Flickering in ProMotion MacBook Pro 16” M1 Max

Ive just noticed this myself too, recent replacment computer around 6 months ago, seen it ever since then 

M1 max 64 gb, max gpu

monterey

tried Ventura stable today fresh 

and Sonoma Beta 

old screen (entirely different machine with the same specifications) I never noticed this and I work on this machine several hours a day

all the same flickering/pulsing that is always and forever repeatable at any brightness.

how to recreate, 

native solution for recreating this issue:

dark mode in mac os , make the calendar app take up the screen or full screen it,

observe the bottom left of the screen and in my instance you can see the flicker in the gradient between the small days of the month in numbers

and the black of the dark mode will reveal the flicker at any brightness, 

also, find any darkish grey picture and make it take up half of your screen and safari or any web browser on the other half, and you will again have quite polarising contrast between the dark grey hue and the white of your browser. 

Quirks I’ve noticed 

Turn off pro motion and this behaviour stops 

So by this logic I would suggest this can be fixed by apple and they are either un aware or not interested in fixing this issue, 

I would like this screen at 120 hz all the time anyway, but it can’t be done as Apple have artificially limited this screen so it only reaches this when you are using something that is at high frame rate,

and a side effect of this limitation is this flickering, because if you turn off this limitation (turn off pro motion) then this behaviour completely stops. 

How it presents itself visually: 

it appears to be around 6 or 7 pulses per second (literally white flashes)

Also, this behaviour stops if you move your mouse and starts again when you stop, the same happens when you turn up the brightness however the period of time that the pulsing/flickering stops for is far less.

If you play a 120 hz video or open an app that uses pro motion, the pulsing/flickering stops. 

I moved over to logic recently and the GUI is dark and its where I noticed it first, so I have had to move back to ableton as that has a white bright GUI,

Logic will flash when on a static screen as described above, all dark colours flash, greyish tones are the worst culprits 

Thank you for your time.

Hi! I have a proplem with screen flickering during ProMotion mode is enabled, when I change refresh rate to 60hz everything works fine, without flashes on a screen. It tried different methods to solve this (updating of system, safe mode, reset of settings) and nothing helped.

I bought this MacBook M3 on April 2024, and didn’t damaged it.

Flickering is visible top of the display and it get worse when promotion is on.

I’m having the same issue on my new MBP 14 M3 Max. Has anyone found a solution to this problem?

Also it's mostly noticeable during the first 1-3 hours after waking the mac. It’s frustrating that on such an expensive laptop, I can’t use its full functionality.

vovanextex wrote:

Hi! I have a proplem with screen flickering during ProMotion mode is enabled, when I change refresh rate to 60hz everything works fine, without flashes on a screen. It tried different methods to solve this (updating of system, safe mode, reset of settings) and nothing helped me. Apple supporters also didn’t help me, they said «find solutions by himself, cheers»

I bought MacBook book one month ago, and didn’t damaged it.

Flickering is visible on dark and light gray colors, this is because I couldn’t find this issue straightaway

you can file a bug report /submit your Apple Feedback here: Product Feedback - Apple

ref: MacBook Pro 14 and 16-inch models with M1 Pro and M1 Max chips

Change the refresh rate on your MacBook Pro or ...

manchesterraver

That's the same for me as well

Hi! I am experiencing the same thing. Did you find a solution to this?

ProMotion, also known a variable refresh rate, allow screen refresh both faster AND SLOWER than standard 60 Hz. in cases where the refresh rate goes lower than 60 Hz, you may save energy.

If that results in flickering that you find annoying, then the solution is very simple. Turn the feature OFF by returning to standard 60 Hz refresh rate.

Experiencing this as well. Another symptom here is that once I turn to 60hz, the screen appears very washed out. Not sure if correlated but they started happening at the same time.

if you find the slower variable refresh rate causes flickering, the solution is simple: turn that feature off and your problem is solved.

The eventually went away on its own. Not sure the cause but nothing points to hardware at the end of the day.

In addition, when switching to ProMotion, I don't see a difference with 60Hz. So it looks like 120Hz doesn't work at all.