MB pro 13' (2019) Display artifacts

[ascender]

But you can show them the video posted on this site, right? Just put it on your phone as if it were done on your machine.

I haven't heard of this happening on the 15 which is strange. There are things that lead me to believe that it's a software issue, but, if it is, then why isn't it seen on other models? It might be due to more graphics horsepower on those other models of course.

I suggested this last time but they said that they had to see the fault with their own eyes in order to authorise a hardware fix. Will try again next week, but it’s a pain in the backside to keep having to go back to the store. I don’t know why they closed down some of the third party repair places which gave people more options which were often easier to get appointments with and also easier to get to.

 

[pshufd]

I suggested this last time but they said that they had to see the fault with their own eyes in order to authorise a hardware fix. Will try again next week, but it’s a pain in the backside to keep having to go back to the store. I don’t know why they closed down some of the third party repair places which gave people more options which were often easier to get appointments with and also easier to get to.

One of the biggest things in the value equation with Apple is how close you live or work near an Apple Store. I work one mile from an Apple Store so it's a piece of cake to just run down there during the day. This store opened about 14 years ago. Before that, it took me forty minutes to get to the nearest Apple Store - and I considered that a pain in the neck. Of course there are lots of parts of the US where 40 minutes would be a luxury.

These things should just work.

 

[0906742]

I suggested this last time but they said that they had to see the fault with their own eyes in order to authorise a hardware fix.

This is exactly what I've been trying to spell out. Peoples cannot just go there and say hey my screen flickers every two weeks for 0.5 seconds at the time so give me a new computer or fix this one for good and then say it is a known problem, I have links to the internet discussion forums where other peoples are also having this problem and there are also videos and pictures of it. Unfortunately it just does not work that way. I wish it did, but it doesn't.

You either have to show and prove it to them that your unit does that, unless they already acknowledge it, which they currently seem not. I guess it is best to wait for Catalina and see if it fixes the problem like some peoples have suggested it does and have witnessed it by themselves. If it does not, I think we can hope some hardware review site acknowledges this problem with their test units and raises an issue of it.

 

[pshufd]

This is exactly what I've been trying to spell out. Peoples cannot just go there and say hey my screen flickers every two weeks for 0.5 seconds at the time so give me a new computer or fix this one for good and then say it is a known problem, I have links to the internet discussion forums where other peoples are also having this problem and there are also videos and pictures of it. Unfortunately it just does not work that way. I wish it did, but it doesn't.

You either have to show and prove it to them that your unit does that, unless they already acknowledge it, which they currently seem not. I guess it is best to wait for Catalina and see if it fixes the problem like some peoples have suggested it does and have witnessed it by themselves. If it does not, I think we can hope some hardware review site acknowledges this problem with their test units and raises an issue of it.

I worked in support and we put in a ton more effort than that in customer problems but customers paid us a lot more for support contracts back then. We went into the source code to look at code paths to see if it could happen the way it was described. We tried to reproduce the problem and looked at global bug databases to see how many cases had been reported.

 

[0906742]

I worked in support and we put in a ton more effort than that in customer problems but customers paid us a lot more for support contracts back then. We went into the source code to look at code paths to see if it could happen the way it was described. We tried to reproduce the problem and looked at global bug databases to see how many cases had been reported.

Yeah, but you have to understand that we end users are mostly dealing with the local service centers and I'm sure they have no way to access the source code and likely not even knowledge for that how to do such demanding task. They obviously have access to their own support databases but as long as this problem is not acknowledged it will not help. Sure if we could get our message up to higher level support that can do detailed debugging would work the way you described but as long as our problem are dealt as individual problems at the local service centers, it is a dead end.

 

[UnrealWhale]

Just wanted to come in and say ever since i turned off autobrightness and true tone i have not seen the artifacts. it has been a few days and so far nothing.

i'll keep paying attention

 

[Cruz3LT]

Since my last reply, I have not had the issue come back, and it was happening a few times a day. My auto brightness is off but my True Tone is still on.

 

[pshufd]

Yeah, but you have to understand that we end users are mostly dealing with the local service centers and I'm sure they have no way to access the source code and likely not even knowledge for that how to do such demanding task. They obviously have access to their own support databases but as long as this problem is not acknowledged it will not help. Sure if we could get our message up to higher level support that can do detailed debugging would work the way you described but as long as our problem are dealt as individual problems at the local service centers, it is a dead end.

I was corporate support. We had local support, country support, regional support and corporate support. Customers paid us thousands to hundreds of thousands per year for support contracts and we had time commitments to resolve problems as well as effort requirements to resolve problems.

One bug that we fixed was sent to fix a problem with a tank while the tank was engaging the enemy. Another bug shut down an engine manufacturing plant at a well-known engine maker. Another shut down the capability of a large supermarket chain to ship things from their warehouses resulting in food spoilage. So yes, high-level support for customers with software that they bet their business on. And we had to hop a plane when we couldn't solve it remotely or the politics demanded it.

 

[ascender]

This is exactly what I've been trying to spell out. Peoples cannot just go there and say hey my screen flickers every two weeks for 0.5 seconds at the time so give me a new computer or fix this one for good and then say it is a known problem, I have links to the internet discussion forums where other peoples are also having this problem and there are also videos and pictures of it. Unfortunately it just does not work that way. I wish it did, but it doesn't.

You either have to show and prove it to them that your unit does that, unless they already acknowledge it, which they currently seem not. I guess it is best to wait for Catalina and see if it fixes the problem like some peoples have suggested it does and have witnessed it by themselves. If it does not, I think we can hope some hardware review site acknowledges this problem with their test units and raises an issue of it.

Yip, I understand that. I started out in PC support years ago and this is obviously one of those faults nobody likes as its so hard to replicate. What I didn't like with how Apple handled this was that they didn't seem to have the machine on for very long to see if the fault occurred. And I think the chances of the fault happening when you're not doing anything is even slimmer - these artefacts and tinges last for a second (if that) and disappear. I explained all that to them.

I get that they can't just swap out a logic board because I say there's an issue with it or the graphics card, but they must have some set of steps for dealing with this sort of intermittent fault?

Don't just hold on to the machine for a week, turn it on for an hour, see what happens and then say no fault found.

 

[pshufd]

Yip, I understand that. I started out in PC support years ago and this is obviously one of those faults nobody likes as its so hard to replicate. What I didn't like with how Apple handled this was that they didn't seem to have the machine on for very long to see if the fault occurred. And I think the chances of the fault happening when you're not doing anything is even slimmer - these artefacts and tinges last for a second (if that) and disappear. I explained all that to them.

I get that they can't just swap out a logic board because I say there's an issue with it or the graphics card, but they must have some set of steps for dealing with this sort of intermittent fault?

Don't just hold on to the machine for a week, turn it on for an hour, see what happens and then say no fault found.

I used to have a job with the title: Serviceability Engineer. It's a job that the vast majority of people have never heard of. Though people working in the server hardware world may have heard about it. The job was to design and develop tools to diagnose problems to make it easier for frontline support people to diagnose problems instead of having to send them up to the next higher support level. Also, some tools would record state information to help with the diagnostic process if it went up to corporate support. An example would be an automated tool to read crash and format structures for crash dumps.

I think that Apple does have people in this role because I've gone to the Apple Store with a device issue where they hooked up some hardware to determine whether my device had a known problem.

A company like Apple should be able to handle intermittent issues. They are no fun for developers but developers have to fix them anyways.

 

[ascender]

Yip, I was just genuinely surprised when they said that they’d done a “soak test” on the 8th day of having the machine and this test lasted a couple of hours by all accounts. I’d already reinstalled Mojave from scratch before I went in, so to hear they’d done the exact same thing was very disappointing. It’s just more time wasted reinstalling apps, configuring the machine, when I know it’s not going to make a blind bit of difference.

 

[UnrealWhale]

Ok i spoke too soon as i noticed the problem occur 1 time today even with true tone off, and auto-brightness off.

 

[gumbaloom]

I made another thread about this -

My MBP 2018 QC 2.3 was having "flickering" issues.

Tried the usual suspects of NVRAM and SMC - neither worked.
Tried a full reinstall of both Mojave AND High Sierra (both were full disk wipes not the half way house)

Issue stil persisted so I ruled out software completely.

Currently my machine is within an hour or two of reaching the Japanese service centre from the looks of things - hope with all the diagnosis and testing that they pass it straight through to repair and get a quick turn around.

 

[UnrealWhale]

I made another thread about this -

My MBP 2018 QC 2.3 was having "flickering" issues.

Tried the usual suspects of NVRAM and SMC - neither worked.
Tried a full reinstall of both Mojave AND High Sierra (both were full disk wipes not the half way house)

Issue stil persisted so I ruled out software completely.

Currently my machine is within an hour or two of reaching the Japanese service centre from the looks of things - hope with all the diagnosis and testing that they pass it straight through to repair and get a quick turn around.

Keep us posted.

 

[Ruggy]

I think I know what this is because I've had it and I solved it. But I don't know why it does it.
So, I think it depends on the desktop you choose. The more colours, the more detailed etc, the more likely it is this for just a second before it gets it right.
You may well see the colours tend to vary depending on the colours you use in your desktop
The solution for me- and I've tried it a couple of times- was to use a boring, plain grey desktop.
I've had this on a couple or our laptops and got rid of it both times by choosing a plain colour.
Well, that's what I think anyway, maybe I've just got lucky?

 

[Cruz3LT]

How many people have coconut battery installed and have had this happen?

 

[gumbaloom]

For those people with Time Capsule backups the absolute acid test is to try doing a complete reinstall of Mac OS X from scratch with a clean disk.

You can force it to go back to the version it shipped with using the Shift Command Option R(?) - by doing this I forced it to install High Sieraa instead of Mojave.

The weird thing is that it doesn't seem to happen in Safe Mode / Recovery mode which makes it something possibly display related or something that only kicks in when in normal boot mode. The other weird thing is that attaching an external monitor seemed to make the issue go away.

But that not withstanding the fact that as soon as I got to a login screen after a 100% clean disk erased High Sierra install means it's absolutely NOT a software issue which is what made me put it in for repair.

 

[0906742]

I was corporate support. We had local support, country support, regional support and corporate support. Customers paid us thousands to hundreds of thousands per year for support contracts and we had time commitments to resolve problems as well as effort requirements to resolve problems.

One bug that we fixed was sent to fix a problem with a tank while the tank was engaging the enemy. Another bug shut down an engine manufacturing plant at a well-known engine maker. Another shut down the capability of a large supermarket chain to ship things from their warehouses resulting in food spoilage. So yes, high-level support for customers with software that they bet their business on. And we had to hop a plane when we couldn't solve it remotely or the politics demanded it.

I'm sure you see what makes above and this issue in hand different? It is much different situation with product support for the tank engaging the enemy or warehouse full of spoiling food vs individual end user clients for the mass produced device with display that is flickering 0.5 seconds at the time every two weeks.
I mean sure I'm very annoyed by this problems and I want Apple to solve it, but until they admit problem at their product design or where ever they can debug this problem in detail, it is not going to go much forward. Local service centers do not deal with problem in that detail. They have time tables they have to follow and they are just basically swapping few parts, there are not many parts in these machines.

Yip, I understand that. I started out in PC support years ago and this is obviously one of those faults nobody likes as its so hard to replicate. What I didn't like with how Apple handled this was that they didn't seem to have the machine on for very long to see if the fault occurred. And I think the chances of the fault happening when you're not doing anything is even slimmer - these artefacts and tinges last for a second (if that) and disappear. I explained all that to them.

I get that they can't just swap out a logic board because I say there's an issue with it or the graphics card, but they must have some set of steps for dealing with this sort of intermittent fault?

Don't just hold on to the machine for a week, turn it on for an hour, see what happens and then say no fault found.

It is true this kind of a problem is a pain to diagnose and knowing how tight timing they are working at these local service centers they simply have no time to sit in front of one machine for days or weeks and stare at the screen non stop. I don't think they can much do that for one hour even. I'm not saying they should not but I'm sure they just can't due to requirements they are given how long they can spend with one machine diagnostic. They maybe run some programs or such and they simply cannot detect problems like this very likely. So in the end situation can and likely will be that even your machine has been sitting there for a week it gets actual attention in the end for very short time when they finally open the box.
[doublepost=1568620530][/doublepost]

How many people have coconut battery installed and have had this happen?

What makes you think it has anything to do with this? I have it installed but I doubt it makes any difference. I don't even keep it running all the time, I just start it when I need it.

 

[0906742]

I made another thread about this -

My MBP 2018 QC 2.3 was having "flickering" issues.

Tried the usual suspects of NVRAM and SMC - neither worked.
Tried a full reinstall of both Mojave AND High Sierra (both were full disk wipes not the half way house)

Issue stil persisted so I ruled out software completely.

Currently my machine is within an hour or two of reaching the Japanese service centre from the looks of things - hope with all the diagnosis and testing that they pass it straight through to repair and get a quick turn around.

Is flickering in your machine exactly what is discussed in this thread? Flickering that usually last for 0.5 seconds at the time and it usually happens rarely (like once every several days or couple weeks)?

If yes, please keep posted what happens. Also did you get some confirmation they recognize this issue and know how to fix it? I mean diagnostic you have done is good but it does not mean you get any different treatment than others have gotten so far unless there is something new they know about this issue. Or did they just promise to change some parts in any case just to make sure? Because there are several peoples already in these threads who have had their machine repaired (some even many times) and they have some gotten new mainboard, display, or touch id but the problem still occurs. Also I've seen few peoples exchanging their machine for a new one like three times without any improvement. So what I'm trying to say, unless they already know what is causing this and they have improved parts it is not going to work.

 

[gumbaloom]

Is flickering in your machine exactly what is discussed in this thread? Flickering that usually last for 0.5 seconds at the time and it usually happens rarely (like once every several days or couple weeks)?

If yes, please keep posted what happens. Also did you get some confirmation they recognize this issue and know how to fix it? I mean diagnostic you have done is good but it does not mean you get any different treatment than others have gotten so far unless there is something new they know about this issue. Or did they just promise to change some parts in any case just to make sure? Because there are several peoples already in these threads who have had their machine repaired (some even many times) and they have some gotten new mainboard, display, or touch id but the problem still occurs. Also I've seen few peoples exchanging their machine for a new one like three times without any improvement. So what I'm trying to say, unless they already know what is causing this and they have improved parts it is not going to work.

The flickering I was getting was happening maybe 5 or 6 times every minute?

Don't quite know how to describe it but it was like the screen went black for as you mention about half a second or less. Like the effect you see if you film a TV and you see the refresh of the picture. NO distortions / discolorations or the like.

I did on my previous machine get issues with cold so had issues at the bottom of the screen but that wasn't this.

I don't know if mine is the same issue as reported here but just wanted to note that I had "a" flickering issue and that I'd done enough diagnostics to prove it was not a software issue.

 

[0906742]

The flickering I was getting was happening maybe 5 or 6 times every minute?

Not the same issue discussed (mostly) in this thread. Thanks for confirming that.
Yours is probably easy to fix as they can see the problem straight away.

 

[gumbaloom]

Not the same issue discussed (mostly) in this thread. Thanks for confirming that.
Yours is probably easy to fix as they can see the problem straight away.

I event went as far as getting Apple to allow me to upload a video showing it happening just in case.

Anyone want to put a bet on what is the issue? Sounds logic boardy / dipslay I guesss...

 

[SergeySeregin]

Logic board =)

I event went as far as getting Apple to allow me to upload a video showing it happening just in case.

Anyone want to put a bet on what is the issue? Sounds logic boardy / dipslay I guesss...

[doublepost=1568643795][/doublepost]Logic board =)

I event went as far as getting Apple to allow me to upload a video showing it happening just in case.

Anyone want to put a bet on what is the issue? Sounds logic boardy / dipslay I guesss...

 

[ascender]

Logic board

It might be the graphics card, but everything is on that logic board now, so its an easy answer!

 

[UnrealWhale]

holy crap if it really is the logic board..... i just bought this computer, there is no way apple is going to tell me that i have to bring it in for repair, i don't care if it is a few weeks removed from the 14 day return policy, i already have this notated on my account prior to the 14 days, so they better give me a brand new unit.