Lightroom 6.14 flickering after MacOS 10.13.4 update.

[neefoo]

Not sure where to post this problem, but I'll start in this forum. Please move it if it should be in somewhere else.

After updating the OS on my Mid 2012 MBP 15" non-retina to MacOS 10.13.4 I realized that my external screen, a Dell U2414H has started to...flicker. None of the settings has been changed, Ive checked that. What has happened and is Apple aware of this problem?

Some years ago the same monitor, the Dell U2414H was known by Apple users to not be fully functional together with their Apple computers. It was found by the OS as a TV, not getting the right signal from the Mac. Some users reported lower color depth etc. The last updates of MacOS seemed to fixed this issue though, and my display is found correctly by the computer.

Even though the earlier problems with the Dell U2414H might not have anything to do with this later issue, there is something else going on! I read that the 10.13.4 had some support for external graphicscards on *newer* (mine is form 2012) computers, but could this be a problem? Or could it be something else?

I dont think its the Dell screen. It worked fine just until the update, but....when thinking of it, i HAVE had problems with flickering on it, but then it was in darker, grey areas. Now all the graphics, the whole screen, flickers.

I did do a SMC-reset and thought that did the trick, but no. Now the flickering is inside the Lighrtroom app (only?) , and Im starting to think that it has something to do with the 10.13.4 update and the GPU, in my case a Geforce 650M. Is this possible?

I really need some help now. It's a bit hard to work with the built in screen. 😉

Thank you.

[JohanElzenga]

It's easy to test if it's the GPU. Open Lightroom Preferences, go to the Performance tab and turn it off.

[francisd76753192]

Thanks for the GPU suggestion. It's Nov 9, 2019 and I have the flickering on my late 2014 5K 27" IMac. The flickering always starts when using LR, but if I close LR, the flickering persists and I have to reboot. Turned off the GPU in LR and sure enough, the flickering is no more. I'm on Mac OS 10.14.6 and LR Classic 9 (current as of today). Perhaps it's fixed in Apple OS Catalina, but I'm afraid to update the OS just yet. Anyone know if Catalina fixes this?

[Punkylex]

Same problem here on iMac 5K 2015 with AMD Radeon R9 M380 2 GB with the latest version of LRC on OS X.14.6.

I had faced a year ago the same problem using other Adobe applications (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop) but then Adobe (or Apple) seemed to solve the problem. Except for Lightroom Classic.

I believe this is related to the Radeon driver.

Maybe updating to Catalina would solve the problem but I'm wondering if this is really the solution.

Is this problem present too on Catalina? 

[Punkylex]

Finally I solved my flickering problem reseting the preferences during the application start pressing Shift+CTRL+Alt+Command. I remembered this trick solved last year the other flickering issues while running others Adobe apps. I hope this could help you to solve yours. Regards.

[Punkylex]

Update to my previous post: no, the issue is not solved by resetting the application preferences. The flickering bug just happened again a while ago. I'll try maybe to update the OS to Catalina although I'll loose 32 bit compatibility with some other applications.

[KR Seals]

Design Rob, you may not have the same problem. The OP had a MacBook and external non Apple monitor. I'm sure if you upgrade to Catalina you will get updated drivers.  This Adobe article on video requirements may be helpful:  https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/lightroom-gpu-faq.html

I am using a MacBookPro 2019 16" Catalina with a 27" Dell external monitor without issues.

[JP Hess]

Whatever you do, DON'T uninstall Lightroom 6.14 expecting to be able to install it again. The installer is 32-bit, and Catalina will not run it. Just a word of caution. If 6.14 is running, let it be.