I just don't believe this is an OS issue. I really think Caldigit is blaming this on Apple/OS instead of fixing their product.
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Caldigit TS4 Dock
- Thread starter macphoto861
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Faulty batch of 2,5G Ethernet chips or firmware (that's just my guess) + whining chinese power bricks (bad quality control from Caldigit as buyer)
= meh
+ blacklisted mailserver (no outgoing support mails)
https://www.caldigit.com/caldigit-email-server-mail-technical-issues/
= upsy
What a pity as it's a very nice design.
I' guess I'll just wait till the dust has settled and the price has dropped due to the wrongly estimated market.
Nonetheless I'm still interested in the techs...
= meh
+ blacklisted mailserver (no outgoing support mails)
https://www.caldigit.com/caldigit-email-server-mail-technical-issues/
= upsy
What a pity as it's a very nice design.
I' guess I'll just wait till the dust has settled and the price has dropped due to the wrongly estimated market.
Nonetheless I'm still interested in the techs...
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I tend to agree, especially given that the TS3+ seems to be fine.
I habe a bunch of problems with my new TS4 and MacBook Pro ?.
So I have a new MacBook Pro 16" M1 Ultra, a LG Ultrafine 21.5" 4K and a LG Ultrafine 27" 5k, ethernet, and a bunch of USB devices.
The TS4 seems the right thing for the job. But after a few days, I have to say I'm really frustrated about all the random stuff going wrong... Will return the thing and wait for a while to see if things get fixed....
1) Running both LG Ultrafine through the docking station doesn't work.
This one might not be related to Caldigit at all. The 5K display cannot run at full resolution with an other monitor through a single Thunderport on the Macbook. Caldigit support send me a link to this thread :sight:
Still I don't really understand the maths/physics here. How is it possible to run two 6K through a single cable but not 5K + 4K. How is this working with two XDR monitors? Compression? Controller doing some magic?
2) Connecting the LG 21.5" through the docking station (without the 5K) does not work either. I got the frame rate at max 30 FPS instead of 60. Only solution was to downscale to full-HD which I don't want to.
3) So I got following setup working OK (until Macbook goes to sleep and all things get messed up):
LG Ultrafine 5K connected to the TS4, LG Ultrafine 4K goes directly to the MacBook Pro. This is the only solution I found to run both monitors at native resolution and 60FPS.
I'd hope to be able to got things working well with a single cable solution but this is quite OK.
4) But!!! This works well ... only sometimes. When my M1 goes to sleep/shutdown/unplug cables things get all messed up. I did not find any way to have a reproducible solution (shutdown TS4 and LGs first, plug/unplug first, etc.).
Once the M1 disconnects/sleeps/shutdowns, things get messy big time! Sometimes the LG 5K resolution drops. Ethernet over Thunderbolt is also completely random. Sometimes it says "not connected", sometimes it doesn't work with DHCP...
Now I'd really want to love this little box. Being able to get 2.5GB throughput via Ethernet is great. Powering up the Macbook and having my 5K and a bunch of other stuff running via a single cable is also sweet.
But it's so unstable right now that it makes me very angry most of the time I start working (once it runs properly, it's ok until M1 goes to sleep).
Did Caldigit published any statements about a software update yet? Did I get a lemon and should try another one?
Thanks in advance
So I have a new MacBook Pro 16" M1 Ultra, a LG Ultrafine 21.5" 4K and a LG Ultrafine 27" 5k, ethernet, and a bunch of USB devices.
The TS4 seems the right thing for the job. But after a few days, I have to say I'm really frustrated about all the random stuff going wrong... Will return the thing and wait for a while to see if things get fixed....
1) Running both LG Ultrafine through the docking station doesn't work.
This one might not be related to Caldigit at all. The 5K display cannot run at full resolution with an other monitor through a single Thunderport on the Macbook. Caldigit support send me a link to this thread :sight:
Still I don't really understand the maths/physics here. How is it possible to run two 6K through a single cable but not 5K + 4K. How is this working with two XDR monitors? Compression? Controller doing some magic?
2) Connecting the LG 21.5" through the docking station (without the 5K) does not work either. I got the frame rate at max 30 FPS instead of 60. Only solution was to downscale to full-HD which I don't want to.
3) So I got following setup working OK (until Macbook goes to sleep and all things get messed up):
LG Ultrafine 5K connected to the TS4, LG Ultrafine 4K goes directly to the MacBook Pro. This is the only solution I found to run both monitors at native resolution and 60FPS.
I'd hope to be able to got things working well with a single cable solution but this is quite OK.
4) But!!! This works well ... only sometimes. When my M1 goes to sleep/shutdown/unplug cables things get all messed up. I did not find any way to have a reproducible solution (shutdown TS4 and LGs first, plug/unplug first, etc.).
Once the M1 disconnects/sleeps/shutdowns, things get messy big time! Sometimes the LG 5K resolution drops. Ethernet over Thunderbolt is also completely random. Sometimes it says "not connected", sometimes it doesn't work with DHCP...
Now I'd really want to love this little box. Being able to get 2.5GB throughput via Ethernet is great. Powering up the Macbook and having my 5K and a bunch of other stuff running via a single cable is also sweet.
But it's so unstable right now that it makes me very angry most of the time I start working (once it runs properly, it's ok until M1 goes to sleep).
Did Caldigit published any statements about a software update yet? Did I get a lemon and should try another one?
Thanks in advance
Caldigit is a company in agony, it is clear. By blaming the OS they want to shift responsibility for the errors that we are all experiencing (me: lost drives, kernel crash, disappearing Ethernet connection) and a new one, noisy sound.
I would feel a lot better if they said they were aware of the problems and that they are trying to resolve them but if you can't wait we'll facilitate a rapid return and reimbursement via RMA. But they haven't and probably won't.
I believe they're a good company (solid products previously) who didn't full research the new M1 Mac Books (mine is a M1 MAX PRO, a lovely machine).
i really would like their presence on this board to offer options and to calm us down.
i got a very nice note this morning from one of their technicians who suggested upgrading the OS (which I did) and rebooting the TS4 whenever the Mac Book is shut down. Which is just awkward. Also turning off sleep was suggested. And that is not possible and is environmentally nasty.
If any of you have successfully returned the device, please post here what you've did to get an RMA etc.
Thank you all!!
I would feel a lot better if they said they were aware of the problems and that they are trying to resolve them but if you can't wait we'll facilitate a rapid return and reimbursement via RMA. But they haven't and probably won't.
I believe they're a good company (solid products previously) who didn't full research the new M1 Mac Books (mine is a M1 MAX PRO, a lovely machine).
i really would like their presence on this board to offer options and to calm us down.
i got a very nice note this morning from one of their technicians who suggested upgrading the OS (which I did) and rebooting the TS4 whenever the Mac Book is shut down. Which is just awkward. Also turning off sleep was suggested. And that is not possible and is environmentally nasty.
If any of you have successfully returned the device, please post here what you've did to get an RMA etc.
Thank you all!!
I bough via Amazon. I have 14 days of return policy here in Europe. Free of charge.
But I'd assume you don't have this possibility.
I returned mine when I was having all the issues you mention. I told their support that I was done troubleshooting this and need an return. They gave me a prepaid fedex label, and I shipped it off. Had the refund within a week back. Definitely no issues returning it. But their support lately has been terrible. I most likely will not purchase another Caldigit device unless they a miracle happens and all these issues are fixed.
I need some help justifying the price of this hub. To hold me over before receiving the TS4 (which I received today), I purchased an ethernet, usb 3.0, and hdmi usb-c dock here (Amazon, no referral benefit) for $40. It works incredibly well. Display and internet work perfectly, including after waking from sleep and after plugging it back in. The TS4 is nearly 10x the price and it seems the main thing you get for 10x the cost is a 2nd display output and a charger included. The $40 product can do 100W charging (or close to it) with the purchase of an external AC adapter which is probably not very costly. I am so satisfied with the $40 hub that even if I keep the TS4, I'll also keep the cheap hub as a travel companion.
So - am I missing something? Is there really not a dual 4k display hub with 100W charging that can be had for a fraction of the cost of the TS4? I'm planning to get a 5K @ 60hz monitor and a 3440 x 1400 @ 144hz. I have to say, I'm more confident in the TS4 supporting this, but am now curios if premium really need to be paid for that support.
EDIT: Everything working well out of the box for me with the TS4 (including wake from sleep). Will probably keep it.
So - am I missing something? Is there really not a dual 4k display hub with 100W charging that can be had for a fraction of the cost of the TS4? I'm planning to get a 5K @ 60hz monitor and a 3440 x 1400 @ 144hz. I have to say, I'm more confident in the TS4 supporting this, but am now curios if premium really need to be paid for that support.
EDIT: Everything working well out of the box for me with the TS4 (including wake from sleep). Will probably keep it.
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USB-C docks can't do dual displays for macOS because macOS doesn't support MST for multiple displays.
USB-C docks that use DisplayLink can do multiple displays for macOS, but DisplayLink does not use the GPU - they use video compression over USB.
For macOS, you need a Thunderbolt dock/hub to connect two displays to a single Thunderbolt port (because macOS doesn't support MST and DisplayLink is not acceptable when other options exist).
The XDR supports display stream compression to reduce the amount of bandwidth required.
The Ultrafine 5k does not support a compressed signal.
Maybe they responded but it never came trough
www.caldigit.com
Anyways not your fault but theirs all the way. Just bad.
CalDigit Email Server + Mail Technical Issues – CalDigit
www.caldigit.com
Anyways not your fault but theirs all the way. Just bad.
They responded about an hour ago. Finally. Problem though. I bought the TS4 in Paris from Amazon.FR at the suggestion of Caldigit California support because they were getting a delivery that coincided with my arrival and that there was likely to be enough stock to fulfill my order.
Well as it turns out i am now caught between Amazon.FR and Amazon US and between Caldigit US and Caldigit EU.
I just pulled the trigger too soon because I think these problems will work themselves out once Caldigit has more experience with M1 MacBooks.
I've asked California for a concession. I hope that they'll agree.
Well as it turns out i am now caught between Amazon.FR and Amazon US and between Caldigit US and Caldigit EU.
I just pulled the trigger too soon because I think these problems will work themselves out once Caldigit has more experience with M1 MacBooks.
I've asked California for a concession. I hope that they'll agree.
I had the same problem and through following the steps regarding changing to "Manual" and "Full Duplex", it has enabled the ethernet connection. However, the lights above and below the ethernet connection on the TS4 still show as yellow and red. Are you still having this issue as well?
I think the Ethernet issues are karma coming back to bite them. They should have eliminated one of those additional TB ports or something somewhere and given us proper 10GE support.
Damn, I am surprised how many issues this TS4 dock has. I was bummed out because a few weeks earlier I purchase the OWC 11 port TB4 and believed the TS4 was a better product/. I guess, I dodge a bullet. So far the OWC has been great. The only thing usually after an average of a couple of weeks the ethernet stops working due to the wake from my MBP but a simple restart fixes the issue.
Ran into this exact issue trying to connect an Apple wired keyboard to a USB hub connected directly to the TS4. Wouldn't even recognize the keyboard - and I'm not even daisychaining it through multiple hubs. A single hub connected directly to the TS4 shouldn't be causing any trouble. Worked absolutely fine on my old LaCie 2big Thunderbolt Dock (despite frequent kernel panics).
I've been using Thunderbolt docks since 2014 and not at any point in time since then has it been a bug-free experience. The fact that the Studio Display only has USB-C ports and no TB is an admission from Apple that it is a failed technology as a whole. I'm probably just going to return the TS4 and get a USB-C dock with PD instead.
Seems Caldigit continues to say its the OS even though now they are having issues with Windows machines. See video here.
See the comments.
See the comments.
For anyone considering this dock that doesn't need the Thunderbolt aspect of it, I highly suggest buying a used display with USB-C PD instead. For the same amount of money you can get some pretty great deals on a display that will charge your MacBook, work as a USB hub and deliver 120Hz 4K video via a single USB-C cable. I don't mind plugging in the extra cable for my TB devices on a daisy chain, compared to the amount of headaches saved this way.
I have another issue and I'm wondering if anyone else has it -- I am running a LG 5K Ultrafine through the TS4 and then from there into my MBP. Randomly, a red border will appear on screen all around the edge of the LG, flash for a tick, and then leave. I can't seem to find a pattern for why it does it, but it will happen quite often and I'm wondering if anyone else has seen that kind of behavior?
FYI
The "new" CalDigit Thunderbolt4 2m *active* cable finally just works fine with the TS3+ on my TB3 AlpineRidge ThinkPad. So should the CableMatters Thunderbolt4 2m *active* cable. All former TB3 active cables did not work correctly. My guess is they changed the retimer chipsets and/or the E-Marker chips for USB backward compatibility and the TS3+ somehow strangly depends on this. Could also be my ThinkPad's JHL6540. TB4 2m cable plugs are now smaller in lenght than the former TB3 2m cable plugs (hence my conlusion for the chip change). Anyways, happy for now.
Just a wild guess: Has anybody having problems with the TS4 here tried different cables?
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I've been having an ongoing problem with my TS4. Basically every now and then (maybe once or twice a week), all the connected drives (one Thunderbolt SSD, as well as a few USB SSDs and HDs) will disconnect and then remount. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what prompts this, because it doesn't happen often enough. But it does seem like it happens when I have a lot of disk activity going on and I plug in a new device like a flash drive. However, just now it happened with me not doing anything. I thought maybe perhaps small movements of the computer were causing a physical connection problem, but aggressively wiggling the cable around does not cause a disconnection.
I want to love this dock. I really do. It looks nice on my desk and it solves a ton of my connection issues, plus, that network speed is wicked. I've been trying to get my hands on one since they were announced. Finally being able to order one from B&H a couple months back, it arrived yesterday.
First, a small first world problem gripe. The included cable is only 0.8m long. Just shy of the 1m length my Thunderbolt 2 dock from OWC had, so the setup I have on my desk wouldn't work unless I bought a new Thunderbolt cable... Yeah, the $160 apple one... maybe that's reparations to the universe for all the Monster HDMI I sold when I was a kid working for FutureShop back in the day... Whatever. Now on to the two actual issues...
Issue #1: I’m having an issue getting anything higher than 30hz on my second display.
Here’s My setup:
On my CHG90 monitor I’m getting a full 3840x1080 @ 144hz, However on the 55” Samsung TV I’m only getting 4K @ 30hz, 25hz, and 24hz. What am I missing here? Why is the refresh rate on the TV stuck at 30hz and lower when its capable of doing 50/60hz? I’ve tried lowering the refresh rate on the CHG90 to 60hz, but I still can’t get the 55” TV to go higher than 30hz. When I plug the USBC to HDMI cable directly into the MacBook I get the ability to run my TV at 60hz. However that defeats the purpose of having this dock. It looks like the dock itself is not allowing the TV to go any higher than 30hz. This doesn’t make sense to me as this dock supports much higher dual monitor setups than what I have.
Issue #2: My Mac won't go to sleep now.
Yeah, this one sucks! I'm used to going up to the menu bar and hitting the sleep command in the Apple Menu then walking away from my desk. One of the cool things about this dock I liked were the unpowered outlets. This way when the dock saw the computer was sleeping it would stop sending power to my Keychron K1 and my Streamdeck XL, which on my old OWC dock seemed to ALWAYS be powered on and backlit. I can't for the life of me figure out why this happens.
Plugged into the dock I have:
Shutting it down isn't a good answer because I want to use the sleep function on my Mac. Plus the MBP lives in a Penn Elcom drawer mounted on the underside of my desk, so its a bit of a pain to open and close that and wait just to use my setup. (Again, first world problems, I know...)
I DID however get it to sleep last night, but I had to basically log out of my user account and use the Sleep button on the user login screen. That seemed to work overnight and gives me hope that this is something on my end that I'm not seeing.
I've sent Caldigit support an email, but judging from the conversations above I'm probably not going to find answers. For now, the 55" is plugged directly into the MBP, and the Sleep issue has multiple steps. Not ideal, and I'm starting to weigh these issues against the wait time for the dock, investment of the dock (and stupidly overpriced apple TB4 cable...), and the wicked feature set the dock provides.
I'm not mad, Just disappointed. It's ...just frustrating.
First, a small first world problem gripe. The included cable is only 0.8m long. Just shy of the 1m length my Thunderbolt 2 dock from OWC had, so the setup I have on my desk wouldn't work unless I bought a new Thunderbolt cable... Yeah, the $160 apple one... maybe that's reparations to the universe for all the Monster HDMI I sold when I was a kid working for FutureShop back in the day... Whatever. Now on to the two actual issues...
Issue #1: I’m having an issue getting anything higher than 30hz on my second display.
Here’s My setup:
- -16” M1 Max MacBook Pro
- -Apple Thunderbolt 4 cable (MacBook to Dock)
- -Caldigit TS4 dock
- -Samsung Displayport Cable (From TS4 DisplayPort connection on TS4 to CHG90)
- -Samsung CHG90 Monitor
- -UGreen 4k@60hz USBC to HDMI cable (From the spare thunderbolt 4 connection on the dock to the HDMI on the TV)
- -Samsung 55” 4k UN55TU8500 TV.
On my CHG90 monitor I’m getting a full 3840x1080 @ 144hz, However on the 55” Samsung TV I’m only getting 4K @ 30hz, 25hz, and 24hz. What am I missing here? Why is the refresh rate on the TV stuck at 30hz and lower when its capable of doing 50/60hz? I’ve tried lowering the refresh rate on the CHG90 to 60hz, but I still can’t get the 55” TV to go higher than 30hz. When I plug the USBC to HDMI cable directly into the MacBook I get the ability to run my TV at 60hz. However that defeats the purpose of having this dock. It looks like the dock itself is not allowing the TV to go any higher than 30hz. This doesn’t make sense to me as this dock supports much higher dual monitor setups than what I have.
Issue #2: My Mac won't go to sleep now.
Yeah, this one sucks! I'm used to going up to the menu bar and hitting the sleep command in the Apple Menu then walking away from my desk. One of the cool things about this dock I liked were the unpowered outlets. This way when the dock saw the computer was sleeping it would stop sending power to my Keychron K1 and my Streamdeck XL, which on my old OWC dock seemed to ALWAYS be powered on and backlit. I can't for the life of me figure out why this happens.
Plugged into the dock I have:
- StreamDeck XL
- Keychron K1
- Schitt Magni/Modi audio stack
- Anker wireless phone charger
- Anker mini USB hubs (x2)
- Ethernet cable
- Cannon Printer
- Samsung 55" TV
- Samsung CHG90
- One stupidly overpriced apple thunderbolt 4 cable to my 16" M1 Max...
Shutting it down isn't a good answer because I want to use the sleep function on my Mac. Plus the MBP lives in a Penn Elcom drawer mounted on the underside of my desk, so its a bit of a pain to open and close that and wait just to use my setup. (Again, first world problems, I know...)
I DID however get it to sleep last night, but I had to basically log out of my user account and use the Sleep button on the user login screen. That seemed to work overnight and gives me hope that this is something on my end that I'm not seeing.
I've sent Caldigit support an email, but judging from the conversations above I'm probably not going to find answers. For now, the 55" is plugged directly into the MBP, and the Sleep issue has multiple steps. Not ideal, and I'm starting to weigh these issues against the wait time for the dock, investment of the dock (and stupidly overpriced apple TB4 cable...), and the wicked feature set the dock provides.
I'm not mad, Just disappointed. It's ...just frustrating.