Big Sur update is causing extensive screen flickering

Hello guys. I have same problem on my Macbook Air 2020. I found a solution to fix flickering. Go to Settings - Accessibility - Display -> Change the size of the cursor bigger! After that little change, the flickering stopped. 

This happened to me immediately after upgrading from Catalina to Big Sur (11.2). I never had this problem in Catalina (which is surprising!!...) What BrooksPMA suggested by going to "Settings - Accessibility - Display -> Change the size of the cursor bigger!" worked perfectly for me. You don't even have to change the cursor size by much. What a weird bug...

Since I've updated to Big Sur on my MacBook Pro 2018 my computer is almost unusable. I would like uninstall Big Sur!!!! and go back to what is was before. I paid a lot of money for this computer and very unhappy with the performance. I already all the recommendations.....very upset!!!!

Yep still happening on my m1 mac mini . 8th Feb 2021

You are not alone! And be alert, because with me these problems caused by the update have evolved into something much worse.
My Macbook Pro model A1990 turned into a brick after upgrading to BigSur. First the screen flickered and the system froze, forcing me to restart. ( several times, day after day ).
Now, since 7 February 2021, the Macbook Pro is no longer booting. Whenever the problem occurred, there was a blowing sound accompanied by the crash. The macbook pro in question was purchased in 2019, new and with a configuration well above that needed for development in javascript using VSCode. After all, how can a system like BigSur prevent a Macbook i7, 16RAM, 512 SSD from doing the same thing that my old Lenovo ideapad Z460 notebook can still do today with an i3 processor and 4GB of RAM?

Hello, I have the same problem,,,MacBook Pro 2019, flickering and black image,,I try to reinstall mac os with command R and got error on instalation...error 1 ..does anyone can help? If connect to an external disk the screen get black or flickering... any problem I encountered with Catalina.., i am stack please help

I am having the same problem. As I write this, the screen is flickering yellow on the right side with a white diagonal patch flickering behind it. It has done this before, and then the whole screen goes blank and shuts down. I have tried to remove big sur --- but it appears it is another organism that we cant get rid of and, no vaccine, no mask, can help!!!

Same here. It happens often in Chrome or when viewing a PDF document.

Happening to mine as well. I’m on the stable version macOS 11.2.1 and the screen just goes blank in the middle of the task that I’m doing. I have to close the lid what for like 2 minutes and open it for it to start functioning properly. Need a solution or an update fast!

I am having the exact same issue on this end. Before the Big Sur update, I was running a LG 27UL650-W 27" 4K UHD LED Monitor with VESA DisplayHDR 400 monitor with no issues. As a prerequisite: I have 32GB of RAM, and a 8GB AMD Radeon Pro 5500M Graphics Card that was custom-ordered with the machine. Also, it is hooked up to an Anker Docking Station (13-in-1), which outputs the sound to my speakers, which are all at least 6' away from the monitor and the Mac to ensure no interference with the monitor (as I saw on a few online reports that sound interference can cause screen flickering....). There are also 3 hard drives hooked up to the Docking Station, along with the Loupedeck CT, all of which are running with no issues.

Now, I've had this Mac and these systems since September of last year, and I'll admit: I'm using this Mac like I've never used any other Mac I've EVER had, which is at the highest and most intense of all the laptops I have ever owned.... Whenever I'd be using this 2nd monitor with the new Mac, the LG screen would periodically (say, every hour, then every 30 minutes after a period of weeks) go to a black screen for about a second, then function as normal. At first, I wondered why that was the case, and to this day, I still don't know why. I thought that it was doing that so it could be sure to sync properly with the Mac (which is a 16" MacBook Pro 2020 with Touch Bar). I also had scaled the graphics to be slightly smaller on the LG Display so I could see more data on the screen (maybe this is why??? Not sure...). Thirdly, one thing I noticed was whenever the temperature (as the office is upstairs) would get above 80 degrees (as this is a work from home solution, where the entire house is running on one air conditioning unit instead of 2), the fans on the Mac would automatically kick in, and get pretty loud whenever the LG Display was hooked in to the Mac. Once it got to 85 degrees, the Mac would automatically engage in a kernel task to protect itself, despite my turning on fans and even opening up the window before this happened.... However, with the Display NOT being hooked in, the temperature could be over 85 degrees, and the Mac's fans don't even turn on, and the Mac's screen continues to function with no issues, even with it hooked into the Anker Docking Station. I thought it was the LG Display causing the issue, so I hooked that into the iPad Pro via USB-C cables, and the Display has been working fine with the iPad Pro, with no screen flickering whatsoever....

However, after the latest Big Sur update (released a few days ago; not sure if this was the issue either?), whenever I hook the monitor into the computer, I get really bad flickering, or a completely black screen on the Mac, along with a green screen on the LG monitor. I've already reset the PRAM and SMC, and that didn't work. I tried an HDMI to USB-C cable (brand new) in all the ports on the Mac, and that didn't work. I also tried an HDMI to Apple 3-prong adapter/dongle (the one that has the USB-C, USB, and HDMI cable connections on it; brand new also), and connected the adapter/dongle via USB-C into the Mac, and that didn't work. BUT, as an interesting note, Sidecar with the iPad Pro 11" has worked with no issues, where I'm able to use the iPad as a secondary display. This is when I've been using it either directly connected to the Mac via USB-C, or wirelessly.

However, when I did Apple Airplay with the Apple TV, and made the screen (which is a 50" television) as a Secondary Display, the Mac quickly did a hard shut down on its own.... All this time, I also have turned off the Automatic Graphics Switching feature in the Displays area of System Preferences through all these tests, and none of it has produced success. Ultimately, I have a pretty expensive LG Display here that I really, really want to use with my Mac, but can't do so because of this screen flickering, and ultimately blackout issue that keeps occurring. I honestly don't know the solution to this problem, as I have never had this problem with my previous THREE Mac laptops that I have owned. It has only occurred (really badly I might add) after this latest update to Big Sur.

If anyone can give me some pointers or something (anything, please!!!!) regarding the solution to this problem, that would be greatly appreciated, as again, I'd really like to use my LG Display, but can't do so because of this screen flickering (and black/green screen) issues, which makes the Mac either freeze or shut down abruptly. Other than that, interestingly, the Anker Docking Station is working just fine, along with the iPad Pro. This issue ONLY happens when I hook the Mac into the LG Display, or use Apple Airplay with the Apple TV. I will even adjust the screen resolution back to its "native" screen resolution to see if that works (but I'm not sure it will)....

Still an issue for me Feb 20, 2021
Constant flickering started with Catalina and was encouraged to update for fix. Same or worse with Big Sur.
MacBook Pro

Same issue here, that start today for unknown reason. Someone of Apple look this thread and do something for us?

Big Sur v11.2.1
MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019)
2,4 GHz Intel Core i9 8 core
64 Go 2667 MHz DDR4

Please customer support what next to fix that asap?

This issue occur only on my MacBook Pro retina screen.

The only way to fix the flickering on my mac was to disable "Automatic graphics switching" in battery mode. However, this drains the battery much faster. Using Battery Health, I measured power usage jumped from ~800ma to ~3000ma on my MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2019 Big Sur 11.2.2)

I hope Apple can look into this issue seriously.

Same happened to me. I updated to Big Sur (11.2) and a day later my screen flickering. The genius at the Genius Bar stated it would cost 2,500 AED or $681.00 to replace the monitor/screen. So Apple is making garbage products and charging outrageous prices to fix. I'm switching to System76,

I have the same issue on a M1 Mac Mini on Big Sur and it seems to occur while using Chrome. Scrolling through Facebook feed seems to trigger it often, also autoplay videos on some news sites (like CNN). Surely there has to be a way to prevent this, I would even accept the operating system causing the program to crash right before this happens. But it's unacceptable that the whole screen continuously flickers (causing who knows what harm to my monitor until it stabilizes again.) I won't blame Google (even though there may be some bad programming lines in Chrome), the operating system should not let the program harm our equipment in this manner. I just switched over from Windows and hoping very much not to switch back as apart from this MAJOR issue, I've been quite happy being a MAC user.

I'm also running into this issue following updating to Big Sur. Just purchased this macbook pro in December - 2019 Macbook Pro 16 inch, running Big Sur 11.2.3 - 2.4Ghz i9 / 32gb RAM / 2TB drive / AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8GB graphics. The screen flickers across both external monitors and the internal display, so is not hardware related. It also occurs both with and without automatic graphics switching enabled, and with and without brightness adjustment. Several times, this display issue has created a kernel panic and caused a full reboot with very little detail in the error message. Would be great to get Apple's attention on this issue.