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Anonymous
December 6, 2018
Answered

White flickering screen while in Illustrator or InDesign cc 2019

  • December 6, 2018
  • 17 replies
  • 26408 views

Just wondering if any one else is having issues with a seizure inducing white flickering that only seems to happen while in Illustrator or InDesign? I am running iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015) with memory at 32 GB 1867 MHz DDR3 and a AMD Radeon R9 M395 2048 MB graphics card and fully up to date Creative Cloud programs. It seems to happen later in the day say after 2pm and it won't stop flickering until i restart my computer. Moving the mouse seems to aggravate it and it only happens on my main mac display, not on my two externals. A screen recording does not capture it but i have attached a video i found that shows the issue. i have talked to Apple and sent them diagnostics and they can't seem to figure out what's going on, now that it's also happening to my coworker as well I'd really like to get this fixed.

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer garyl64472086

    Thanks for sharing the details, Marc. If you have multiple GPUs on your system, please disable Automatic GPU Switching on Mac (How to Disable Automatic GPU Switching on MacBook Pro  ) and let us know if that helps.

    Also, I would request if one of you can share this on our Adobe Illustrator Feedback page and share the link here so that we have a significant number of votes for this issue.

    If somebody has already done that please share the link here.


    I've shared this in the Adobe Illustrator Feedback forum to be upvoted:

    Illustrator 2019 gltches out video card in Macs with AMD Radeon R9 M390 2 GB graphics card... – Adobe Illustrator Feedba…

    Go there and click the 'vote' button; get this problem dealt with.

    FYI -- I have turned off GPU Performance in Illustrator and the problem seems to have stopped HOWEVER...working in Illustrator is now very laggy draggy, even for doing basic vector manipulation, Illustrator really seems to have a much tougher time doing the work. NOT GOOD.

    17 replies

    G
    GilesHicks
    Known Participant
    December 9, 2019

    Hi, Does anyone know if this is now fixed by Adobe Illustrator 2020 and Catalina?

    Our local Apple store rolled back our Imac to High Sierra to fix the Mojave / AI / AMD graphics card conflict.

    Thanks

    S
    steves53302038
    Participating Frequently
    December 10, 2019

    Hi Giles,

    I can say that the InDesign 2019 version of the problem seems to be solved for me, using MacOS 10.15.1 Catalina. I've not updated to ID 2020.

    romain de santi
    romain de santi
    New Participant
    November 7, 2019

    Hello, I have a kind of similar issue, wich may help to solve it .
    I am on PC , windows 10 , GTX 1080 , nvidia drivers up to date .
    When I am on illustrator with GPU on, I have a luminosity flickering issue at the top of my screen , only when I move my mouse.
    If i turn off GPU, no problem.

      B
      bigfish2224
      Known Participant
      October 26, 2019

      I've got the same exact problem, it seems we are not alone in this! Same iMac (Late 2015) as well. Is there a fix?

      Monika Gause
      Monika Gause
      Community Expert
      October 26, 2019

      Does it still flicker when you turn off GPU acceleration?

      B
      bigfish2224
      Known Participant
      October 27, 2019

      I was experiencing this issue on macOS Mojave, but since I upgraded to Catalina (with the latest supplemental update as well), I haven't experienced it yet. I actually wiped my drive and did a clean install of the OS and reinstalled all my Office 365 and Creative Cloud apps, and I haven't turned off GPU acceleration yet. I will advise how it goes, but so far it seems to be working! 

      I should also point out that there is an issue that might cause this when Outlook is installed and used on these macs (the late 2015 ones that is): iMac screen flickers when using Outlook for Mac.

      It seems a bit crazy that I would need to upgrade the whole OS to fix this issue, as that can sometimes bring on other issues, but at this point things are stable.

      S
      steves53302038
      Participating Frequently
      September 18, 2019

      Hi All,

      My coworker and I have the same iMacs, LAte 2015. I am running Mojave and he may still be using High Sierra, I forget. This problem started for me when I updated to the latest CC after upgrading to Mojave. I experience it mostly in InDesign, as I actually do not use Illustrator very much. I do have  Outlook and the MS Office apps installed, but it's not where I encountered the problem.

       

      Each time, the flashing seemed to start in a minor way and got worse, eventually forcing me to shut the iMac down (Which was difficult given I could not find my around on the screen! I was trying to save work and not force quit). As best I can tell the action that immediately preceded the flashing was my dragging, or drag-duplicating objects in InDesign.

       

      And after reviewing this thread, rather than fully turn off "GPU Performance" in InDesign Settings, I turned off only "Animated Zoom." It's been a couple of weeks now, and the problem has not recurred, even in the minor, starting way I might have expected. So, fingers crossed, this seems to work fine and not affect performance much if at all.

       

      Hope that helps.

       

      Steve

      Los Angeles

      P
      purplesheep
      New Participant
      July 18, 2019

      Similar problems the past 3 months, flcikering consists of colours then black and white flashing. Moving the mouse, aggravates the flickering.

      I reinstalled the OS and all software and still get the same issues. Following restart in safe mode helps, but the flickering appears again.

      When adobe is running. Other computers in office have no issues.

      -- ---

      Can you guys test the GPU History to see if they spike similar to mine see sample??  see image below.

      -- --

      iMac (retina 5k 27" late 2015) 3.2ghz intel core i5 (32gb memory installed)

      Trying to narrow down which software seems to cause the problem.

      I have Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, acrobat and XD, After effects installed.

      Adobe Cloud running, wonder if this causes an issue??

      Other software normally running is; Slack, Skyfonts, Outlook, Spotify, Timely and Google Chrome.

      Srishti Bali
      Community Manager
      Srishti BaliCommunity Manager
      Community Manager
      July 31, 2019

      Hi All,

      Thank you so much for your time and patience. While investigating this issue, we have found that this issue is seen on the systems where the Outlook is installed. A similar issue has been reported on the Microsoft support page as well: iMac screen flickers when using Outlook for Mac - Office Support.

      I would request if you can try using outlook in Low-resolution mode (steps shared in the link above) and check if that helps to resolve the issue.

      If not, please share the following details:

      • When does issue start to happen? Is it after updating to Mojave?
      • Is the issue related to a specific ".ai,.indd or .ps" document? If yes, could you please share the document with us? You can upload it to the creative cloud and share the download link.
      • Any specific operation or action after which the issue starts? Screen recording will be very useful if some steps are known.

      Please ignore if you have already shared the above information.

      Regards,

      Srishti

      R
      Roel JPG
      Participating Frequently
      August 1, 2019

      Hi Srishti,

      yesterday my screen was flickering again, so I stopped Illustrator and most other programs but I was downloading a big 12 Gb file with the Chrome browser. So I waited an our and then I quit the browser and since then the flickering was over. I didn't have to restart the computer. I started again Adobe and Chrome and still working. Is Chrome the one who conflicts with Adobe Illustrator?

      Br Roel

      mikeg50858175
      mikeg50858175
      New Participant
      July 17, 2019

      I've had terrible experience with screen flickering getting worse and worse.  Began when installed Mojave, doing render in media encoder/premier, now on other non adobe programs, and has even forced iMac to restart.

      I have AMD Radeon R9 M395 2 GB card on iMac 27" Late 2015.  AMD do NOT supply drivers for Mojave, this i believe is the problem and the only solution I can think of right now is to downgrade Mac OS to High Sierra!

      S
      stevenf60444607
      New Participant
      July 16, 2019

      I have the same issue here. Only started in the last couple of weeks. iMac 27" 2015 with AMD Radeon R9 M390 2 GB graphics.

      Latest version of Mojave (10.14.5) and latest versions of Illustrator and Indesign. Never had any issues before.

      I have found that if you can manage to navigate to the Displays preference panel through the flickering, changing the resolution (scaling) stops the flickering. Saves me having to restart

      A
      avitti
      New Participant
      August 7, 2021

      Such a helpful trick, thank you! Definitely preferred over restarting, I'll be using this. 

      S
      starlinkch
      New Participant
      July 16, 2019

      Strangly,

      we experience the same flickering on two 2015 27" iMacs, but one with NO Adobe CC product installed on it, except of the adobe reader. So the problem is not Illustrator related?

      The flickering started after the latest Mojave update (10.14.5), all other iMacs in Office still are running an older version of macOS (even 10.11)

        R
        Roel JPG
        Participating Frequently
        July 11, 2019

        same problem here...

        iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)

        OS Version 10.14.5

        Graphics: AMD Radeon R9 M395 2 GB

        Illustrator 23.0.4

        InDesin 14.0.2

        spenceri41064082
        spenceri41064082
        New Participant
        July 10, 2019

        Finally, I've found a thread detailing the same issues as me! It's SO frustrating when the screen goes completely bananas...

        Thank you all for sharing the information - I'm having EXACTLY the same issues with my 2015 iMac in our studio here. I've just turned off GPU performance in both InDesign and Illustrator - I'll observe what happens and report back.

        For information, I'm running the latest Adobe suite software - all up to date (10 July), and running Mojave 10.14.5

        Graphics card is: AMD Radeon R9 M395 2 GB

        Mac: iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015)

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