What you need to know
- Multiple people are being blinded by their Macs.
- The display brightness is being set to 100% after sleeping.
- It doesn't matter what the display was set to when the Mac slept.
Some users of macOS Catalina have noted that their displays are doing strange things when their Mac wakes from sleep. No matter what brightness they were set to before sleeping, they're waking at 100%. And that's very bright indeed depending on the display you're using.
This was initially reported by Mac Performance Guide as impacting those using LG's external 5K display, but we've also seen additional reports that suggest it could be happening with other displays as well. Specifically, the super fancy Pro Display XDR.
Sometimes when I wake my Mac Pro from sleep, it sets its attached Pro Display XDR to full brightness (500 nits).Sometimes when I wake my Mac Pro from sleep, it sets its attached Pro Display XDR to full brightness (500 nits).— John Siracusa (@siracusa) January 23, 2020January 23, 2020
Others say they've been experiencing similar display-related issues with brand new 16-inch MacBook Pro notebooks as well. This from John Gruber who also wrote this up for Daring Fireball.
I didn’t even mention it in my post, but I’d say about 1 in 10 times I open my 16-inch MBP, the built-in display contrast is waaaaay off. Way too much contrast. I can fix it either by moving brightness all the way down then back up again, or by closing and reopening the lid.I didn’t even mention it in my post, but I’d say about 1 in 10 times I open my 16-inch MBP, the built-in display contrast is waaaaay off. Way too much contrast. I can fix it either by moving brightness all the way down then back up again, or by closing and reopening the lid.— John Gruber (@gruber) January 23, 2020January 23, 2020
And then there's iMac Pro, too.
We had this same exact issue with an iMac Pro when they were first released.Bought 2 machines and one of them was useless to us with this issue.After a long time with Apple support, they said it was a known issue but there was no solution at the time. Eventually I was able to convince them to take the machine back if I ordered another and it was problem free. Ordered another, it was fine and they took the problem one back.Sorry to see the issue is still around.
It's certainly not beyond macOS Catalina to carry a bug or ten, but we can imagine this one being particularly irritating if you're someone who needs their Mac to be "just right" for things like photo and video editing. Gruber pointed to one user who just couldn't live with having to re-calibrate their display repeatedly each and every day. So they just returned their Mac.
A DF reader — also a professional photographer — wrote to me about this bug last week. He (the DF reader) was using a $6,000 new 16-inch MacBook Pro. I say was, past tense, because after a few days he returned it because this brightness issue was no small thing for him, because he sets his display brightness precisely using a display calibrator. Doing this several times per day every day quickly drove him mad.
Yikes.
