Intense blue flickering (MBA, '13, El Capitan)

[lpuerto]

same here!

[lorna]

Two things to try: turning off the Displays Automatic Brightness setting, and try rebooting (with no external monitors connected).

[herf]

We'll check out 10.11.2.

[herf]

We'll call this the "auto brightness bug".

We have these configs in-house, and here is what we are seeing after a fresh boot:

• 2012 MBA on 10.11.2: no flashing whether or not Automatically Adjust Brightness is enabled

• 2013 MBA on 10.11.1: yes, flashing when Auto Brightness is enabled, otherwise no.

• 2014 MBPr on 10.11.1: no flashing at all (either video card), whether or not Auto Brightness is enabled. This version is also using a custom profile because it's dual GPU.

We see best results after a clean boot with no external devices attached.
When we've seen bugs, it has been with external display (Thunderbolt 27) or after a lot of wake/sleeps/etc.

Sounds like other people are seeing this more constantly, so any other steps you can think of would help a lot.

[jay]

This is really easy to reproduce by covering the camera (with my hand) at night; the screen will instantly turn blue. Then I can make it red again by hitting the melanopic light refresh button in the about box.

Only happens on mid '13 MBA. My mid '15 MBP is not affected.

[herf]

Yes this is related to Apple's new "auto brightness" feature which also adjusts midtones in bright rooms.

And it definitely happens on our MBA with auto-brightness "on" in settings, and it goes away otherwise (may take a reboot also?)

[lpuerto]

I've just installed the 36.5 version, and seems that the bug is solved.

Thanks!

[lpuerto]

@lpuerto Damn! It returned! (the flickering)

[lpuerto]

The ones with 10.11.2... have you reported it to apple? Seems that it's also an apple problem :)

[nilsenevoldsen]

Since there are two reports of MacBook Pros not being affected, I'll add that my Mid-2014 Retina Macbook Pro running 10.11.1 IS affected. It has integrated graphics only.

[herf]

Yes in the newer betas we are seeing it anytime the Automatic Brightness feature is on (or when it's recently been turned off).

[mainstreetmark]

I am on the same setup, and with the same problem. It was so annoying I quit flux. But that was even more annoying.

I disabled "Automatically adjust Brightness" in Display prefs and sofar sogood.

OSX 10.11.1
MacBook Air (13-inch, Mid 2013)

[whatismyusername]

Is there anything that can cause it to re-enable itself? I could've sworn I'd disabled that, but I looked again and it was enabled. Just disabled it and no flickering (so far).

FWIW I'm on a Late 2013 13" MBPr with 10.11.1.

[lorna]

@whatismyusername that's frightening! did you reboot?

[whatismyusername]

@lorna Sorry, just remembered it was the "Adjust keyboard brightness in low light" setting I had disabled. False alarm.

[lorna]

Wow, I didn't even know that was a thing now, ha. Whew.