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The 2016 MBP/TB - the most unstable Mac I have ever owned

I

iBrooker

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Nov 20, 2016
416
214
UK
My first Mac was a 2009 Mac Pro. A beast of a machine that while had some initial issues with the new graphics card it shipped with, they were quickly ironed out within a month or so. I loved this machine. It was so smooth and stable - no jerkiness with animations when going into Mission Control etc whatsoever.

A few years later I purchased a tiny 11" MacBook Air which actually became my full time machine. I've had no problems with this machine apart from recent updates to the OS - which introduced jerkiness to going to Mission Control - I thought the age of the machine started to show, so opted to upgrade.

My latest Mac, the latest MBP with touch bar is the most unstable computer I have ever owned! It crashes frequently, it loses my fingerprint, the animations are jerky and it doesn't feel like a machine that is on par, or more powerful than my first Mac Pro!! It is paired with the new 5K LG monitor and that brings it's own set of problems.

I can also attest to the fact that it's not a faulty unit - this is my second MBP which replaces a model with a smaller hard-drive and it's the same. It's either the OS, or the product design.

I can't believe Apple let this happen, I will never buy a 'new' Mac again - I'll wait until they are at least a year old. Things were never this shockingly bad :(
 
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Hmm... You might need to replace that one.

I don't have any of those issues you mentioned at all, but I'm only a few days in also..
 
It's my second one. I think part of the issue is running it with the external display. It's just so poorly tested.
 
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iBrooker said:
It's my second one. I think part of the issue is running it with the external display. It's just so poorly tested.
Click to expand...

Are we talking about the LG UltraFine ones? I'm hearing a lot of bad stuff about those. Almost like it was a gamble that failed.
 
My biggest beef with this push to USB-C only from Apple is that the eco-system for it isn't fleshed out too well and things like the LG monitor/stability situation are not good. That needs to be a rock solid experience if you're telling everyone that it's the new direction to go.
 
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Yes the new LG UF 5K. I don't think it's the monitors fault though - it's the drivers/software that Apple really should be getting right given they are pushing this tech.
 
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1st one had cosmetic marks right out of box
2nd one had random shutdown problems
3rd one perfect-very happy
but it seems that it is the luck of the draw with apple products now.
and I know the apple heads will say OCD-but HEY-i spend my hard earned money on what is supposed to be a premium product I expect an ACCEPTABLE product out of the box.
both times I returned, the genius agreed, saw the problems and exchanged.
 
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iBrooker said:
I'll wait until they are at least a year old. Things were never this shockingly bad :(
Click to expand...

That is why I am waiting. Everything changed. Battery, display, ports, touchpad, display, etc. And the USB-C/TB-3 is new, so new peripherals. Software and hardware updates from Apple and a lot of 3rd party vendors. As a software engineer this sounds like a lot of changes to make at one time.

I think the Apple teams have done a great job managing the update. But, it will take a while for bugs to be found, diagnosed, and eradicated.
 
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The only bug I've experienced so far has been that I suddenly won't be able to click on anything within an app. The cursor is present, but it won't activate links, can't close/minimize/maximize a window. I can click on anything in the dock, I can click on everything on the toolbar, but can't click anything within the app. It's happened twice so far in my whopping two weeks of Mac ownership on two different devices (exchanged first one).
 
I had a number of niggly issues with new MBPs and most of them occurred when connected over USB-C to the LG 27" screen - particularly when connecting or disconnecting or waking from sleep. Something not right with the drivers or cable or something so I'm not surprised to see posts like this.

Without the monitor, the MBP has been very stable though.
 
wittyphrase said:
The only bug I've experienced so far has been that I suddenly won't be able to click on anything within an app. The cursor is present, but it won't activate links, can't close/minimize/maximize a window. I can click on anything in the dock, I can click on everything on the toolbar, but can't click anything within the app. It's happened twice so far in my whopping two weeks of Mac ownership on two different devices (exchanged first one).
Click to expand...

I defended the 15' 2016 a lot during the last weeks although my first unit had severe GPU issues and backlight bleeding. Exchanged it for the bigger 2,7/512/455 version and was quite happy at first, but now the problems are getting out of control.

  • Zooming gesture with two fingers stops to work out of nowhere, starts to work again for no reason and without any pattern
  • I can't click on **** from time to time. Device is still responsive, cursor moves, but clicks aren't registered
  • Yesterday the MacBook had a nice BSOD and locked up completely, restarted and locked up again
  • After installing Bootcamp and before rebooting to finish the windows installation, it froze and crashed again and I had to redo the whole procedure
  • Today it froze twice, second time was after I did a complete fresh Sierra reinstall. It crashed after finishing the installation and before I was able to set Language and timezone
I really love the screen, speakers, trackpad and especially the keyboard + the sleek footprint.

But this thing is unreliable af. I just finished the Sierra installation and before even doing anything else, I downloaded 1password for Safari. Installation killed Safari.

3.199€ and basically every Windows machine I ever owned (except the XPS 15 9550) was more reliable - at a fraction of the cost of this one. Really disappointed.

*** UPATE ***

I forgot to mention that the Touchbar wasn't working today in Sierra (not showing up and no keys were functioning when pressing the area where they should be located) and after booting into Win 10 with Bootcamp.

Rebooting two times "fixed" the issue.

At this very moment, I started to use the photos application and it started downloading my library, only to crash two times in four minutes.

It is getting better and better.
 
Last edited:
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happyhippo1337 said:
I defended the 15' 2016 a lot during the last weeks although my first unit had severe GPU issues and backlight bleeding. Exchanged it for the bigger 2,7/512/455 version and was quite happy at first, but now the problems are getting out of control.

  • Zooming gesture with two fingers stops to work out of nowhere, starts to work again for no reason and without any pattern
  • I can't click on **** from time to time. Device is still responsive, cursor moves, but clicks aren't registered
  • Yesterday the MacBook had a nice BSOD and locked up completely, restarted and locked up again
  • After installing Bootcamp and before rebooting to finish the windows installation, it froze and crashed again and I had to redo the whole procedure
  • Today it froze twice, second time was after I did a complete fresh Sierra reinstall. It crashed after finishing the installation and before I was able to set Language and timezone
I really love the screen, speakers, trackpad and especially the keyboard + the sleek footprint.

But this thing is unreliable af. I just finished the Sierra installation and before even doing anything else, I downloaded 1password for Safari. Installation killed Safari.

3.199€ and basically every Windows machine I ever owned (except the XPS 15 9550) was more reliable - at a fraction of the cost of this one. Really disappointed.

*** UPATE ***

I forgot to mention that the Touchbar wasn't working today in Sierra (not showing up and no keys were functioning when pressing the area where they should be located.) and after booting into Win 10 with Bootcamp.

Rebooting two times "fixed" the issue.

At this very moment, I started to use the photos application and it started download my library, only to crash two times in four minutes.

It is getting better and better.
Click to expand...


Wow - I honestly don't know how you can justify keeping that unit with all those issues...
 
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This is true. Also the most unstable mac I've owned. Sometimes I'll plug something into the USB and it'll freeze and restart. Sometimes I open the lid to find out it had restarted.
 
Luckily I haven't had any of those issues and I have had mine for over a month. I just have the entry level 15 inch one. I use it for Lightroom processing and then some apple scripting with Hazel and Devon Think and no issues for me. last update gave me better battery life and helped with the time machine backing up to my Samsung T3 hard drive. Still is a solid purchase for me.
 
Received my 15' MacBook Pro last week. Screen is non-uniform, battery lasts 4 hours, my touchpad is flakey and physically moves (even when turned off) and my touch ID button is loose.

Software wise, I've had to reboot the laptop 3 times today. I lose zoom gesture too, my touch ID was randomly removed, animations are laggy, I've had a random "red" color appear on apps and the laptop actually seems slower than my 2013 MBA.

Currently waiting for an exchange.
 
iBrooker said:
My first Mac was a 2009 Mac Pro. A beast of a machine that while had some initial issues with the new graphics card it shipped with, they were quickly ironed out within a month or so. I loved this machine. It was so smooth and stable - no jerkiness with animations when going into Mission Control etc whatsoever.

A few years later I purchased a tiny 11" MacBook Air which actually became my full time machine. I've had no problems with this machine apart from recent updates to the OS - which introduced jerkiness to going to Mission Control - I thought the age of the machine started to show, so opted to upgrade.

My latest Mac, the latest MBP with touch bar is the most unstable computer I have ever owned! It crashes frequently, it loses my fingerprint, the animations are jerky and it doesn't feel like a machine that is on par, or more powerful than my first Mac Pro!! It is paired with the new 5K LG monitor and that brings it's own set of problems.

I can also attest to the fact that it's not a faulty unit - this is my second MBP which replaces a model with a smaller hard-drive and it's the same. It's either the OS, or the product design.

I can't believe Apple let this happen, I will never buy a 'new' Mac again - I'll wait until they are at least a year old. Things were never this shockingly bad :(
Click to expand...
Since I both the LG 5K all my problems started, when resuming from Sleep the MBP will Crash or Panic, here are the threads with the details, it is REALLY BAD:

https://discussions.apple.com/message/31267982#31267982

https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ting-disconnecting-the-lg-5k-monitor.2027944/

I agree, the 5K monitor is not the problem, the drivers handling the AMD GPU is the real problem. Apple support extracted all sort of data from my MBP to be sent to the engineers for analysis, still waiting for a response.

I the mean time I have disabled power nap and things are better with sleep and 5K
[doublepost=1484876889][/doublepost]
ascender said:
I had a number of niggly issues with new MBPs and most of them occurred when connected over USB-C to the LG 27" screen - particularly when connecting or disconnecting or waking from sleep. Something not right with the drivers or cable or something so I'm not surprised to see posts like this.

Without the monitor, the MBP has been very stable though.
Click to expand...
I am in the exact same boat, disabled Power Nap and things are better now.
 
wittyphrase said:
The only bug I've experienced so far has been that I suddenly won't be able to click on anything within an app. The cursor is present, but it won't activate links, can't close/minimize/maximize a window. I can click on anything in the dock, I can click on everything on the toolbar, but can't click anything within the app. It's happened twice so far in my whopping two weeks of Mac ownership on two different devices (exchanged first one).
Click to expand...

Tonight I experienced this for the first time. Happened while I was connected to the LG 5K. Requires two restarts disconnected from any USB-C device before it recovers. Trackpad or mouse clicks don't register. Have to force a restart. I'm hoping Apple catches this in the next Sierra update.
 
pubmsu said:
Which MBP model do you have? GPU?
Click to expand...

15" 2.9Ghz 16Gb 4GB-GPU 1TB SSD

Last one was the same but with 512GB SSD.
[doublepost=1484919329][/doublepost]
Benny L said:
If in return period, return and try another one-took me 3 times to get an acceptable one.
does not sound normal.
Click to expand...

I actually have a third on order - same specs as this one. Sending this one back because the backlight is uneven and I expected better for a computer that costs £3,000!
 
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