Are EGPU issues fixed in 10.15.2 Catalina

I have almost the same rig as you (RX 5700, ASUS XG-STATION-PRO eGPU).

Follow my instructions from eariler in this thread. Turn the eGPU off. Power up the Mac Mini, wait @ 30 sec, then turn on the eGPU. You miss the apple startup screen, but you will get the log-in screen and it works fine after that. No need to pull plugs or do monitor/ cable switcheroos.

Just cannot restart with the eGPU running =/

I edit 100MP - 200MP photos using Affinity photo. Also run PTGUI panorama software and C1 Pro 20.0.1. No problems.

BTW the AMD RX5700 benchmark specs are reasonable:

• Luxmark Ball: 24 782. (just less than double the RX 580 I used with OS Catalina 10.15.0)
• Unengine Valley: (1080x1920, Ultra) 97 FPS; (1692x3008, Ultra) 62 FPS

Same thing happening for me with 10.15.2 and your delayed power up of the eGPU works.

I have a Radeon RX Vega 64 inside a Razer Core X. I was getting the black screen on boot up. I was able to get a full normal boot up if I set my Display Preferences to "Default for display" but switching that to "Scaled" would cause the black screen boot.

Now I can get a full boot up even using "Scaled" if I power up the Mac Mini first then wait about 30sec and switch on the eGPU.

Annoying way to have to boot up but it works.

Meanwhile I could resolve the issue, at least partially ...

My system can boot now with the EGPU and the monitor only attached to it, though it takes me directly to the logon screen, so no Apple logo and I suppose no (cmd+R) recovery and so on like it was possible in 10.15.1.

After reinstalling 10.15.2, I went through several "sessions" as described in the answer by "Mac Carlos" to the following post: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250934910

Results may vary, but maybe worth a try ...

I have the same issue. It boots to a blank screen, sometimes a white screen.

My OS is Catalina v10.15.2.

My machine is a Mac Mini 2018 i5. The eGPU I'm running is a Razer Core X Chroma with an Asus RX 580 graphics card.

I have resorted to plugging an HDMI cable for the meantime to make the login screen show up.

Hopefully these issues get fixed in later patches. Really annoying.

The only successful way of booting up my 2018 13" MBP is to have the eGPU disconnected. Input my password and let it boot to desktop then re-connect the eGPU or it just hangs during the login stage. Pair this with all the bluetooth issues I'm having, not good!

Updated to 10.15.3 -

So using displayport cable still doesn't work. If I start up with EGPU connected I get black screen of death. If I startup and wait 30s, I get the logon screen but then freezes after password is entered.

If I startup fully, then turn EGPU on and then change from usb-c to displayport, I get an image of the homesceen but its frozen. If I then attempt to change back to usb-c, it says no cable connected and black screen, so I have to force restart.

I can't even count how many forced restarts I've had to do with this mac mini. Apple officially sucks way more than PC!

A PC would have been cheaper, more upgradeable and I could of used any graphics card I wanted, rather than the limited selection of AMD cards Apple apparently ''SUPPORT".

Same here ... after successfully booting yesterday, today nothing. Well not exactly: booted to a gray screen. Shutdown and tried again. Back to black screen.

If it's your mini (not a work system), sign up for Apple's beta program: beta.apple.com

You'll get a dedicated feedback app. It sends relevant system logs along with your description and screen shots (if you care to include them). If nothing else it will let Apple know the extent of the issue. It's not like anyone is reporting this in the mainstream tech media. No pressure there.

I'm using the same solution, I use two hdmi cables attached to my display, one is egpu - display , another is macmini- dispplay.

Sometimes when mac os upgrade, I need to switch to the second link to see upgrade progress. Other times I stick to the egpu link. It works fine.

I have the same problem (same as Slackjaw565, I have Vega64 on Razer X). With 10.5.2 update it literally ruined all my experience on MacMini 2018. Before I could nicely see the boot screen via external GPU. Now it is just black and nothing happens.

Seems when Mac is booting, it needs display connected to internal HDMI. So when you boot together Mac and eGPU, but something is connected to the internal HDMI, then black screen doesn't occur. This only the case when nothing is connected to the internal HDMI. So I hope developers, who successfully ruined our great experience are reading this and probably will use this information to bugfix this horrid update. Apple, we are looking for 10.5.3!

Being developer myself, I am very disappointed with such quality of release. :-(

I wish resetting the PRAM was all there was to it. This was the first thing I did: with the eGPU, with a TB3-DisplayPort beteween the Mac Mini and monitor, with a HDMI link to the monitor…. Lots of PRAM resetting.

Still get "black-screen-of-death" when I try to boot with the monitor only connected to the eGPU =/

OTOH, the TB3-DisplayPort and HDMI direct links work well. Unfortunately the in-built graphics in the Mac mini is quite underpowered. So I really need a powerful GPU for scrolling/ editing large (200 megapixel) images.

Fair enough. I guess we will find out the hard way. Like we did with 10.15.2 =/

On a more positive note, have been bitten by eGPU-death during OS upgrades enough times now that in future will do the following:

• Disconnect the eGPU and turn it off
• Connect the Mac Mini monitor via HDMI
• Run the OS update, rebuilt the PRAM, run it for a few hours to see if everything is running okay
• Power up the eGPU, do a restart and cross my fingers…

Rainy day experiments with 10.15.2 and an eGPU...

At the moment I'm running off my RX Vega 64 in a Razer Core X. We'll see how long it lasts. To get here I set scaling to default for display and unchecked 'Displays have separate Spaces' in Mission Control. Attached my Dell display to my mini via HDMI and to my Core X via DisplayPort (Core X to mini via Thunderbolt 3). Set the display to HDMI via the display control buttons. Started the mini and then the Core X. Things got a bit wack here when switching back and forth between the HDMI and DP inputs using the display controls. Menu bar only available on one 'display', apps running on one 'display' or the other depending on whether 'prefer eGPU' was checked in their get info windoid. Eventually gave up and pulled the HDMI cable leaving me with only the DP hookup. 20 minutes in, things are still functioning.

My disjointed thoughts are that this issue has at least something to do with how Catalina handles 'desktops' and 'spaces'. My freezes seemed to be occurring when an app winds up running in both the Mac 'space' and the eGPU 'space'. An example is Firefox (prefer eGPU checked) beach balling after some random period of time; force quitting it from the Apple Menu and not being able to relaunch it because 'application is already running' error. Activity monitor doesn't show it, but 'ps' in terminal showed it still running. Couldn't 'kill' it from terminal. Reboot worked, but only for a limited time. Activity monitor seems to play some part in the freezes also (beach balling), but I don't know if it's directly involved or trying to monitor some process that's hung.

... So I'll give it something to do besides FF and Safari. I'll try Unigine Heaven benchmark. If that doesn't kill it, I'll try Civ VI. Fingers crossed.

There is some interesting discussion going on about the Catalina/ eGPU problems at:

https://egpu.io/forums/mac-setup/

One of the posters makes a reasonable suggestion that running an OS update with the TB3 eGPU connected to the monitor (which is what I and many others did) messes things up.

So have switched off the eGPU and reconnected the monitor with a HDMI cable, rebooted in recovery mode (CMD-R) and am reinstalling macOS Catalina - takes me @ 1hr due to 3rd World internet speeds in Australia.

Will see if this finally fixes the eGPU dead-black-screen-after-boot problem.

@aznemeng I've done the reinstalls: both 10.15.1 and 10.15.2 multiple times (lost count at 3 per version). With everything disconnected but the display (via HDMI). None of them 'took' for more than a day. Didn't want to rain on your parade, as there seem to be so many different results posted by different people that I thought maybe you'd get lucky.

I tried the mini -> eGPU -> display but waited 30 seconds after powering on the mini before turning on the eGPU with screensaver and screen sleep off. Login screen on eGPU power up. Black screen 5 min. later. Running Apple mail, Firefox and Apple Music (the system wasn't idle). Locked up the display (couldn't turn it off). Turned off the UPS and killed everything connected.

Reconnected the mini -> display via HDMI. And installed Windows 10 via bootcamp. I haven't used windows in 10+ years and that was window NT. (Never owned a windows system; forced to use them at work over the years.) Spent hours trying to remember/discover how things work on the other side. It recognized the eGPU but couldn't get Unigine benchmark to run: DLL ****.

Thankfully the 5700 XT showed up. Plugged that into the Core X and am running with it now. Unigine Heaven benchmarks at a hair under 50fps at 4K. Fingers crossed that it is still working tomorrow.

Second day with the 5700 XT and only two black screens:

First one occurred about an hour in and basically the mini shutdown. The monitor reported no input, but could be switched off. Noticed that the mini's LED was off. Tapped the power button, short wait then the login screen. Everything appeared normal but I rebooted just to be safe. I'd set the screen to turn off after 1 hour in Energy Saver. Coincidence? Whatever, I set it to 'Never'. Screensaver is still set for 5 min.

Second occurrence was a crash while running Civ VI. It has an option to use OpenGL or Metal: I'd selected Metal for grins. I suspect that was the issue, though the 5700 XT is supposed to be Metal capable. The Core X fan was 'twitching' which is more than it's done since installing the 5700 XT.

This is worth noting: the 5700 XT is silent and running cool when compared to the RX Vega 64, which always had it's fans as well as the Core X fan running. And still ran on the hot side of warm. 5700 XT Benchmarks better. No brainer. Anyone want to buy a slightly used Vega 64?

The other 'fingers crossed' news is that it boots with the eGPU on. No 30 second wait necessary. This is really too good to be true and I'm waiting for the shoe to drop.