Catalina gets resolution wrong when HDMI switching external monitor

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Catalina gets resolution wrong when HDMI switching external monitor

Well, seems that Apple has closed the original thread for lack of activity. That is related to the lack of a fix rather than activity. Its been now 6 months since this was broken by apple and I've ceased doing any kind of upgrade on catalina as every release appears to break some thing else that I use.

Now that 10.15.4 is out, does any one have experience if Apple has bothered to fix the external Monitor issues that started back in Mojave 10.1.6 supplementary updates?

Does .4 fix:

Internal screen brightness set to maximum when connecting external monitor. I see .3 was suppose to have resolved it but is it still fixed in .4
Does the MAC now reliably get external monitor resolution correct when switching external monitor between input or do you still need to disconnect the MAC completely to get the screen resolution to work properly?
Does it stop polling external monitors continuously when its asleep. ie. connected to a HDMI switch for work and the MAC would continue to poll the external monitor even when it was asleep resulting in the MAC needing to be completely disconnected.

Since 10.14.6 Apple just have alot of issues with external monitors being used and drives towards needing to run the MAC in isolation.

Appreciate anyone that could provide input. I'm not game to try to upgrade for fear of my workflow being impacted more than it is today where I have to regularly disconnect the MAC from monitors to get things to work. 5-6 time every day for 6 months so far. I'd roll back to 10.14.5 if there was a way.

Thanks.

MacBook Pro 13", macOS 10.15

Posted on Mar 28, 2020 1:30 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 29, 2020 7:03 AM in response to BradSP

BradSP wrote:

Catalina gets resolution wrong when HDMI switching external monitor

I'd roll back to 10.14.5 if there was a way.

You can try updating your software:

Combo update macOS 10.15.4 https://support.apple.com/kb/DL2037?locale=en_US

or if you prefer you can roll back to your 10.14.5 (?), [10.14.6 is the stable release] from your backups if your issue continues

Revert your Mac to a previous macOS version - Apple Support

You can submit your Apple Feedback http://www.apple.com/feedback

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Answer 2

BradSP Author

Level 1

75 points

Mar 31, 2020 2:37 PM in response to leroydouglas

Unfortunately 10.14.6 is not an option for myself. I spent 2 weeks with Apple Engineering identifying an issue where the windowserver with external monitors attempts to incorrectly switch the resolution every 1-10ms driving up the CPU usage very high. This was the result of the 10.14.6 upgrade and was not present in 10.14.5. It was intended to be corrected in 10.15 and indeed it was but then 3 new external monitor bugs were introduced to replace the item that was fixed. Of course I was also one of the lucky ones that was hit by the 10.15 firmware upgrade bug which resulted in my MAC being dead. After spending so much time identifying, troubleshoot, waiting for 10.15 to then be met by an increasing number of issues with external monitors and a replacement MAC. I'm not personally game to try any particular apple update myself hence why the reques if any one else has tried it and if any thing was fixed. I have a duplicate MAC on 10.14.5 that runs perfectly. At present I'm sitting on 10.15.1 and can work with that but the quality of the minor releases breaking things is an issue for a business machine.

Apple actually recommended using High Sierra as a way around the issues.

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Catalina gets resolution wrong when HDMI switching external monitor

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