LG 38GL950G monitor that has worked without any issues for over a year on my main gaming windows PC. Recently I bought two new macbook airs m1 and have occasionally experienced similar issues as those described in this post.

The issues I've experienced are

1. The screen sometimes (seemingly at random?) starts flickering.
2. Along with the flickering, sometimes there is image retention. The image retention persists even when switching from mac to windows and only goes away after powering off monitor for a while.
3. Vertical lines/banding in some areas of the screen (noticed this on the spot where a chrome window was open)
4. All the above issues strangely persist even after restarting and even after switching to my windows PC (the issue always seem to start when connected to the mac, never on windows atleast so far)
5. The only thing that seems to solve the issue is powering off the monitor for a while and then back on after about a couple hours.
6. There was however one occasion where switching the image preset from my monitor's OSD right when the banding issue appeared resolved the issue right away.
7. Tried with different cables with same issue and also directly connected to mac versus connected through a Caldigit TS3 plus. Just noting that this issue does not happen a lot and seems to be random for me.

In any case, I first thought that my monitor went bad (maybe that might still be the case?) but I came across this thread that is making me think twice since the issues only start when monitor is connected to my mac and never happened before.

My monitor is still under warranty so I can get it replaced but I just wanted to chime in and see what other people's experience are. Is this a monitor issue or a mac m1 issue? Has anyone had any success with a replacement m1 or any specific docks etc?

 

[oz_rkie]

Updated to 11.3 beta8 with no difference. Same flickering, vertical banding and and image retention happening even with the update. Pretty disappointing. Decided to return my macbook.

 

[pocketlight]

Running an Macbook Air M1 (os 11.2.3) and a Dell P2720DC via USB-C (since it is also charing my machine), been working great for a couple of months and today it started fo flicker on the external screen. Though it seem to only trigger when certain colors are shown. For instance blue makes it flicker, but not white. Though it seemed to vary. For instance I have one of the mountain backgrounds that are included with MacOS which triggered the flickering as well. Looked like it was 4-5 wide rows of areas of the screen that flickered. Felt like a backlight issue or something. I've tried rebooting the machine, reconnecting the screen, rebooting the screen and went through the OSD to see if there was any useful setting to change. Tried lowering and increasing both brightness and contrast in case it was one of those "In between values" bugs I've seen previously on screens but nope.

I did disable the automatic brightness control on the internal screen and so far it seem like the flicker has slowly faded away on the external one (??). If I switch tabs in Chrome to certain colors, which usually triggered the flicker before it is now mostly gone for me. I'll report back if the flicker shows up again.

Edit: I had some flicker briefly during the day, but was over after a couple of seconds - compared to many hours during the morning, up until I disabled the automatic brightness control. I will keep monitoring this on my machine and report back.

Edit 2: The day after, so far I have not seen any flicker. Only that one time yesterday that it randomly showed up. Didn't read every post here in the thread but disabling the auto brightness control for the built in screen might solve at least that issue for some. Weird that it would affect an external screen, but weirder things have happened. The banding and color weirdness however, I doubt that will be affected by doing that.

 

[oz_rkie]

Just trying to see if anyone facing the flickering, vertical lines and image retention issues managed to solve their problem? I've returned my m1 macbook but I am considering buying a new one again as my workflow needs access to the iOS simulator for debugging etc.

Has anyone tried the 11.3 RC release with any success?

Just trying to figure out if this is a fundamental hardware issue with the m1 macs or a software issue that can be fixed or just a faulty batch/unit.

 

[michaelonmac]

Just trying to see if anyone facing the flickering, vertical lines and image retention issues managed to solve their problem? I've returned my m1 macbook but I am considering buying a new one again as my workflow needs access to the iOS simulator for debugging etc.

Has anyone tried the 11.3 RC release with any success?

Just trying to figure out if this is a fundamental hardware issue with the m1 macs or a software issue that can be fixed or just a faulty batch/unit.

I'm on my second M1 MacBook from Apple now, despite explaining to them it's not an issue specific to one unit.

No surprise that all the issues are still present on the replacement.

My main issue with Apple is their reluctance to admit there are problems with these machines, and let us know if it's something that can be fixed with future software updates.

 

[Thomas_W]

After updating to 11.3, at first I thought everything was better. And maybe it is a little better, but after loading up The Pathless and playing for about 10 minutes, the image became more and more unstable. In more uplifting news, it seems like regular OS usage (even in dark mode) is somewhat improved. At least I've been messing around for an hour or so with no problems showing outside the game. Anyone with similar improvements?

 

[Falcon9]

11.3 did not fix my vertical lines issue unfortunately.

 

[pocketlight]

Flicker has returned for me. Seem it's the actual screen in my case, tested with another laptop - same issue. Tested my laptop on another screen - no flicker. So I'll withdraw from this thread.

 

[RobM_]

Flicker still here for me as well, nowhere near as bad as previous versions, but it still happens. In my case, it's mostly when too much dark content is on screen. I get it a couple of times a week now, rather than every hour previously.

 

[Mewcenary]

Well, this is a scary thread to find, especially as I was v close to ordering an M1 (and even requesting a similar laptop for work purposes).

Not unlike everyone in this thread, I heavily rely on an external display. M1 only supporting 1 is OK (as I use an ultrawide) but the number of reports of external displays just playing up with the M1 is disturbing. I'm used to just 'plug it in and it works' - be that a 2011 MacBook Air, or more modern Windows and gaming PCs.

 

[oz_rkie]

Flicker has returned for me. Seem it's the actual screen in my case, tested with another laptop - same issue. Tested my laptop on another screen - no flicker. So I'll withdraw from this thread.

Did you test the flickering screen on a different laptop right after the flicker started while connected to the m1? The reason I ask is because several users (including myself) have the m1 causing flicker and image retention that persists on the screen even when you connect the screen to a different laptop after the fact. The flicker/retention goes away after powering off the screen completely for a while.

Even in my case, the m1 would cause my screen to flicker and image retention which would persist when I would immediately disconnect the m1 and switch the screen to a different windows machine (even on a different port, hdmi to dp).

I've returned my m1 and its been more than 2 weeks now with no issues anymore with my ultrawide connected to my windows machine as usual.