My MacBook Pro (mid 2009) screen randomly tinted blue

Question

I opened my laptop a couple days ago after a couple days off, and when the screen lit up it was a tinted blue color. There was no chance of damage in the time that I was not using it. I had upgraded my software a few months ago, so it wasn't a recent software update that turned it blue. I reinstalled the software just in case and it's still blue. I can't correct it with my display settings (as far as I could tell). But everything else on my laptop works fine. Why is it blue tinted and how do I get rid of it?

Answer 1

Here's a weird set of steps that just fixed it for me (Mid-2009 MBP 15" 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo / 10.9.3). I restarted and tried again and it worked a second time too, so maybe give it a shot. This is exactly as i saw it, so obviously YMMV.
Go to System Preferences > Displays > Color. In my case, the Color LCD profile is completely missing. I think that's the default profile for the built-in display.
Switch back to the Display tab. For Resolution, switch from Best for Display to Scaled, and then change to any other resolution.
Change the Resolution back to Best for Display. Color appears properly for a split second, then back to bluish.
Go back to the Color tab. Select the Color LCD profile, now magically back where it should be. Display should now appear correctly.
This is at least easier than logging back out and in until it works.
It seems to me like there is a failure to load the proper color profile at all upon login, which in my case i suspect is the same problem that's keeping my display mirroring/arrangement preferences from sticking. But this is speculation. If we can figure out what kinds of things cause Displays preferences to be constantly lost/reset, we'll probably be close to the root of the problem. I'll post back here when i have more time to investigate.
I would also note, i see a lot of reports of this that are blamed on the discrete graphics card. As far as i can tell (and with VERY little help from Apple's support docs), the mid-2009 MBP does not have a discrete graphics processor, so i don't think this is the same issue as that, but maybe i'm wrong. In any case, the solutions i see posted always involve preference settings i simply don't have (under Energy Saver, something about graphics performance management).