"Flexgate" is a display fault on 2016–2017 Touch Bar MacBook Pros (and occasionally 2018–2019 models) caused by a fragile, too-short display flex cable that wears out from opening and closing the lid. It starts as a "stage light" glow along the bottom of the screen, then the backlight cuts out when you open the lid past a certain angle, and eventually fails completely. Because the cable is built into the display, Apple's fix is a full display swap — but a board-level cable repair is often far cheaper.
Flexgate is the nickname the repair community gave to a display backlight fault on the Touch Bar generation of MacBook Pro. When Apple redesigned the MacBook Pro in 2016 to be thinner, it moved the display controller board into the base and connected the screen with very thin, flexible ribbon cables. These cables wrap loosely around the controller board and are pulled tight every time you open the lid.
Over months and years of opening and closing, the cables slowly wear and tear — much like the spine of a book that's opened thousands of times. The backlight cable is usually the first to give way, which is why the earliest and most recognisable symptom is a lighting problem at the bottom of the screen.
Flexgate almost always gets worse over time, in a predictable sequence:
Flexgate is mainly a Touch Bar MacBook Pro problem:
If you're unsure which MacBook Pro you have, we can identify it from the serial number during a free diagnosis.
Flexgate has two signatures that set it apart from a cracked panel or other display problems. First, the symptom changes with the lid angle — dimming or going dark as you open further and recovering as you close. Second, the image is still there when the screen looks black: shine a torch at an angle and you'll see the desktop faintly, confirming it's a backlight fault rather than a dead display.
If your screen is cracked, or shows lines regardless of lid angle, it's more likely a different issue — see our MacBook screen repair page.
This is where it pays to know your options, because the cost difference is huge.
Because the flex cable is integrated into the display assembly, the standard fix is to replace the entire display — an expensive job.
At our workshop we can often repair the flex cable itself with micro-soldering — extending or replacing the worn section — instead of swapping the whole display. It's a delicate, specialist repair, but it typically costs a fraction of a full display replacement. We'll always tell you honestly which option makes more sense for your specific MacBook.
See our MacBook screen repair and MacBook Pro repair pages for more.
In May 2019, following public pressure, Apple launched a Display Backlight Service Program that repaired affected machines for free — but it covered only the 13-inch MacBook Pro 2016 model (units sold roughly between October 2016 and February 2018). The 15-inch and 2017 models were never included, despite showing the same fault.
These won't fix flexgate, but they can reduce the symptoms and buy you time:
Free flexgate diagnosis in Dubai — board-level cable repair where possible, so you may not need a full new display.