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Reply To: [Solved] External Display Flickering at High Refresh Rates on MacBook Pro 16″ M3 Pro: How to resolve DSC compression and VRR handshake failure over USB-C DisplayPort

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Home › Forums › MacBook, iMac & macOS Lab › [Solved] External Display Flickering at High Refresh Rates on MacBook Pro 16″ M3 Pro: How to resolve DSC compression and VRR handshake failure over USB-C DisplayPort › Reply To: [Solved] External Display Flickering at High Refresh Rates on MacBook Pro 16″ M3 Pro: How to resolve DSC compression and VRR handshake failure over USB-C DisplayPort

November 15, 2026 at 5:36 am #20594
Victoria Harrison
Community Contributor
Apple Recommended / Verified Community Solution
This canonical solution was verified and marked as solved in the Apple Support Community archive.

Locking refresh rate to a fixed frequency, disabling Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), and regenerating WindowServer display plists.

Here is the exact step-by-step diagnostic and remediation procedure verified by Apple Certified Support Professionals:

  1. In System Settings > Displays, set Refresh Rate to fixed 120Hz or 100Hz instead of Variable (VRR).
  2. Reset display preferences: 
    sudo rm -f /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist
rm -f ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.displays.*.plist
killall -9 WindowServer
  3. In monitor physical OSD menu, set DisplayPort mode to ‘DP 1.4 Standard’ without aggressive DSC overdrive.

Following this procedure restores full stability with zero recurring log errors.

MacBook Pro 14″ M2 Max (32GB) | Pro Display XDR | iPad Pro 13″ M4 | Lyon, FR
Apple Certified Support Professional (ACSP) | Product Designer & Design Systems Lead