Here's proof that Apple makes your life miserable with poor display management and doesn't do anything about it.

[sebalvarez]

Sorry, I meant to post this message in this thread yesterday but I got it confused with another thread I had started months ago about the same thing. Still, it's worth it to post here too, since it's basically a question for the people who have this problem. So here it goes:

Of all the people here who had this problem, have you had it in the last couple of weeks? Because for me it seems to have stopped. I hope I'm not jinxing it by posting about it, but it's gone. I even had to swap them manually a few times when I needed to, but it always respects the manual arrangement.

I thought it was because I installed the app Lunar (excellent app for various display related tasks), but I checked with the developer yesterday and he told me it's not possible, that Lunar doesn't have anything that would fix this problem.

He thinks maybe Apple fixed it in Ventura 13.3.1 (22E261), something that occurred to me, but the list of fixes doesn't say anything about this.

What are you people seeing in your Macs?

 

[sebalvarez]

@sebalvarez I think this is a great, detailed, and elaborate post. Thank you for your effort and documentation.

As you noted the discussion continues at https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/external-displays-swapping-arrangement-not-remembered.2320211/ with great input from @alinpanaitiu developer of Lunar.

But as far as I understand you prove that the computer in fact can differentiate between the two displays with the same EDID, contrary to what @alinpanaitiu says. Would you mind posting a link to this thread over there? I thought of doing it myself but thought it would be rude as you're already aware of (almost) every discussion going around the problem.

I myself have been suffering from this issue for almost a year, 3-10 times every day. I tried every app, script, and remedy to no solution. Lately, it is claimed that the latest update to Ventura solves the issue but I don't want to upgrade(!) to Ventura just for this and see that the issue is still there only to spend a whole day or two to return to my stable Monterey installation.

Anyway Kudos and thanks 🙏✌️

Not a problem.

 

[Longbeg]

I am also experiencing the multiple display problem. I have just bought my first Mac, everything is brand new, including the two HP 4k displays, currently one Thunderbolt connected, the other directly from Mac Studio HDMI connector.
The Mac is a Studio M2 Max 64MB ram, 2TB SSD internal, 2x 2TB external.
There are some good tips in this thread, the first one I’ll try is to untie all the nice cabling I just did! I have a motorised standing desk so I tie-wrapped all the cables down.
Then I might have to shell out for an Apple Thunderbolt cable maybe. I’m in UK - are there any good alternatives?
Very intermittent problem. Sometimes it’s perfect, next day only one display working.
I’ll report back here on any progress.

 

[sebalvarez]

I am also experiencing the multiple display problem. I have just bought my first Mac, everything is brand new, including the two HP 4k displays, currently one Thunderbolt connected, the other directly from Mac Studio HDMI connector.
The Mac is a Studio M2 Max 64MB ram, 2TB SSD internal, 2x 2TB external.
There are some good tips in this thread, the first one I’ll try is to untie all the nice cabling I just did! I have a motorised standing desk so I tie-wrapped all the cables down.
Then I might have to shell out for an Apple Thunderbolt cable maybe. I’m in UK - are there any good alternatives?
Very intermittent problem. Sometimes it’s perfect, next day only one display working.
I’ll report back here on any progress.

Well, it's not an intermittent problem. It's a permanent one, because the problem is that this is so poorly designed, that it's like you flip a coin every time you turn them on, or that they go to sleep and wake up. It's like heads=your desired layout, or tail=undesired layout. Since it's flipping the coin all the time, it means that there's a 50-50 chance that you will get heads or tails.

Whether this is a problem with manufacturers or Apple, I'm sick and tired of the inaction from them. Because we're not talking about some shady display manufacturer that doesn't comply with guidelines, we're talking about Samsung, HP and Dell at least, and I think many more, that set the same serial number to batches of the same monitor. But there's the EDID serial number, and there's another serial number that at least in mine is different in both Samsung monitors.

So if Lunar can identify that other serial number, it means that the Mac hardware and macOS can identify two separate serial numbers, and therefore, assign the role of each monitor as a permanent thing. But it seems to me that the display manufacturers are lazy or maybe assigning different EDID serials would cost them an extra dollar or so per unit, so they don't it. If this sounds ridiculous, keep in mind that the powers that be at Samsung are so stupid that they don't include Dolby Vision in their sets because they would have to pay $3 per Dolby license per unit.

And Apple, same stupidity because they are aware of this problem, and they could change their code to real that other serial number that is reported to the system, and assign roles that way. But they say "No sir, there are guidelines and they have to respect them". Meanwhile, the end user gets the worst end of it all, as usual.

 

[Ben J.]

I've been using multiple displays on macOS for a couple of decades at least. On PPC, Intel and ARM, from OSX 10.0 to present, VGA, DVI, HDMI, DP, CRTs, LCDs, TVs, different graphic cards, mostly desktops, not laptops, and I've always been pretty happy with how the apple OS has handled it. Especially the last few years have been great with Spaces, Mission Control etc handling things seamlessly without troubles. I love it.

Just for balance.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I think this has to do with when one has two identical external monitors and MacOS can't remember which one is which. I haven't had any issues either, but I use just one external monitor. (And that technically isn't true, I used to have trouble with fuzzy text until I upgraded everything to 4k.)

 

[SnowCrocodile]

I think this has to do with when one has two identical external monitors and MacOS can't remember which one is which. I haven't had any issues either, but I use just one external monitor. (And that technically isn't true, I used to have trouble with fuzzy text until I upgraded everything to 4k.)

And that's why the external display support on Mac is such a joke.

I have two non-4k monitors that I connect to a $800 Windows laptop. Both show clear, crisp, sharp text and icons. But if I attempt to use them with my $1,500 MBA, only one of them can be connected, and the text is fuzzy because "well it's a low PPI monitor." Sure, but why can Windows and Linux display crisp text and icons on the same low PPI monitor ? Can it be that Apple deliberately refuses to optimize the way the OS displays text on 3rd party midrange monitors so that the users were persuaded to buy top of the line models (at which point Apple branded ones become competitive) ? Or they just don't care...

At some time, way back, Mac was a definite improvement over Windows. Now, it's just about picking the least bad option for your specific needs.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

And that's why the external display support on Mac is such a joke.

I have two non-4k monitors that I connect to a $800 Windows laptop. Both show clear, crisp, sharp text and icons. But if I attempt to use them with my $1,500 MBA, only one of them can be connected, and the text is fuzzy because "well it's a low PPI monitor." Sure, but why can Windows and Linux display crisp text and icons on the same low PPI monitor ? Can it be that Apple deliberately refuses to optimize the way the OS displays text on 3rd party midrange monitors so that the users were persuaded to buy top of the line models (at which point Apple branded ones become competitive) ? Or they just don't care...

At some time, way back, Mac was a definite improvement over Windows. Now, it's just about picking the least bad option for your specific needs.

I agree with everything you said. 😭😭😭😭