Display blinking on and off after big sur upgrade

[arobinson]

Happens all the time

Describe the bug
After upgrading to Big Sur, my MacVim's display keeps blinking on and off (completely black, no gutter, no text, etc. when blinking off).

This is on Dark mode with macvim installed via homebrew

To Reproduce
Detailed steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Run mvim --clean or mvim (or gvim --clean, etc.)

Does not happen in "vim" in the terminal

Expected behavior
Should display in Big Sur the same as in Mojave and earlier without blinking

Screenshots

Environment (please complete the following information):

• VIM - Vi IMproved 8.2 (2019 Dec 12, compiled Nov 23 2020 06:06:21)
• OS: 11.1 (20C69)
• Terminal: GUI

Additional context

[arobinson]

Work-around found:
Turning off the advanced setting "Use Core Text renderer" stops the blinking

[ychin]

What version of MacVim are you on? Can you show the entire :version output (you could also obtain that by doing mvim --version)? Just "8.2" is not enough information because you need to show the patch number as well.

Also, can you show me the results of defaults read org.vim.MacVim | grep MM?

Also, non-Core Text renderer is deprecated and will be removed in near future, so I would advice against using it for too long. It probably works as a stopgap measure for now but I would rather recommend you downgrade to an older version instead if that helps (a lot of random things don't work properly in non-Core Text renderer). I have not seen this report from other MacVim users though so I'm curious about your setting (M1 Mac? How old is your computer?)

[arobinson]

VIM - Vi IMproved 8.1 (2018 May 18, compiled Aug 14 2018 05:28:49)
macOS version
Included patches: 1-280
Compiled by travis@Traviss-Mac-1044.local
Huge version with MacVim GUI.  Features included (+) or not (-):
+acl               +farsi             +mouse_sgr         -tag_any_white
+arabic            +file_in_path      -mouse_sysmouse    -tcl
+autocmd           +find_in_path      +mouse_urxvt       +termguicolors
+autochdir         +float             +mouse_xterm       +terminal
-autoservername    +folding           +multi_byte        +terminfo
+balloon_eval      -footer            +multi_lang        +termresponse
+balloon_eval_term +fork()            -mzscheme          +textobjects
+browse            +fullscreen        +netbeans_intg     +timers
++builtin_terms    -gettext           +num64             +title
+byte_offset       -hangul_input      +odbeditor         +toolbar
+channel           +iconv             +packages          +transparency
+cindent           +insert_expand     +path_extra        +user_commands
+clientserver      +job               +perl/dyn          +vartabs
+clipboard         +jumplist          +persistent_undo   +vertsplit
+cmdline_compl     +keymap            +postscript        +virtualedit
+cmdline_hist      +lambda            +printer           +visual
+cmdline_info      +langmap           +profile           +visualextra
+comments          +libcall           +python/dyn        +viminfo
+conceal           +linebreak         +python3/dyn       +vreplace
+cryptv            +lispindent        +quickfix          +wildignore
+cscope            +listcmds          +reltime           +wildmenu
+cursorbind        +localmap          +rightleft         +windows
+cursorshape       +lua/dyn           +ruby/dyn          +writebackup
+dialog_con_gui    +menu              +scrollbind        -X11
+diff              +mksession         +signs             -xfontset
+digraphs          +modify_fname      +smartindent       +xim
+dnd               +mouse             +startuptime       -xpm
-ebcdic            +mouseshape        +statusline        -xsmp
+emacs_tags        +mouse_dec         -sun_workshop      -xterm_clipboard
+eval              -mouse_gpm         +syntax            -xterm_save
+ex_extra          -mouse_jsbterm     +tag_binary
+extra_search      +mouse_netterm     +tag_old_static
   system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
     user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
 2nd user vimrc file: "~/.vim/vimrc"
      user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
  system gvimrc file: "$VIM/gvimrc"
    user gvimrc file: "$HOME/.gvimrc"
2nd user gvimrc file: "~/.vim/gvimrc"
       defaults file: "$VIMRUNTIME/defaults.vim"
    system menu file: "$VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim"
  fall-back for $VIM: "/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim"
Compilation: clang -c -I. -Iproto -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -DFEAT_GUI_MACVIM -Wall -Wno-unknown-pragmas -pipe  -DMACOS_X -DMACOS_X_DARWIN  -g -O2 -U_FORTIFY_SOURCE -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1
Linking: clang   -L. -fstack-protector -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/opt/libyaml/lib -L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib -L/usr/local/opt/readline/lib -L. -fstack-protector -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/local/opt/libyaml/lib -L/usr/local/opt/openssl/lib -L/usr/local/opt/readline/lib  -L/usr/local/lib -o Vim -framework Cocoa -framework Carbon       -lm  -lncurses -liconv -framework AppKit   -fstack-protector  -L/System/Library/Perl/5.18/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE

    MMAutosaveColumns = 62;
    MMAutosaveRows = 43;
    MMCurrentPreferencePane = Advanced;
    MMOpenInCurrentWindow = 1;
    MMRenderer = 0;
    MMSuppressTerminationAlert = 1;
    MMTopLeftPoint = "{1104, 899}";

MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018)
Processor 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7
Memory 16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4
Graphics Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB

[ychin]

Hmm, isn't that a different version? The original bug report your Vim was 8.2., but in this version you are running Vim 8.1.0280 which was release in https://github.com/macvim-dev/macvim/releases/tag/snapshot-151 (3 years ago). Was there a reason for the discrepency?

[arobinson]

Not sure what happened with the versions, but I did an upgrade again and got version 8.2.2164. I turned the setting back on and the issue is gone.

[realfun]

Thanks, same issue happened to me today after upgrade to Big Sur. The work-around worked, and the upgrade worked as well.