Hello, I currently have a m1 macbook 2020, everything else on my mac is working except that my wallpaper keeps flickering every few minutes.
MacBook Air 13″, macOS 15.0
Hey,
I discovered the problem and found a rather brute solution to it.
I opened Activity Monitor and waited for the screen flickering to happen. That’s when I noticed that the WallpaperImageExtension process was causing the wallpaper to restart—it was failing to find a wallpaper in its cache. You can confirm this yourself by opening Console from the Applications folder. Set the filter to "Errors and Faults" and search for WallpaperImageExtension. Every time the flickering happens, you'll see an error log pop up in the filtered list:
Since it wasn’t possible to stop or disable this service alone (because it’s a child process of com.apple.wallpaper), I had to stop the entire wallpaper service. This means no wallpaper at all, unfortunately.
Here’s how to disable it:
1- Boot your Mac in Recovery Mode by shutting down and then pressing the power button until the options page appears.
2- Open Terminal from the Utilities menu bar.
3- Disable System Integrity Protection (SIP) by running this command:
csrutil disable
4- Restart and boot normally, then open Terminal and run this command to unload the wallpaper service:
launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchAgents/com.apple.wallpaper.plist
This will stop the wallpaper from restarting until your next reboot or whenever you want to use a wallpaper again.
Note: It's generally not recommended to disable SIP, but if this bug is driving you crazy, it’s worth doing for some peace of mind. To re-enable SIP, just reboot into Recovery Mode and run:
csrutil enable
However, be aware that once SIP is re-enabled, the wallpaper service will start again, and you won’t be able to stop it without repeating the process.
Stefano Pini wrote: "Have the same annoyng problem :("
Consider letting Apple know about it:
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I also completed the feedback form and opened a ticket. I'd encourage others to do the same. No solution provided, but at least we're making folks aware.
Wonder if flicker problem is there with just the laptop screen, w/o external monitor? My problem went away starting with v15.1.x. (never had a monitor connected). Using a MacBook Air M3.
Please share some more setup detail, e.g. hardware M1 MacBook Air, OS version, external monitor? Thanks.
Screen flickering on my M3 MacBook Air stopped since Sequoia 15.1, now running 15.3.1.
I have this too. I've reported it today at Feedback - macOS - Apple
Not sure if anyone has discovered a fix or not?
Currently running a Mac Pro 2019 3.5GHz Intel Xeon with 96GB RAM, so I don't think it's resource issues!
Mine's doing similar where the display connected to a Mac Mini 2018 via HDMI keeps going blank at random times. It's as if the display loses the signal from the Mac Mini 2018 or is being sent a sleep signal. The display power is constant and the display then cycles through all its other inputs (which have nothing connected to them) before getting back to the Mac Mini 2018 HDMI input and discovering the signal again and showing the desktop.
Same problem here after Sequoia installing with a Macbook Pro 2020 M1. I'm using chrome with Raindrop.io, uBlock Origin and Last Pass extensions. Not using Mendeley or Safari for now, and not using wallpaper, only solid color. My suspicions are from Chrome or VLC video player.
I agree that it doesn't seem to be a plugin issue, but I don't see why iCloud integration would necessarily be a problem. Other than this issue, Sequoia is working fine for me. And on an M2 MBA 8gb ram, dynamic wallpapers worked just fine under Sonoma.
I have the same issue on my MacBook Pro M1 Max. It started after updating to macOS Sequoia 15.0. I uninstalled the Dell monitor app and Magnet app, but the screen is still flickering. Any advice, please?
me too on a iMac Retina 5K, 27" (Intel), 2020 with macos 15.0.1 .
The screen briefly flickers green. This can even be reproduced in the Apple TV app.
This does not happen during movie playback. Only when a new screen is displayed or updated. I hope this information helps you to investigate the problem further. Thanks.
My M2 MacBook Air is on Sequoia 15.0.01 and this is happening to me as well. The flicker only happens to my desktop which flashes a solid dark grey wallpaper and then reverts back to my desktop image. I am also not running the Mendeley web importer extension.
I thought I was going crazy.
It happens in the background while I’m in an active window. I see the background flicker to a light grey. I only have a black background so it’s very distracting and concerning.
Still getting the flickering screen. The screen flashes a black background for about half a second, about 3-4 times per minute. Details:
Let's get this fixed Apple.
The grey flickering desktop started when I tried a free three-month subscription to Apple Music. It happens once in a while throughout the day. It also happened when I downloaded a game from the App Store. I have a feeling it has to deal with privacy & location.
I have a 16" (Nov 2023) MacBook Pro M3 running Sequoia 15.0.1 and have this same issue. It does blink black, but other times, it blinks dark grey - like when you're going to take a screenshot of a particular window and space bar to select it. VERY annoying!!!
Mac Sequoia, Screen Flickering every few minutes
