Mac Studio multi display management: Rinse and repeat 10+ times a day

[sebalvarez]

It shouldn’t be this hard. In fact, it should be “super easy; barely an inconvenience!” as the Quebecois says on YouTube. The module or whatever you want to call it, in macOS, detects the connected displays. In some cases, two or more of the displays are the same brand, model and year, because they were purchased at the same time. In my case just two Samsung LF32TU87. Not the cheapest, maybe one step or two above that. So operating systems that are decades old might have had a problem telling them apart, but any version of Windows from the past two decades can read the monitor’s EDID, basically metadata that tells the computer and the OS what’s the brand of the monitor, the size, model, resolutions, frequencies, etc, and specifically the one thing that the OS can use to tell them apart: the serial number. This is the same for pretty much every monitor out there nowadays.

So even if my two monitors are connected to the Thunderbolt 3 outputs of my Mac Studio, every day I have to do this process anywhere from 5 to 15 times, depending on how many times I sit at the computer and take a break to do something else, at which point I either leave the Mac on, which in 15 minutes starts the screen saver, and at 30 minutes or whatever time I set it to, it stops sending a signal to the screen so both monitors go into standby mode.

So you would think that when I come back to work and press any key to wake them up, my choice of main monitor will be the same. Well, not with the Mac Studio. Half the times I wake it up, the monitors are swapped. Imagine that you have your main monitor on the right, and the secondary one on the left. Now, imagine that someone came from behind the monitors, and put the one that was on the left on the right side, and the one that was on the right, on the left side. Then you have this problem where your apps that you had on the main monitor are now on the second one.

So I have to open the new system settings app, go to the displays tab, click on the Arrange button, and on the window that pops up, I have to click and drag the screen on the left, to the right side of the other one, and after that, I have to right click on it, and select “Main Display”. This is a procedure I have to repeat almost every time I come back to the computer. Sometimes it’s even worse, because I may be using the second monitor for my PC or my work Macbook Pro, and when I wake up the Mac Studio, in which I left the right monitor as main display, now is not showing anything on that monitor, because when macOS is in the lock screen, and you wake it up, it only shows the GUI on the main monitor, not the rest. But since it changed the monitors, now the GUI is in the display where thunderbolt is not the current input.

This has happened since I got the Mac Studio on June 3rd of this year, also under Monterey and with two Dell monitors I had before I bought the Samsungs.

I called Apple about a month ago, and I talked for about two hours to a super nice guy who asked me all kinds of details. He sent me an app from Apple that collects all the info about my system that goes to the Apple engineers to work on it. But the last time I checked on this with him, 9 days ago, still nothing.

So I just don’t get it because this is not some major rewrite of the macOS code, it should be as simple as a .plist file that saves monitor brand, model, and serial number, along with the other stuff like resolution, refresh rate, color profile, etc etc, and among all that, the variables for this particular thing, for example:

Display 1

Brand = Samsung
Model = LF32TU87
SN = 6895-FRTEV9543 (no, this is not the actual serial number of my monitor)
Role = Main
Position XY = 0,0

Display 2
Brand = Samsung
Model = LF32TU87
SN = 9940-HDUTOP6458 (no, this is not the actual serial number of my other monitor)
Role = Secondary
Position XY = -3840,0

So all that macOS has to do is to check that plist file every time the machine is turned on, or the monitors waken up, or connected. Setting a display as main or secondary should only be done once, the first time you connect a specific display to the machine, or maybe if you booted a macOS installer from a USB drive, wipe the internal drive, and reinstall the same version of macOS or a newer version like I did with Ventura.

So why is it that some of the best hardware and software engineers in the world, who constantly produce the most amazing computers, can’t figure out the simplest of things? What am I missing here?

Because I can’t for the life of me think of an excuse for not fixing something so simple. As long as the monitor sends the OS the EDID data with a serial number, that’s all that's needed.

I don’t know what else to do. I just know I’m so fed up with having to do the same thing over and over every day because these people just don’t care or maybe I’m wrong and this is much more complicated than it seems. To me it’s just the guy on YouTube says: super easy, barely an inconvenience.

 

[hg.wells]

So I’ve had a similar issue with HP monitors that tend to not share any identifying information about the monitors and the Mac gets confused. My solution was using one display connected to thunderbolt 3 and the other to HDMI and the Mac never had an issue identifying the main monitor correctly after that.

 

[sebalvarez]

My solution was using one display connected to thunderbolt 3 and the other to HDMI and the Mac never had an issue identifying the main monitor correctly after that.

Thanks for the tip, but I tried it all, and still the same chaos. I didn't put in my post all the combinations that I've tried because the post was long enough. I could write a book, believe me.

macOS display management is a joke, it's chaotic, and it needs to be addressed now. A $5,000 Mac can't be worse than $500 Dell at anything. I tried these two monitors in Windows 10, and the one I set as main, stayed as main, period. This is pathetic, that months and months went by and we're still talking about this.

And it's not just this Mac, I have an M1 Macbook Pro for work that I connect to the same monitors, and the same thing happens with it, and that one is connected using USB-C to Displayport cables. I even tried the connect the computers the opposite way, mixing the cables, and so on, it just doesn't work.

To Apple this is not a priority because it's not hard to fix, it wouldn't take them long. So we need to find a way to make them understand, whether it's a online petition, a complaint to the California DOJ, perhaps a class action lawsuit if someone has the patience for that, not me, but something needs to be done for Apple to get their heads out of their asses and fix this. I didn't pay what to me is a fortune, for a computer that makes me want to yell in frustration almost every single day, and the rest of the days I just sigh in disbelief that this machine can be so superb in every other way, and suck so much in something so simple like multiple display management.

 

[Nguyen Duc Hieu]

May I ask a stupid question:
What will happen if after Mac OS switch your monitors, you physically swap the positions of them?
Will them be swapped by Mac OS again next time?

 

[sebalvarez]

May I ask a stupid question:
What will happen if after Mac OS switch your monitors, you physically swap the positions of them?
Will them be swapped by Mac OS again next time?

That's not a stupid question, and I'm glad you asked. It seemed to me that about 70% of the times that I would either turn on the monitors or wake them up, it would swap them in the system. So at this point I was so fed up that I actually detached the monitors from their base while they were on and connected, and physically swapped their places.

And that seemed to work for a few days maybe, and until yesterday, the cables were still connected to them, in the same spots in the back of the computer.

So to answer your question if they will be swapped, it's like a flip of a coin as everything else in this.

 

[designerdave72]

You’re right it shouldn’t be this hard especially for the money paid for these things. Nearly every day I’ve had issues with the ASD I bought to go with my Mac Studio waking from sleep and reducing the size of the application windows to the bottom left corner. Yesterday I came across a post about using SwitchResX so I tried it and this seems to have fixed the issue. I know it’s only one monitor that I have the issue with but maybe try it?

 

[tstafford]

Interesting.

So I was running a MBP14 w/ two ASD and never had any issues with the displays moving around, windows resizing or any of it on sleep/wake. This would have been on an earlier version of Monterey.

I upgraded to a Studio and added a third ASD (the reason for the Studio purchase plus I/O, memory, etc.) and immediately started having all kinds of annoying display issues on sleep/wake. The displays switched around (sometimes) but almost always the windows moved from one display to the other and resized.

Since the upgrade to Ventura I no longer have this issue. The displays are stable in their positions and the windows hold location and size.

YMMV.

 

[rworne]

I upgraded to a Studio and added a third ASD (the reason for the Studio purchase plus I/O, memory, etc.) and immediately started having all kinds of annoying display issues on sleep/wake. The displays switched around (sometimes) but almost always the windows moved from one display to the other and resized.

Running only one screen here. The strangeness I see is that when the screen wakes up, I see the display contents being re-rendered as the Studio Display comes up. I don't know if the Mac Studio is doing this, or the Studio Display, but I see the screen re-arranging itself whenever it wakes up. All my other Macs and windows machines just pop up the display unchanged.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I don't know if BetterDisplay can help with this issue (which seems to be an Apple Silicon thing) but i don't know if you knew about it.

GitHub - waydabber/BetterDisplay: Unlock your displays on your Mac! Flexible HiDPI scaling, XDR/HDR extra brightness, virtual screens, DDC control, extra dimming, PIP/streaming, EDID override and lots more!

Unlock your displays on your Mac! Flexible HiDPI scaling, XDR/HDR extra brightness, virtual screens, DDC control, extra dimming, PIP/streaming, EDID override and lots more! - waydabber/BetterDisplay

github.com

 

[designerdave72]

Running only one screen here. The strangeness I see is that when the screen wakes up, I see the display contents being re-rendered as the Studio Display comes up. I don't know if the Mac Studio is doing this, or the Studio Display, but I see the screen re-arranging itself whenever it wakes up. All my other Macs and windows machines just pop up the display unchanged.

I tried SwitchResX to combat this but it now seems to have failed. App windows are still resizing after sleep but the odd thing is, if I start up or restart the Mac Studio with the windows in place they remain in their correct places.

 

[rworne]

I tried SwitchResX to combat this but it now seems to have failed. App windows are still resizing after sleep but the odd thing is, if I start up or restart the Mac Studio with the windows in place they remain in their correct places.

They don't change here - at least when it's done zooming and placing stuff everything is right where I left it. What I see is a screen image pop up that is smaller than the size of the SD, with apps that appear to be the size I left them at, that pops to fill the entire display, then a jumbling of UI elements occurs that ends up with the screen image with everything where it's supposed to be.

This only occurs when waking from sleep, and it all happens within 2 seconds or so. This is what I see (though it differs slightly every time I wake the system) - the previous recording had the bottom task bar 3" from the bottom of the screen. But apparently when the studio wakes up, something makes it think it's running in a lower resolution. This was filmed using an iPhone in "slo-mo" mode to make the screen redrawing more easy to see. It starts from the moment the first image appears on screen until it is done reshuffling. It even animates the icons on the desktop moving from one location to the other when the screen resizes.

In another thread that was asking about the audio formats available when an HDMI receiver was connected via HDMI, I was running a test. After restarting, the HDMI suddenly became the primary screen. Since all I had connected was the receiver, I thought it was broken as I sat staring at a black screen that started blaring voiceover login instructions when I tapped the TouchID button a couple of times.

I only bring this up because if the display is causing this - if it appears "up" as the primary then immediately resets as it changes resolution with the secondary monitor "up", the Mac may switch primary monitors.

 

[sebalvarez]

Yesterday I came across a post about using SwitchResX so I tried it and this seems to have fixed the issue. I know it’s only one monitor that I have the issue with but maybe try it?

Thanks, actually I tried SwitchresX, eventually bought it, but I haven't installed it since I wiped my internal drive and made a fresh install of Ventura. Since I filed a case with Apple and supposedly they're working on it, I thought I'd wait to see if they needed me to run any tests, and if that's the case, ideally the system should be as it comes.

That said, I had been using it in Monterey for a few months, and it soothes the pain a bit, but it's not perfect. The problem is that SwitchresX has to rely on the OS to tell it which display is which. So for example, if macOS tells SwitchresX that the monitor I have currently in front of me is display 1, and the monitor I have to my left or right, meaning the secondary monitor, is display 2, then all the shortcuts and profiles, etc, that you make in SwitchresX, work only as long as the OS keeps telling SwitchresX that the layout I just described is the actual layout.

However, display management in macOS is so chaotic, that at some point, probably a few days later, macOS will decide that the monitor that it was display 1 now it's not the same physical monitor as it was before. Meaning, it will swap them logically, as if you would have swapped them physically. But, macOS will tell SwitchresX the same thing as before. This is display 1, and this is display 2. But since the assignment it made to the two monitors is swapped, SwitchresX still thinks it was the first one, but it's not anymore.

So if you created a display set with a shortcut to make the secondary monitor the one on the left, and the main monitor the one on the right, some days later when you use the shortcut, you will notice that now, the main monitor is on the left. SwitchresX still thinks that it's putting it on the right, but SwitchresX can't see how you see your monitors, it just goes with whatever the OS tells it.

It's just beyond comprehension that it's been years of people posting about this in forums, and with so many Mac Minis and Studios out there in the world, there's no way this is not happening to most people, and that Apple hasn't heard about it. So why can't they fix it? They fix one thing in Ventura, which was the automatic mirroring when plugging in a TV set to the HDMI port. So why fix just that, and not the issue that is driving people crazy? When you pay $5,000 for a computer, it has to perform admirably. It can never be perfect, but it certainly can't have worse display management than a piece of crap sub $1K Dell.

 

[sebalvarez]

I don't know if BetterDisplay can help with this issue (which seems to be an Apple Silicon thing) but i don't know if you knew about it.

Thanks, I'll definitely give that a try.

 

[designerdave72]

Thanks, actually I tried SwitchresX, eventually bought it, but I haven't installed it since I wiped my internal drive and made a fresh install of Ventura. Since I filed a case with Apple and supposedly they're working on it, I thought I'd wait to see if they needed me to run any tests, and if that's the case, ideally the system should be as it comes.

That said, I had been using it in Monterey for a few months, and it soothes the pain a bit, but it's not perfect. The problem is that SwitchresX has to rely on the OS to tell it which display is which. So for example, if macOS tells SwitchresX that the monitor I have currently in front of me is display 1, and the monitor I have to my left or right, meaning the secondary monitor, is display 2, then all the shortcuts and profiles, etc, that you make in SwitchresX, work only as long as the OS keeps telling SwitchresX that the layout I just described is the actual layout.

However, display management in macOS is so chaotic, that at some point, probably a few days later, macOS will decide that the monitor that it was display 1 now it's not the same physical monitor as it was before. Meaning, it will swap them logically, as if you would have swapped them physically. But, macOS will tell SwitchresX the same thing as before. This is display 1, and this is display 2. But since the assignment it made to the two monitors is swapped, SwitchresX still thinks it was the first one, but it's not anymore.

So if you created a display set with a shortcut to make the secondary monitor the one on the left, and the main monitor the one on the right, some days later when you use the shortcut, you will notice that now, the main monitor is on the left. SwitchresX still thinks that it's putting it on the right, but SwitchresX can't see how you see your monitors, it just goes with whatever the OS tells it.

It's just beyond comprehension that it's been years of people posting about this in forums, and with so many Mac Minis and Studios out there in the world, there's no way this is not happening to most people, and that Apple hasn't heard about it. So why can't they fix it? They fix one thing in Ventura, which was the automatic mirroring when plugging in a TV set to the HDMI port. So why fix just that, and not the issue that is driving people crazy? When you pay $5,000 for a computer, it has to perform admirably. It can never be perfect, but it certainly can't have worse display management than a piece of crap sub $1K Dell.

Day two trialling it, seems to have been resolved. There was an option in the app to ‘reset the ASD to original settings’ so I don’t know if that’s fixed the issue.

 

[sebalvarez]

I haven't installed SwitchresX since I did the wipe and installed Ventura. But nobody should have to pay even a dollar extra to install a third party app to fix what the Apple software engineers are too damn lazy to fix. This is a few lines of code. As long as each monitor has a unique serial number in the EDID, and I verified that my two sets of monitors, the Dells and the Samsungs do, any half decent OS should be able to save the user assignment for each monitor, including if it's main or secondary, and the X and Y position in the logical layout. Period.

This is beyond outrageous. These people have no pride in what they do, because this is not one of those bugs that slipped through the cracks and duplicated everybody's contacts. This has been happening for years for people who either have older Macs without screens, like Mac Minis, or that have Macbook Pros but use them with two external monitors, with or without the built-in screen.

And it's making me furious because I have spent over $20,000 in Apple hardware in the past two decades, not just Macs but iPhones, iPads, Apple TVs, etc, I subscribe to Apple One+, I convinced my fiancée to buy a Macbook Air this year when she went to Best Buy and came out with some POS HP laptop, I even own Apple stock. And this Mac Studio is the most expensive machine I ever bought. And yet, every day, every time that I press Control+Shift+Eject to stop sending a video signal to the monitors so they go to sleep, so I don't have to waste power for nothing, or even if I forget and that same thing happens automatically after 10 or so minutes, when I press any key to wake up the monitors, I have to do these steps:

1. Open System Settings
2. Scroll down to the Displays tab and click on it
3. Click on the “Arrange” button to open the display layout window
4. In said window, I have to click on the display that shows on the left
5. Without releasing the mouse button, I have to drag it to the right of the other one
6. I have to right click on the monitor I dragged, and set it to main display
7. Close the System Settings app

Now, tell me, in what world is it OK to pay $5,000+tax+interest for a computer with an OS written by such inept morons, that you are forced to do this several times a day?

So I'm beyond outraged at this point. As soon as I get a chance in the next few days, I'm going to write a complaint to the California Department of Justice. Enough is enough.

 

[Mr Screech]

It's not ok. And by the look of things, macos will get worse over time.

However, getting upset when there is a fairly cheap solution is a waste of energy.
Install the switchresx app, save a displayset, assign a keyboard shortcut to the displayset, and all it will take is a press of a few keys when things go wrong. "Work smarter..." and all.

 

[sebalvarez]

It's not ok. And by the look of things, macos will get worse over time.

Honestly, other than that, I have no complaints about anything else in macOS, with the exception of the stupid system settings app made to look like the iPad.

However, getting upset when there is a fairly cheap solution is a waste of energy.
Install the switchresx app, save a displayset, assign a keyboard shortcut to the displayset, and all it will take is a press of a few keys when things go wrong. "Work smarter..." and all.

It's the principle of it. Paying over $5,000 for a computer that makes you go through all the steps I described above is outrageous, and even more outrageous is that when the Apple engineers find out about it, they do nothing to correct it. And to add insult to injury, despite having purchased tens of thousands of dollars in Apple hardware over the last 20 years, I can't post in the Apple forums because the moderators are like babies that can't stand a bit of criticism of their beloved company. And the formal complaint I placed against them, probably will go nowhere.

And I may not be a software engineer, but I have been around both Macs and Windows PCs for over 20 years, and I know them both pretty well. So I know that this problem comes down to a simple fix because the code to assign parameters to each monitor is there. When I open the system settings and go to display, I see at least 5 individual parameters that are kept after reboots, or when the monitors go to sleep, unless I change them manually, and the new changes are also kept.

And these are:

- Resolution (where it shows 5 different icons that go from larger text to more space)
- Color Profile
- Refresh rate
- High dynamic range
- Rotation

These five parameters are kept just fine. I tried changing them, and whether it's a reboot, shut down and turn on the next morning, or the displays going to sleep, they stay put, in the monitor I assigned them to. Of course when they stay put in the same logical display, but if the system decides to change the position, it will change physically.

Each monitor, in the System Information app, under the tab called "Thunderbolt/USB4" shows the 6 buses, and the two monitors connected to the first two, as you can see in the screenshot:

As you can see, almost everything here looks the same, even the UIDs look very similar. They both end in 300. But they are still unique. And that's what the system uses to tell them apart. So it's definitely possible for macOS to keep one of them always as main and the other as extended.

It's either laziness from these engineers, it's maybe that most of them are assigned to projects for the next big thing, probably Macbook Pros M3 or whatever, and nobody is looking at this. Because it would take them two minutes to fix this.

 

[vapnfaan]

Well now i dont feel so bad because i to have the same issue. Both the exact same monitors, bought at the same time, ASUS ROG STRIX 43". One connected over thunderbolt one over HDMI.

Sometimes when i restart or come out of sleep, My mirroring options will change AND it will turn HDR on, Making me monitors very dark. Its really annoying having to set my main monitor and its settings all over again.

I was almost going to return these monitors but now i see it also happens with Apples monitors, So there no point...

 

[BrianBaughn]

This might be of interest but I wouldn't be able to test it:

Can't modify screen arrangement on Ventura / M1 Pro · Issue #106 · jakehilborn/displayplacer

Here's my situation: Two identical displays (Samsung LU28R550UQNXZA) with different serial numbers displayed in the OSD Connected via Caldigit Element with a T4 cable Each time they are connected, ...

github.com

 

[designerdave72]

Well now i dont feel so bad because i to have the same issue. Both the exact same monitors, bought at the same time, ASUS ROG STRIX 43". One connected over thunderbolt one over HDMI.

Sometimes when i restart or come out of sleep, My mirroring options will change AND it will turn HDR on, Making me monitors very dark. Its really annoying having to set my main monitor and its settings all over again.

I was almost going to return these monitors but now i see it also happens with Apples monitors, So there no point...

I had the same issue with my M1 Max and found creating a shortcut to sleep as a moderate solution - go to System Preferences > Keyboard under the tab Shortcuts and select App Shortcuts in the left column, then click the plus button. In the dialog box use Sleep for the "Menu Title" field and select a free shortcut. I have however, noticed that if you hit sleep on non-Apple apps it works does sometimes immediately wake but hitting the key seems faster. See if it works...

As an endnote, I do have the odd windows/apps displacement after waking but after I installed ScreenResX it fixes it for most occasions. Not perfect though but must be a ****** MacOS universal issue.

 

[pappl]

Return your device if it doesn't work the right way.

 

[designerdave72]

Return your device if it doesn't work the right way.

Even after nearly a year? 🤔

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Yep, this has been true for me on macOS for years, across multiple computers and macOS versions. Two identical-model monitors, it will seemingly randomly decide which one is which on wake. Seems to be a 50/50 chance of getting it right.

 

[sebalvarez]

I was almost going to return these monitors but now i see it also happens with Apples monitors, So there no point...

I'm not sure if it happens with Apple monitors. If anyone here has two identical Apple monitors feel free to chip in, but this may or may not happen with those.

What people need to do about this is is to file complaints with the California Department of Justice so they can look into it. Calling Apple doesn't do anything as I've experienced myself, because this is obviously far down the list that they don't care.

But if the DOJ sends them a letter, maybe they will care. So here's the link:

https://oag.ca.gov/contact/consumer-complaint-against-business-or-company

Document everything. Time logs, a simple Numbers spreadsheet that has date, time, and what did it do, maybe two columns with checkmark format, with the header "Swapped?" and a notes column, and anything else you think of.

I plan this weekend on setting up my iPhone on this $20 tripod I got on Amazon, looking straight at the two monitors, including the Mac and the keyboard. I will press record and then do Cmd+Opt+Eject a few times, to document that this happens all the time. It happens not even one minute after putting the displays to sleep. A few days ago, I pressed this key combination and the displays went to sleep after not getting a signal. About 10 seconds later, I accidentally moved the Magic Mouse, which wakes them up, and they were swapped. Pathetic.

I will also reboot the machine, another thing that is a 50/50 chance of swapping. Then I'll shut it down, and turn it one minutes later.

This has been happening for years, so it's either we all get together and force Apple to do something, or ten years down the road, we will have the new M8 Mac Super Studio Ultra Fantastic Super Awesome that will render the CGI for a full Marvel movie in one minute, and we will still have to go into the display settings and drag and move, and set to main.

 

[CMMChris]

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