• Abstract
  • Severe eye strain, I know it's fixable with one button, but don't know which

I’ve used Apple computers extensively for twenty years.  In 2019 I purchased a 27” iMac Pro. From the moment I booted it up and saw the white apple over the black background, looking at the screen gave me a headache and eye strain/fatigue IMMEDIATELY...NOT AFTER some period of time working on the computer. If I look to my left or right (away from the monitor) the headache and eye strain almost immediately faded. I've adjusted the brightness, I've tried 3rd party apps like "f.lux", “Shady" and SwitchResX.   I adjusted the resolution down to 2048 x 1152, I've tried sunglasses as well as computer glasses to further adjust color, I've used the "Night Shift" feature and I've spoken with Apple Care. I've seen my ophthalmologist and he has no ideas either.  I'm looking down at the monitor and am approximately 29" away from it because of my desk size and chair position. The headache and eye strain is definitely at peak pain when the screen has mostly white on it, like most any internet page (like this one). Color temperature adjustments provide some feeling of relief but in a very minor way. Inverting the colors makes my head feel even worse.

 

For background, I'm a technology trainer who spends all day, every day staring at all manner of PC, Mac and television monitors while teaching staff software. Been doing this for 15 years. Never experienced this problem before.  The only other experience anywhere close to this was when I purchased a 50" LCD about 8 years ago. It seemed fine in the store but when I got it into the home it immediately gave me headaches and severe eye strain. I exchanged it for a PLASMA tv and have had no problems since. I suspect the issue there was a refresh rate that my body did not like. My understanding is that the refresh rate is not adjustable on the iMac Pro display, even if that's the issue (and I can't be sure it is).

 

Now here is the kicker.  After a year of not using the iMac Pro at all, working only from my 15” 2019 Mac Brook Pro, I again fooled around with all these third party apps and terminal commands on the iMac and actually hit upon something that instantly made the problem go away.  But I don’t know what it was that I did to achieve this.  I counted my blessings and just went back to work on the iMac Pro. 

 

For the past year and a half working from home during Covid, my employer gave us the option of adding a second monitor to our home setup to make work more comfortable.  I ordered one but avoided hooking it up for most of that time on fear that the moment I connected the external monitor to the iMac, it would change the screen resolution on the internal display and bring back the pain.

 

Recently I thought it would be a good idea to note all the specific settings I currently had for the iMac Pro so that if the problem re-emerged I could attempt to restore it to its current configuration.  I wanted to see the precise resolution I was current set to.  In order to do this on the Mac I needed to go into the System Preferences > Displays and hold the OPTION key while clicking the SCALED ratio button.  The moment I did that, something changed and the pain returned.  There wasn’t a radical change in the desktop appearance but I could see that the fonts seems to get a little crisper and the colors might have gotten a little more vibrant.  The size of the fonts and desktop did not change.

 

And now I’m back to the original problem.  I used the opportunity to hook up the second monitor, which is an HP E273.  While that’s not a Retina monitor, looking at it also hurts my eyes a bit.  I suspect because whatever the iMac is doing, it’s also doing to the HP display.

 

This is frustrating because I know it’s fixable, but I don’t know what I did to eliminate the issue the first time.

 

Any thoughts or recommendations would be appreciated.

 

    You said that the colours changed and the appearance of the fonts also changed a little too.

    Click on the color tab in the display preferences and see if selecting different color profiles gives you what you're after.

      Sunspark thanks.

      Thanks. I've tried flipping through all the color profiles as well but it made no significant difference. I suspect I may have run a command from the terminal that I found on a web page about the issue two years ago which shut or suppressed something about the manner in which it creates the display image. Alternatively, I had also been playing with SwitchResX and that might have been it. When I recently went back into the System Preferences > and hit the SCALED button while holding the OPTION key, it must have turned that "surpression" or "turn off" command back on automatically. But I have no idea what it might be.

      I have sRBG IEC61966-2.1 and I've tried it at your suggestion. There may be some very insignificant momentary relief (which you sometimes feel momentally as you flip through all the color profiles), but it's clearly not the source of the actual problem. Again, what I find really interesting is that I now have an HP E273 also hooked up to the iMac Pro as a second monitor. That's not a retina quality monitor and it's resolution is maxed at 1920 x 1080. That type of monitor shouldn't be giving me any issues, but it also causing me discomfort. Clearly the iMac is doing something to both displays. Something that can be entirely disabled, because I did it once before but am not sure how. it worked perfectly for a year and a half and it wasn't until I went into System Preferences > Displays, held the OPTION key and clicked the SCALED button (to see what the screen resolution was) that what ever was preventing it from causing me any eye strain at all…got shut off. It's one thing to say I have may have a condition that makes me sensitive to certain display configurations (which my eye doctor has not said I have-he says my eyes are good for my age), but it's another to know it's possible to entirely eliminate this issue, but not remember how.

        Sorry to hear that didn't work. See my replies below -- there are links to other discussions we've had on this forum.

        brvideo I've seen my ophthalmologist and he has no ideas either.

        It is possible you have a binocular vision dysfunction. Ophthalmologist (MDs) are not well trained in this condition -- do not trust them. I highly suggest seeing a COVD optometrist (they do a fellowship in binocular vision) or a Neuro-optometrist. You could also try patching one eye which @mike had success with.

        Forum veteran @martin has a blog about his treatment, including some Mac apps that helped him.

        I wrote more about binocular vision here. And also here.


        brvideo The headache and eye strain is definitely at peak pain when the screen has mostly white on it

        You might be able to get a Chrome/Firefox extension that changes this. I spend a good amount of time in a code editor/terminal, and found a Solarized Light most tolerable.


        brvideo , I again fooled around with all these third party apps and terminal commands on the iMac and actually hit upon something that instantly made the problem go away.

        @JTL and Mac users -- would Terminal commands be in bash history? I cannot use Mac for eye reasons, but on my Linux box, I can do cat ~/.bash_history to get a history of commands I ran. Could @brvideo look at that log to see the magic command they ran?

        @brvideo - you don't have a backup with Time Machine by any chance?


        I also recommend calling Apple Accessibility -- they might be able to help figure out (with bash history, event logs, who knows) what command you ran. Several of us have contacted them, and although they have no helped us, it brings "eye issue" to their attention.

          brvideo Are you sure there hasn't been a software update recently? It has happened to me twice already to make a PC unusable because of a windows update.

            ryans

            Thanks for all the replies. With respect to binocular vision dysfunction, I can't say but it's clear that I have a severe sensitivity to whatever is happening on this particular computer. I will review the link about the COVD optometrist. Again, I'm a technology trainer who has worked in both broadcasting and training environments my entire career, staring at all manner of television and computer displays for hours, days and weeks. The only two times I've had this type of reaction is on this iMac Pro when it's doing whatever it's doing, and when purchasing a 55" LED HDTV over a decade ago. The eye strain, fatigue and nausea was quite intense in both of those scenarios. The LED HDTV was exchanged for a Plasma TV which eliminated that issue. I'm fairly certain that was related to frame rate playback on that type of screen. Whatever is going on with the iMac Pro obviously can be "masked" or shutoff if I can figure out how again. I do have Time Machine backups and when the problem first occurred about two years ago the first thing I did was wipe and restore the iMac from a backup prior to the the problem. It didn't help. Apparently whatever is causing the issue is not impacted by restoration of earlier configurations, or isn't resolved by a restoration. I've also tried booting into Safe Mode. That didn't help. Trying to find a history of my terminal commands is interesting and calling Apple Accessibility on that point might be useful. Again, this would go back to somewhere between 1.5 - 2 years when I would have run the command that resolved the issue and I don't know if any terminal history would go back that far but I'll explore that. It's a good suggestion.

            The problem with figuring out how I resolved it the first time is that I do remember I was trying every conceivable solution one after another, sometimes mixing them one after another (i.e. a terminal command, followed by some changes in SwitchResX, followed by rebooting the computer which is frequently required to make these types of changes actually take affect. That's why it's so difficult to figure out which change actually was the one that resolved the issue the first time around. It might have been a combo of actions one after another that I didn't see the result of until I rebooted. What's interesting is that the very first time I booted the computer when taking it out of the box new, and the only thing on the screen was the white Apple logo on the black background, I remember instantly feeling the "pain"/eye strain. It was brighter than what I'm used to. Having responsibility for literally dozens of Mac MBP's, iMacs and PCs, I knew something different was going on this time. I thought it was potentially just a result of this being one of the first iMac Pro's and my first Retina screen in my home. I had a standard iMac for about a decade prior to that….no similar issues. BTW - I'm realizing I didn't purchase the iMac Pro in 2019…it was one of the first which I purchased in 2017. I did spend hours on the phone with Apple Care trying to resolve it but they couldn't help. Once I did fall across the solution, I knew I had done so even before the machine fully rebooted because when it was coming back up, that white Apple log seemed normal brightness to me.

            I also own a 15" MBP that I did purchase in 2019. Interesting that I have never had a problem with it's screen, although the last few days as I'm using it going back and forth between the iMac Pro, I am feeing similar symptoms. I can't be sure if it's not just that I'm hurting my eyes from looking at the iMac Pro so they're already weakened as I'm looking at the MBP. My gut is telling me the iMac Pro issue has something to do with more tightly packed pixels on the retina screen. I have tried lower resolutions, non-HiDPI resolutions, using terminal commands to shut off font smoothing and dithering. None of it is working. Could it be a recent software update? I suppose I can't rule anything out. But again, the problem didn't return immediately after any update. It returned the instant I tried to scrutinize the exact screen resolution in the System Preferences > Display. I'e also owned iPhones since the beginning including my iPhone 12 Pro Max. No issues on those either.

            I am seriously thinking about acquiring another computer but two issues are slowing me down: #1 I know this is fixable if I can remember how and it seems wasteful to push aside a machine I paid over $5000 for a few years ago which is still great in terms of all other functionality #2 How can I determine if any other new computer won't give me a similar issue? I'm a Mac guy who also works in Windows environments, and I can't see myself giving up on Macs. But I'm not sure even purchasing something like a Mac-mini or Mac Studio or Mac Pro with an external monitor wouldn't give me the same problem at this point.

            Again, I appreciate the input.

              brvideo The only two times I've had this type of reaction is on this iMac Pro when it's doing whatever it's doing, and when purchasing a 55" LED HDTV over a decade ago.

              Unfortunately many of us are in similar boats. Older tech generally works fine, but we are very sensitive to specific devices. @martin for example (and myself), has no issues at all using Windows 7, it is like he has perfect eyes. But macOS (maybe with temporal dithering), his binocular vision dysfunction really rears its ugly head. Worth getting your binocular vision tested by a good optometrist, if only to rule it out.

              I am sorry you're having these issues, but you've definitely found the best place on the Internet to talk about it.

              ryans @JTL and Mac users -- would Terminal commands be in bash history? I cannot use Mac for eye reasons, but on my Linux box, I can do cat ~/.bash_history to get a history of commands I ran. Could @brvideo look at that log to see the magic command they ran?

              Might be ~/.zsh_history if its recent MacOS with zsh

              If it was a change in System Preferences or similar UI that's a different question entirely

              Lauda89

              I think blacklisting windows update domains behind a firewall could be a good idea to stop unwanted updates

                brvideo

                "I also own a 15" MBP that I did purchase in 2019. Interesting that I have never had a problem with it's screen, although the last few days as I'm using it going back and forth between the iMac Pro, I am feeing similar symptoms. I can't be sure if it's not just that I'm hurting my eyes from looking at the iMac Pro so they're already weakened as I'm looking at the MBP."

                I find that using a "bad" device can make me more sensitive, for some time, to a device that is otherwise ok or not-so-bad, so not using the iMac Pro for a couple of days might get rid of your reaction to the MBP.

                Did you happen to move the iMac to another "lighting-area" in the same room or to another room around when the reactions started again? Also, what about the possibility that your sensitivity to something about the iMac actually disappeared due to some change in your body (rather than anything you did to the iMac) which changed again bringing it back? … just a couple of possibilities to look at (based on my experiences) in this tricky and often-confounding bizzniz!

                  ledsky Yea, i am using another method more simple. The software called WUB (Windows Update Blocker), it works fine on my personal desktop.
                  But i can't block the windows update on the working laptop (Accenture policy, they force the reboot and the installation of the updates every fucking week)!

                  A person messaged me on a different forum, might be worth trying:

                  For me, I changed the display settings. I use Apple Display P3-500 nits, night mode, and made the text larger. This is with ProMotion on.

                  Deepdeep

                  i've been working entirely from the MBP 15" today and I even hooked the HP monitor to it, It's been a great deal better. I think that looking at the problematic iMac Pro monitor for a few days definitely strained m y eyes. But working without it entirely today things are far better. No I haven't moved the machines locations at all and nothing has changed about the lighting conditions I really don't think any condition that may impacting my eyes has worsened recently. The eye pain/strain definitely happened like switching a switch because that's exactly what I did. When I went into the Mac's System Preferences > Display, held Option and hit Shift, my eyes instantly felt the pain return. Clearly that action changed the iMac Pros settings in some way that I had previously been able to overide. It probaby brought it back to default settings.

                    @brvideo

                    Have you tried this?

                    Reset the PRAM or the NVRAM on Your MacBook

                    A flickering screen can be a sign of a corrupted MacBook. Resetting the PRAM or NVRAM of your MacBook can restore its default hardware settings. Doing this also sets up the internal hard drive as the startup disk.

                    In order to fix your MacBook’s flickering screen, you can reset the PRAM/NVRAM as a possible solution as well. 

                    Follow these given steps to rest the PRAM or NVRAM on your MacBook: 

                    1. Shut down your MacBook using the Apple Menu. Make sure that it is completely shut down and not in reset mode. 

                    2. Press on the start button again and wait for it to switch on. Quickly, start pressing the following keys for 20 seconds  Option + Command + P+ R. Make sure that you are holding it down for 20 seconds without interruptions.

                    3. This will make your MacBook restart with the PRAM or NVRAM reset and fix your flickering screen.

                    Reset the SMC of Your MacBook Pro

                    You can reset your MacBook’s SMC to restore the default settings that you cannot modify via System Preferences. Sometimes, SMC-related issues can affect your MacBook performance and also create bugs. If none of the above solutions are working, you can give resetting SMC a final try. 

                    Under SMC are the thermal management, power button response, sleep settings, battery management, lighting settings, and so on. Resetting the SMC of your MacBook to default settings can prove to be of great use.

                    Follow the given steps to reset the SMC of your MacBook:

                    1. Press on the power off button on your MacBook. After doing so, simultaneously hold the given keys for 10 seconds straight. Shift + Control + Option + Power key.

                    2. When the option tray appears, press on Reset the SMC of your MacBook to Defaults. 

                    3. Release the keys after ten seconds. Your SMC Is now set at Default.

                    https://www.technewstoday.com/macbook-pro-screen-flickering/

                    FYI - I've tried the RMD software at github and although it gives you some interesting additional resolution options, none of it's settings helped with the eyes strain/pain for me. I also did several resets of the PRAM and that didn't have any impact either. I was not able to do the SMC reset as that seems to be primarily for a Macbrook Pro, using it's Power Key to accomplish the reset. I attempted it with my iMac Pro's power button but it didn't seem to work as intended. I couldn't find an equivalent command for an iMac Pro or any Mac desktop machine.

                    I've seen videos online that show how some computer configurations makes your eyes (i.e. Iris?) open and close rapidly almost like you're feeling a constant vibration accompanied by eye pain. That most closely describes what I seem to be feeling with this issue.

                    Here's another piece of the puzzle. I've tried placing a black sheet over the entire iMac Pro display but leaving the display on. That doesn't seem to alleviate the eye pain/strain entirely. I have to actually put the computer display to sleep to make the pain start to entirely diminish. Having the sheet over it isn't as bad as having it uncovered, but the issue seems to still be present. This makes me wonder if something is going on that isn't entirely visually related but may be heavily impacting the eyes. In addition to the eye strain there is an element of jittery nerves accompanying the effect.

                      brvideo Having the sheet over it isn't as bad as having it uncovered, but the issue seems to still be present. This makes me wonder if something is going on that isn't entirely visually related but may be heavily impacting the eyes. In addition to the eye strain there is an element of jittery nerves accompanying the effect.

                      Is there any light emitting at all? What if you put many sheets in front of it such that no light at all comes out.

                        ryans

                        No, I don't see any light escaping from beneath the sheet. It's a solid black sheet and you can't see through it.

                        I suppose this could be somewhat of a mind trick I'm playing on myself, that I think my eyes hurt because I know it's on beneath that sheet, but I don't think so.

                        dev