External Displays Swapping - Arrangement Not Remembered!

[boss1216]

HAS ANYONE FIGURED THIS OUT YET!?!?!?!?

I'm running the 14" MBP with two external Lenovo 27" 2560x1440 monitors. One monitor is connected vis the Apple branded USB-C adapter (hdmi, usb-c, usb) to HDMI. Second monitor is connected via one cable USB-C to HDMI (no adapters). Almost every time my Mac wakes up... screens swap, all my stuff is jumbled up. SO ANNOYING...and I'm not buying a $21 Mac App to fix this either. I'm going to give Apple a call to see if they can trouble shoot but hoping someone here has some insight. Thx!

 

[70orbits]

HAS ANYONE FIGURED THIS OUT YET!?!?!?!?

I'm running the 14" MBP with two external Lenovo 27" 2560x1440 monitors. One monitor is connected vis the Apple branded USB-C adapter (hdmi, usb-c, usb) to HDMI. Second monitor is connected via one cable USB-C to HDMI (no adapters). Almost every time my Mac wakes up... screens swap, all my stuff is jumbled up. SO ANNOYING...and I'm not buying a $21 Mac App to fix this either. I'm going to give Apple a call to see if they can trouble shoot but hoping someone here has some insight. Thx!

What did apple support say?

 

[fooyork]

I had this issue for years. Bought Stay, and not since. Worth a shot, believe they have a free trial.

I have bought Stay... but can't figure out how to use it to remember screen location/etc? How do you do that?

 

[Fab1n]

I had this issue for years. Bought Stay, and not since. Worth a shot, believe they have a free trial.

Really, what does window management have to do with this exact issue???
We're talking about displays being swapped and rotated all the time. How can a window manager help here?

This was a non-issue before M1 Macs with me, never once an issue!
This is getting more and more annoying...

 

[70orbits]

Really, what does window management have to do with this exact issue???
We're talking about displays being swapped and rotated all the time. How can a window manager help here?

This was a non-issue before M1 Macs with me, never once an issue!
This is getting more and more annoying...

Exactly. I wish more people would bump this thread, it needs to get fixed for good.

 

[wakeshredder]

I too am having this issue. It's pretty sad that Apple hasn't listened to all of us adopters of the M1 Max and Pro. My setup is a M1 Max with 32gb memory... Every other time I connect, and even often when I wake up the laptop they are flip flopped. Moreover, I can't just switch their arrangement in Displays as it then requires me to move the "home" menu afterwards. What really sucks is that I can't move entire desktops to the other monitor, only the apps within.

 

[poncho67]

Same issue here, why should I buy an external product that just fix Apple developers's bugs?

 

[Puonti]

Same issue here, why should I buy an external product that just fix Apple developers's bugs?

Since you asked - how about for the sake of your own well-being?

Apple will eventually fix this problem. What matters is what everyone affected is going to do in the meanwhile.

Sure, you (the generic you) can keep reconfiguring displays manually and being angry that Apple hasn't fixed it yet, but that's just going to make you (the generic you) miserable and less productive. What if the fix takes a year to materialize? What if it comes in the form of a hardware revision rather than a software update?

I'd rather use a third-party workaround than let something like this eat at me.

 

[writerinserepeat]

Same issue here on a triple 27" BenQ setup, with the two monitors that are identical models flip-flopping about 50-75% of the time when I start up my MBP M1 Max in clamshell (my standard usage). The third BenQ, a near identical but prior model and identified by Monterey as such, stays where it should.

I installed the latest 12.3 beta 5, hoping the issue might be resolved, but so far, it continues.

To Apple's credit, my other monitor issues (refresh rate stability/remembrance and flickering) were resolved in 12.2, so that gives me hope Apple is working on this issue as well.

 

[fooyork]

Weirdly this seemed to resolve itself for a while for me... but has over the past few days come back with a vengeance - my displays are now the wrong way round after EVERY wake up from sleep, EVERY shut down/restart and EVERY TIME I open or close the lid of the MacBook Pro that is driving them. But to add to that, HDR settings are almost almost changed, and NOW it is starting to choose the wrong scaling options, too! It is so frustrating!

I bought Stay, but have no idea how to use this to resolve this issue. Doesn't seem to make any difference to me.

I have logged a feedback request with Apple under the feedback assistant as part of the PB for MacOS. I really, really hope this is resolved soon...

 

[selvirino]

I recently got a 14" 2021 M1 pro, running Monterey. I also got two Asus PA278CV monitors. One of these is connected directly to my Macbook via USB-C. I have tried the second using USB-C and now HDMI. I have had issues with monitors switching around, including the Macbook display itself. I thought I'd fixed the issue by unchecking the "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use" setting in the preferences for Mission Control. But the problem just came back less than a week later.

I don't really want to sink money into a good docking station, especially when I have two new monitors that can act as USB hubs quite well. Plus, I don't even know if that would fix the problem.

I may try to reset the NVRAM on the Macbok. Has anyone tried that?

 

[fooyork]

I recently got a 14" 2021 M1 pro, running Monterey. I also got two Asus PA278CV monitors. One of these is connected directly to my Macbook via USB-C. I have tried the second using USB-C and now HDMI. I have had issues with monitors switching around, including the Macbook display itself. I thought I'd fixed the issue by unchecking the "Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use" setting in the preferences for Mission Control. But the problem just came back less than a week later.

I don't really want to sink money into a good docking station, especially when I have two new monitors that can act as USB hubs quite well. Plus, I don't even know if that would fix the problem.

I may try to reset the NVRAM on the Macbok. Has anyone tried that?

As far as I am aware, you can’t reset the NVRAM on an M1 Mac… unless I am missing something?

 

[pr21]

Hello - I have the same problem on two M1 macs. Never had problem on Intel (OLD intel with Catalina). The setup - 1) M1 Max 64GB w/ two external Samsung U28E510 displays, and 2) M1 Pro 32GB with same Samsung monitors. In both cases, I run one monitor from hdm1, and I've tried multiple usbc dongles for the second monitor. I've also tried both monitors on usbc dongles.

On both machines, the problem will occasionally "fix itself" (i.e., not occur) and work perfectly for about a week. It works through sleep/wake cycles and restarts. Then for no known reason, it will be horribly bad. Every sleep/wake will require me to manually swap displays...which also seems to guarantee a needed swap at the next sleep/wake cycle.

Yes, super frustrating. Yes, I wish there were (hope there will be) a fix from Apple. I've spent many hours googling for something, and I'm with Puonti above. I would happily pay the $15-$20 for this app to make this problem go away. I do recognize that software has bugs, especially on new hardware platforms. If you wanted a guarantee of no bugs , it would not have been released.

THE ASK - a couple people have indicated the app "Stay" may help. If you bought Stay and got it to work for you, can you PLEASE post some more comments (or instructions) to describe how you got this app to prevent the displays from being swapped?

 

[salamanderjuice]

Try turning off DisplayPort/HDMI deep sleep or energy saver settings if your monitor supports it. Not all do though. This is a really common annoying problem with modern monitors where they don't always wake from deep sleep at the same time so the OS thinks one of them has just been plugged in and it messes with the arrangement/layout. I've suffered with this on all 3 major OSs lately.

Windows 11 added a sort of fix with their new laptop windows restore thing. On Linux it's possible to detect the EDID of each monitor uniquely and then restore an arrangement. Something like that is probably doable on macOS but I don't know of any. Perhaps Stay does that.

 

[Weaselboy]

If you bought Stay and got it to work for you, can you PLEASE post some more comments (or instructions) to describe how you got this app to prevent the displays from being swapped?

I use the app Moom for the same thing and it does not really prevent the problem, it just makes it easy to fix it.

You save your apps layout then if it gets messed up, you hit a hotkey and the app (Stay or Moom) puts everything back where you wanted it.

 

[pr21]

I use the app Moom for the same thing and it does not really prevent the problem, it just makes it easy to fix it.

You save your apps layout then if it gets messed up, you hit a hotkey and the app (Stay or Moom) puts everything back where you wanted it.

Thanks, Weaselboy. After not knowing about apps like Stay or Moom, I'll try one, regardless of this problem. However, I don't think this will solve the problem (or help) with the display order problem.

To be clear on the problem....

• Three displays left to right - display 1 (the open MacBook M1), display 2 (Samsung), then display 3 (Samsung).
• I set Display Settings so the mouse/cursor flows properly from left to right, display 1, 2, then 3.
• After many (not all) restarts, the display order switches from 1, 2, 3 to 1, 3, 2. Now when moving the mouse left to right, it goes from display 1 (left), to display 2 (right), then display 3 (center). I have to reorder in display settings. Can Stay or Moom will help that?

SalamanderJuice - Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I found no such settings for my monitors. I did switch the Source Detection from Auto to Manual, with no difference in behavior. I put my machine to sleep 4 times, and it came up twice incorrectly (order 1, 3, 2) and twice correctly (order 1, 2, 3).

NOTE: I did find that if the displays come up swapped, and I unplug both displays from the Macbook, then plug them back in, in a specific order, the displays switch back to the correct order....at least until the next restart.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

 

[MRxROBOT]

I was able to fix this issue by renaming my monitors. I use a pair of identical monitors and when I left their default names they would jumble all the time. I gave them different names and they’ve been solid ever since.

 

[fooyork]

I was able to fix this issue by renaming my monitors. I use a pair of identical monitors and when I left their default names they would jumble all the time. I gave them different names and they’ve been solid ever since.

Is there a way to do this in MacOS? I did this on my monitors within their own settings a while ago and it makes no difference to me!

 

[MRxROBOT]

Is there a way to do this in MacOS? I did this on my monitors within their own settings a while ago and it makes no difference to me!

I only did it on my monitors and it did the trick for me. I’ve heard people having been able to accomplish this via switchresx as well but can not confirm that myself.

 

[pr21]

I was able to fix this issue by renaming my monitors. I use a pair of identical monitors and when I left their default names they would jumble all the time. I gave them different names and they’ve been solid ever since.

Thanks MRxROBOT - this seems "directionally correct", like it could resolve the issue.

To confirm the problem...the theory goes something like this:
1. The problem only occurs with two monitors of the same type (actually the same name).
2. The computer starts - the displays come up at nearly the same time, but which display comes up first varies (hence the randomness). Since the displays have the same name, the computer just takes the first one and puts it in the display list (essentially randomly setting the display order for those two monitors).

Unfortunately, I, like fooyork, can't seem to change display names either. I have no way to change the display name in the settings on the displays. I'm looking for ways to do it on the Mac. MRxROBOT - it sounds like you changed the display names in the displays, and in Mac OS, correct?

I also saw the following post - seem related, just not on M1 "Is it possible to change ...screen display names..."

That led me to switchresX also, which I downloaded. I was hopeful, and I've only spent 10 min with it, but no luck so far. (fyi, it looks like a very cool app though - you can select any res you want, and change to that res at specific times, e.g., when specific apps are activated.)

Thanks again everyone for any/all help...this is super annoying, and I'm just about to give in to the fact that I may just need to re-arrange my displays on wake/reboot 50% of the time. :-(. I guess, if our theory is correct, I could go buy another brand of monitor ... not today.

 

[MRxROBOT]

MRxROBOT - it sounds like you changed the display names in the displays, and in Mac OS, correct?

pr21, I only changed the names via the settings on my monitor. I did not have to do anything in macOS. I suppose this method entirely depends on the manufactures implementation of changing it’s own name or if it’s just giving you the option to nickname it (if that makes sense).

 

[selvirino]

I purchased an OWC Thunderbolt Hub to try to solve this problem but it does not seem to have helped. I'm not sure what to do next.

 

[bbelau]

This bug is driving me insane, glad I'm not the only one wasting time rearranging my desktop every time I wake up my MacBook Pro M1 Max. I have 2x 32" Samsung TU872 Thunderbolt displays, and a 4K Dell monitor plugged in with HDMI. The Dell's positioning is usually correct, but the TB displays are constantly swapped on wake, and I don't see any option for renaming them in the monitor's OSD settings. App-based solutions (Stay, Moom, etc.) don't resolve the issue - I suspect that this is an OS-level bug that Apple will need to fix...hopefully soon!

 

[selvirino]

I spoke with an Apple support specialist. He acknowledged that this is a known bug and thinks it should get fixed in an upcoming release, though he couldn't say for sure when.

 

[MrGunny94]

This bug is driving me insane, glad I'm not the only one wasting time rearranging my desktop every time I wake up my MacBook Pro M1 Max. I have 2x 32" Samsung TU872 Thunderbolt displays, and a 4K Dell monitor plugged in with HDMI. The Dell's positioning is usually correct, but the TB displays are constantly swapped on wake, and I don't see any option for renaming them in the monitor's OSD settings. App-based solutions (Stay, Moom, etc.) don't resolve the issue - I suspect that this is an OS-level bug that Apple will need to fix...hopefully soon!

Imagina putting a iPad Pro in using Sidecar in the mix.. and 10 terminal windows... huge mess.