Extremely Blurry Screen M1 MacBook Pro 16

An update to this. An Apple Authorised Service Partner (MacForum AB) took in the machine and asked for 12,000 SEK (at time of writing 1,163 USD) to replace the screen (and the Lid Angle Sensor), plus an additional 800 SEK examination fee (78 USD).

I asked if it was covered under consumer protection laws in the EU, they asked for the original receipt, I gave them that and then they ultimately replaced the screen for free and repaid the examination fee!

So all is well in the end, but I am now mourning the loss of the pretty stickers I had on my lid 😭

@joaquín161 - it seems like no one has been able to fix this yet. I did sell mine for about $750, and it seemed like the buyer was sure he could fix it (saw his profile and he sold tons of Macs second hand). So if you are very technical, you might have a shot. And if not, try your luck with consumer law (won’t work in Asia), or you have to do what most people did, which is pay a hefty price for a screen you never broke. Good luck!

One interesting finding I had was that when getting the MacBook into diagnosis mode and running the offline tests (by using an external mouse, keyboard & display to get through the dialogs while having the notebook closed), **the screen works perfectly fine.** But only during testing. So it seems weird that it is something with the screen or the lid angle sensor.

Maybe some others with the same problem could confirm whether this works on their machines or not? Then it would be something completely different (and I am not sure why replacing the screen would fix the issue as the screen is working perfectly fine).

Maybe something on the motherboard on the path to the lid angle sensor? Diagnosis says "everything works fine"...

This just happened to me. Looks exactly like that screenshot. Same model: Macbook Pro 2016 16 inch. Very frustrating. Gotta waste an evening at an Apple store. Somehow hoping the problem will go away. Because I don't have the coverage (of course!).

Looks like a hardware issue. I can't imagine how a software bug would result in such a screen.

I had Monterrey (or whatever was before Sonoma). I just upgraded to Sonoma using an external monitor, hoping that the issue would be fixed. It was not fixed.

My next step is to take it to the Genius bar because they guy told me they can wipe away the hard disk and reinstall everything from factory settings (after backing it up). if it's a software issue, it will fix it.

If that doesn't fix it, he says to replace the screen is around $900 USD. Ridiculous. My warranty has expired. I'm based in Shanghai, China. I bought the unit in Canada, which is my home country. I intend to appeal at the store or wherever for Apple to replace the screen for free, as someone above said that they got that done in the UK. also this is looking to be a manufacturing error that is completely unjustifiable for a product at this price point.

I'd like to hear if anyone else is having any luck with appealing to Apple for a free of charge fix.

From my research, it appears the blur is because the computer remains in IDLE mode, and can sometimes lose its backlight also but I think its still in sleep mode rather than a backlight issue.

The reason I think this is because mine was broken and after a year I updated the software and everything worked as normal for a day and then it went blurry, so its not a backlight issue as software fixed it.

The cause is the Lid sensor. When you open the computer, the lid sensor normally would turn on your computer, the M1 model and up, uses magnets around the lid sensor and these magnets need calibration.

I can link a video on potentially how to fix this or to see further what I mean, but this is a serious issue apple needs to address. If you lean your phone up against the screen or leave the battery charger in for long periods it could change the magnet of the lid sensor.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u18D_NPGhzQ

In the beginning, I also thought, it was the lid angle sensor. I replaced the angle sensor and it seems like the issue still persists! However, the angle sensor probably works perfectly fine. It detects opening of the MacBook (boots when being shut down) as well as closing the lid because the camera is unavailable when being closed.

Still, the screen doesn't seem completely broken as it works (sometimes) during diagnostics mode. :|

It just happened to me this morning as well. It took me 10-1/2 months to get this computer working when I first purchased it. Apple was ZERO help finding the issue, despite MANY hours on the phone and trips into the store.

I've been using Apple hardware/software exclusively since the early 80s. This will be the last! If I make it to Heaven, I let y'all know what Steve thinks about it. ;-(

No, I don't.

For me fixing it required the change of the display, but on my laptop there was also a very small(which I initially missed), but visible crack.

Same issue here, was just working with the M1 macbook and suddenly it was like a black vale spreaded over the screen when pixels started to fade out. Now I only have a blurred, dim image of the desktop on my macbook screen while I work on an external display.

The Macbook is 1.5 years old and is mainly used indoors. I'm puzzled. Went to apple store half a year ago because I suspected this unit was quirky because I have crackling audio when playing sounds/movies but they said it was an issue with OSX.. not so sure about that now...

The Better Display app didn't work for me. Here is my brand New MacBook Pro. Here in Brazil it costs almost 5000 USD. It is not acceptable. Please share your Macs image. We have to show Apple what's is happening to everyone.

Just got off the phone with Apple, they don’t even want to acknowledge the problem. I’ll be heading to the Apple Store to make noise. I paid more than $3000 dollars for this machine and they want me to pay another $800 and can’t even acknowledge that people here are all experiencing the same issue.

Well, somebody at the Apple Store is about to have a bad day because I’m going to bark up a storm until someone at Apple acknowledges the issue.🥶

@Work_by_Solo - I refused to pay $1000 to fix this laptop that is barely 1.5 year-old. So I just took the laptop back and I'm currently using it like a desktop with a monitor. This is very annoying. How can a PRO machine be so unreliable? I hope someone from Apple can take a look at this and help us fix this issue.

I am having the same issue. Macbook Pro with M1 purchased Nov. of 2021. Just randomly started to pixelate and half the screen went black and then it all went black. Can see light from apple logo but fuzzy. Hooking up to a display does work. I talked to a manager and they literally said I have to pay for it. This is a crime honestly. I already spent $2k and now they want me to pay to fix a hardware issue that isn't user error…

Yup, me too. Getting quoted $1000 for the repair and they still have no clue how this happened. My laptop was just in for repair 5 months ago and got the logic board replaced, that was weeks before my warranty went out, now that my warranty is completely out, of course this happens and they won’t be responsible for this. Crazy for a $3200 machine that is 1.5 years old.