OSX Date&Time BLACK Glitch discovered (NOT the "black menu bar glitch")

[KatVonSonder]

Hello everybody,
I tried to find out if someone else in this Forum already talked about it, but I couldn't, even after waiting and looking for for a few months. If I'm wrong, I really really apologize!! In that case, just delete this thread and show me the right one.

The "Date&Time BLACK Glitch" is something happens apparently ONLY if you choose in "Date & Time" System Preferences panel to make the Time Separator "flashing". When you set the Hour/Minutes separator to flash intermittently, after a couple of hours and then consistently and randomly it appears! Like the Phantom of The Opera!

WHAT IS IT?
It appears in the form of a black bar covering only the Date&Time area of the menu bar, after just a 3 seconds of strange blurring effect. Then after a 3 seconds period (more or less) of "black rectangular bar", it disappears by itself.

I uploaded the screenshot here and... IT WAS A NIGHTMARE TO CATCH IT!
Hours and hours of paying attention while working!

I tried very different Clover Hack machines and until now I can say it is NOT related to:

- OSX versions (from 10.6 up to 10.12.6)
- Hardware (MoBo, CPU, Integrated GPU, nVidia GPU... never used AMD GPUs though..)
- SMBIOS (MacPRO, iMac XX, iMac 17)
- nVidia drivers versions
- Black menu bar glitch (fixed or not)

It's always there.... the only "fix" I found: turn OFF date & time separator flashing.
If someone has got an idea... maybe this is a hint for our geniuses here... I do not know..
It look like Apple uses OpenGL and Quartz for a "flashing separator" also... ...

All the best to every body,
happy hacking and please... let's altogether be always friends!
Cheers!

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Hello everybody,
I tried to find out if someone else in this Forum already talked about it, but I couldn't, even after waiting and looking for for a few months. If I'm wrong, I really really apologize!! In that case, just delete this thread and show me the right one.

The "Date&Time BLACK Glitch" is something happens apparently ONLY if you choose in "Date & Time" System Preferences panel to make the Time Separator "flashing". When you set the Hour/Minutes separator to flash intermittently, after a couple of hours and then consistently and randomly it appears! Like the Phantom of The Opera!

WHAT IS IT?
It appears in the form of a black bar covering only the Date&Time area of the menu bar, after just a 3 seconds of strange blurring effect. Then after a 3 seconds period (more or less) of "black rectangular bar", it disappears by itself.

I uploaded the screenshot here and... IT WAS A NIGHTMARE TO CATCH IT!
Hours and hours of paying attention while working!

View attachment 269753

I tried very different Clover Hack machines and until now I can say it is NOT related to:

- OSX versions (from 10.6 up to 10.12.6)
- Hardware (MoBo, CPU, Integrated GPU, nVidia GPU... never used AMD GPUs though..)
- SMBIOS (MacPRO, iMac XX, iMac 17)
- nVidia drivers versions
- Black menu bar glitch (fixed or not)

It's always there.... the only "fix" I found: turn OFF date & time separator flashing.
If someone has got an idea... maybe this is a hint for our geniuses here... I do not know..
It look like Apple uses OpenGL and Quartz for a "flashing separator" also... ...

All the best to every body,
happy hacking and please... let's altogether be always friends!
Cheers!

Ha! Well I'm definitely NOT a genius but ...

This has happened, along with a few other "black bar" graphic glitches, for some time now. A particular example which I can replicate here and now is the desktop app called KeePass Desktop. The entries on the data screen have occasional black-bars in them. Not the apps fault at all, this has happened for a few years in various different places and different apps. Menu items on the menu bar too get affected. There is currently another builder in this forum with a similar problem ...

Anyway, after all that I think it is actually just a bug in the Nvidia web-drivers (and there are one or two!). I've experienced it on different computers and with different versions of the macOS BUT always a Nvidia GPU needing drivers.

Not sure it is worrying though. More, annoying if anything.

 

[Wolfie81]

I also have the same problem!! Issue is, it jumps all over the place within the menu bar at random times. I do not use a time separator and it still happens.

See my previous thread about it. No solution so far

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...king-of-menubar-programs-using-1080ti.227953/

 

[KatVonSonder]

Ha! Well I'm definitely NOT a genius but ...

This has happened, along with a few other "black bar" graphic glitches, for some time now. A particular example which I can replicate here and now is the desktop app called KeePass Desktop. The entries on the data screen have occasional black-bars in them. Not the apps fault at all, this has happened for a few years in various different places and different apps. Menu items on the menu bar too get affected. There is currently another builder in this forum with a similar problem ...

Anyway, after all that I think it is actually just a bug in the Nvidia web-drivers (and there are one or two!). I've experienced it on different computers and with different versions of the macOS BUT always a Nvidia GPU needing drivers.

Not sure it is worrying though. More, annoying if anything.

You're right, it's really only an annoying glitch.
Our "Mhacs" are a very very good and flexible tool to do our best using OSX. We have to always remember what they are and WHY we chose them to build at the beginning.

I'm an old Mac user (OS7) and I never complained about money during all the PPC Era (always worked with but never owned one until 2001), but when I looked at that damned keynote.. "OSX second life".. I threw myself away from the desk and say: "God, why you chose me? Take this cup away from me. For I don't want to taste its poison.."
Because I did a 5.000 euros bank debit just a couple of months before that to buy a... YES, a PPC monster!... ..
After 3 months in Hospital for "Post Traumatic Stress" during them saying only: "I don't wanna look at that window... I don't wanna look at that window..." I realize that maybe the prices would go down, maybe all those new connection ports will appear, maybe they will give, as always, the best hardware out there..... ... "I don't wanna look at that window... I don't wanna look at that window... I don't wanna look at that window... .. EVEN NOW!!"
Sorry for too much words, but I wanted to make you smile just a little bit using my personal experiences (yes.. I did outing..).

I also found various aspects of nVidia drivers that are.. well: bugs.. small ones.. but sometimes really annoying.
As an example: if you use Camera RAW and certain other plugins which use a "preview box/window" the refreshing is smooth ONLY if you use "legacy" natively supported nVidia cards, like GTX760, otherwise you can encounter random bad refreshes.
And you're telling menu glitches also..
But performance wise I believe Mhacs are the best machines out there if you need to use "OSX strictly related" software.

Otherwise we REALLY have to use......... oh, God... help me!.... I... I...
...

 

[KatVonSonder]

I also have the same problem!! Issue is, it jumps all over the place within the menu bar at random times. I do not use a time separator and it still happens.

See my previous thread about it. No solution so far

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/...king-of-menubar-programs-using-1080ti.227953/

Did you try all these steps in order?:
- disable iGPU in BIOS
- disable Clover iGPU injection
- delete ALL nvram.plist files in ALL your discs and EFI partitions
- clean L-E and S-L-E trashing all "GPU hack" related kexts
- clean all Clover "GPU hack" related kexts
- clean all Clover iGPU/GPU related DSDT and SSDT
- update all the Clover kexts you use to the latest versions
- rebuild kernel cache
- reboot

NOTE: different iGPUs = different hacks or no hacks at all; in Clover "Devices/Properties" + "Devices/Arbitrary" + "Devices/CustomProperties" clean everything, because they override other settings elsewhere (to make it simple)
I know you probably tried these steps.. I'm just trying to help..

Maybe this could be very helpful: Try also to boot via Clover USB key and keep working until you see if the problem persist.
If not, then there are very high chances a clean install of both OSX and Clover will solve it.
AND do not migrate Users in problematic situations, otherwise you migrate also the problems. Copy everything by hand and reinstall Apps as new. It's boring but it works.

I hope this could be of any help.
Cheers.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

You're right, it's really only an annoying glitch.
Our "Mhacs" are a very very good and flexible tool to do our best using OSX. We have to always remember what they are and WHY we chose them to build at the beginning.

I'm an old Mac user (OS7) and I never complained about money during all the PPC Era (always worked with but never owned one until 2001), but when I looked at that damned keynote.. "OSX second life".. I threw myself away from the desk and say: "God, why you chose me? Take this cup away from me. For I don't want to taste its poison.."
Because I did a 5.000 euros bank debit just a couple of months before that to buy a... YES, a PPC monster!... ..
After 3 months in Hospital for "Post Traumatic Stress" during them saying only: "I don't wanna look at that window... I don't wanna look at that window..." I realize that maybe the prices would go down, maybe all those new connection ports will appear, maybe they will give, as always, the best hardware out there..... ... "I don't wanna look at that window... I don't wanna look at that window... I don't wanna look at that window... .. EVEN NOW!!"
Sorry for too much words, but I wanted to make you smile just a little bit using my personal experiences (yes.. I did outing..).

I also found various aspects of nVidia drivers that are.. well: bugs.. small ones.. but sometimes really annoying.
As an example: if you use Camera RAW and certain other plugins which use a "preview box/window" the refreshing is smooth ONLY if you use "legacy" natively supported nVidia cards, like GTX760, otherwise you can encounter random bad refreshes.
And you're telling menu glitches also..
But performance wise I believe Mhacs are the best machines out there if you need to use "OSX strictly related" software.

Otherwise we REALLY have to use......... oh, God... help me!.... I... I...
...

Yes, I smiled!

 

[unrealwzg]

same issue here, no solution found so far.

 

[Wolfie81]

same issue here, no solution found so far.

I just want to up this as I think I may have found the answer. I just quoted the last person so it'll get some attention.
Ive noticed when I don't turn on ' iStat' in the menubar I don't get the flickering (yet anyway). Do you guys in this thread have iStat installed?

Edit 1:

So after my iStat experimentation, and how I did not see the black bar when iStat was not working (iStat works fine on my legit Mac), I started thinking about what data iStat relies on. I decided to experiment and hypothesis a link between iStat and GPUSENSOR.KEXT.

I upgraded to the latest revision, and it has worked well so far with iStat reactivated!

Interestingly, if you go to http://www.hwsensors.com/releases you'll see the 1426 revision but there is actually a LATER revision that isn't accessible through the typical way.

Note this thread:
https://github.com/kozlek/HWSensors/issues/358#issuecomment-293537614

Within it is a link to the latest 1438 BUILD.

Download and replace all those kexts into your system. Let us know how you go.

Edit 2:
Sadly, it has returned with iStat activated.

 

[unrealwzg]

I just want to up this as I think I may have found the answer. I just quoted the last person so it'll get some attention.
Ive noticed when I don't turn on ' iStat' in the menubar I don't get the flickering (yet anyway). Do you guys in this thread have iStat installed?

Edit 1:

So after my iStat experimentation, and how I did not see the black bar when iStat was not working (iStat works fine on my legit Mac), I started thinking about what data iStat relies on. I decided to experiment and hypothesis a link between iStat and GPUSENSOR.KEXT.

I upgraded to the latest revision, and it has worked well so far with iStat reactivated!

Interestingly, if you go to http://www.hwsensors.com/releases you'll see the 1426 revision but there is actually a LATER revision that isn't accessible through the typical way.

Note this thread:
https://github.com/kozlek/HWSensors/issues/358#issuecomment-293537614

Within it is a link to the latest 1438 BUILD.

Download and replace all those kexts into your system. Let us know how you go.

Edit 2:
Sadly, it has returned with iStat activated.

So the conclusion is iStats's fault?

 

[Wolfie81]

I can't say for sure, but I haven't seen it flicker when its been off. They pushed out an update today, ill see if it makes a diff.