2020 Macbook Pro Screen “Washed Out” on Wake / Resume

I have no idea how to explain this one, but I’ll do my best.

Infrequently when I open the lid on my 2020 Macbook Pro, the laptop wakes up, but the screen is “washed out” / has this weird very white overlay going on.

Nothing I have done seems to resolve this.

It started almost immediately after purchasing, and subsequent OS updates haven’t solved it. I have no external monitors plugged in, or in fact, anything external at all. The one thing that may be a commonality is having the power cable plugged in.

Annoyingly, when I go to shut down / restart (which fixes it, btw), the screen comes back to normal just as I’m shutting down. How frustrating.

So a cunning fix I’ve found – that solves a crappy problem with a three grand laptop – is to open an app like iTerm, then go to shutdown.

iTerm will then prompt saying “hey, do you really want to shut down?” And this allows me to stop the shutdown process and my screen goes back to normal.

Should I need a bodge workaround for a top of the line Apple product? Apparently: yes.

I should add, btw, that this is not the only problem I have with this laptop. I also suffer from:

  • intermittent key repeat / sticking;
  • headphone jack doesn’t work on wake from sleep;
  • my fat fingers keep accidentally touching the “touch bar” when typing.

Admittedly the last one is my fault… I guess.

Disappointing.