Big Sur 11.1 External Display Issues!

The scale icons on Display Settings (the Larger Text --> More Space insets) for those who are getting USB-C recognition w/their Mac (w/out difficulty or needing restart) may not represent the entire range of resolution settings available--"Press and hold the Option key while you click Scaled to see additional resolutions for the second display." This shows the entire range of available displays for a connected display (or right hand Alt key for Windows keyboard):

Change your Mac display’s resolution - Apple Support

I contacted support again today, as it's been 6 months with three os updates and still no fix for me on an LG 32UD99 32" 

Display.

The support person I spoke with said the best way to let the macOS engineering team is via feedback using this url:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/macos.html

enter the details, explain the issue and let them know this is still an ongoing problem. I've spend several hundred dollars on work arounds to have some expensive kit rendered obsolete. Might have well just purchased a cheap 1080p monitor for a fraction off the price. This is really not good enough apple!

The Catalina linked to is an update of 10.15.5 not an install of the latest 10.15.7. You may not have success trying to downgrade from Big Sur simply to a 10.15.5 iteration w/Big Sur loaded. It may not be enough to install--it may not be accepted as an installation on a Mac already holding Big Sur. I erased my hard drive before in recovery mode as advised and tried to install prior Catalina OSs from a list off of this link:

How to get old versions of macOS - Apple Support

there the Catalina link takes you Mac Apple Store download of Catalina and I was told by my Mac the installer key was too old for my Mac. I recovered a version of Big Sur instead.

This link may work but I would backup files and data first before I tried.

Since I can’t edit my comment, I’ll add to the thread:

i’m seeing two issues:

1. Displays being detected incorrectly, leading to scaling and refresh rate issues;
2. Displays not being detected full stop.

All these issues seem to be on 16” MBPs.

@mwventre was able to circumvent the first issue by forcing the resolution and framerate from the display onboard menu on an LG display.

How does such an issue get through a public beta...

Same issue:

• 13“ MBP 2019 <- Thunderbolt -> CalDigit TS 3plus <- DisplayPort -> LG 34WK95U-W

Before BigSur no problem. Now: external monitor could not be found. Even if I try to workaround and connect directly via thunderbolt.

Needs to be fixed ASAP!!

Same issue on the Macbook pro 16" 2019. My Macbook doesn't detect my LG Ultrawide at all, it doesn't even charge through the monitor with the USB-C cable.

It was working fine on 11.1 for a few days. Didn't make any changes.

Had a similar issue with 11.0. Then the fix was to unplug the power cable of the monitor, and plug it back in.

Tried:

• SMB reset
• PRAM reset
• Unplug power of monitor
• Different USB-C cables

Same issue here, with a few adjustments:

1. Both HDMI to HDMI and USB-C to DisplayPort can't display anything above 1080p30 on my BenQ PD2700U monitor (should be 2160p60).
2. When I used monitor controls to downgrade to DisplayPort 1.1, it allows for 2160p30, but not 60.

I don't seem to have lost HDR abilities when I use DisplayPort 1.1, which is funny, because HDR wasn't supported by DisplayPort until 1.4...

What's up Apple? You good? Please fix ASAP!

MacBook Pro 16" 2019, Big Sur 11.1

Same problem with me :

• Macbook Pro 16"
• External display BENQ SW271
• Big Sur 11.1

Random and multiple problems with the screen recognition (sometimes it works well (quite rare), sometime (very often) it doesn't recognize the screen (poor and too low resolution, wrong size of the screen, impossible to display at 4K native resolution).

Exactly same issue for me:

• 2019 MBP 16"
• Just updated to BigSur 11.1 from Catalina
• BenQ EW327OU connected via USB-C

All worked fine on Catalina. After updating to Big Sur the mouse cursor was laggy on the BenQ. Reset SMC and this was fixed, but the default resolution had change to 1080p, with no 4K option using the 'option+click' trick. Luckily I was able to get 4K by unplugging and replugging the USB-C cable, but this obviously shouldn't have to be done every time I boot up. Hopeful for a software fix soon.

I have a 2019 Mac Pro Rack with an AMD Radeon Pro W5700X module and a 34" LG 34WK95-U "5K2K" ultra-wide monitor using an optical Thunderbolt 3 cable. This combination worked just fine on the last version of Catalina. I'm having what sounds like the same problem:

• I upgraded to Big Sur 11.1 (specifically waited for the first dot release) and could not get the display to be recognized after the upgrade.
• I even downgraded back to Catalina via Time Machine backup and reinstalled the OS. The system works, but it still can't detect the display.
• I can get the display to work if I hook it up to my OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock in between it and the computer, but it won't do 5K resolution.
• I was also able to get it to work if I used Thunderbolt 3 to 2 adapters on both ends using a Thunderbolt 2 optical cable in between, but again it wouldn't do the full 5K resolution.

My thought there was a firmware update included in Big Sur for various display adapters and/or some other component in the driver stack for displays that is messing all this up. This is one of those times I wish I could roll back firmware on an Apple-branded graphics card.....

Overall I too regret pulling the trigger on the Big Sur upgrade. Hope this gets fixed as this has me largely shut down at the moment.

Some quick updates:

• I installed the original 580X graphics card in my Mac Pro Rack under Catalina to see if the problem was with an update to my W5700X card with which I first experienced the issue. Same problem as with the original card.
• if you’re using expensive Owens Corning optical Thunderbolt 3 cables because you needed more than 2 meters of cable length, you are far more screwed than anyone else, i.e. your monitor doesn’t even show up as a display device (no option for reduced refresh rate or resolution).
• Based on the above points, this has to be in firmware within every Mac as changing out the graphics card doesn’t resolve the issue - swallow the Big Sur 11.1 poison pill and you’ll never recover.

Good luck to everyone working through this. I’m pretty frustrated at the lack of testing with configurations applicable to us so called “creative professionals”....

Same issue. Macbook Pro 16-inch, 2019

4k monitor, BenQ SW271, USB-C connection, stopped working after the Big Sur 11.1 update.

*Interestingly, the other Macbook Pro here is working properly with a Dell 4k external monitor, same USB-C connection.

I thought it was a problem with my monitor, the USB-C cable, then I thought it was the port.

1. I checked all connections
2. I detached all cables, cut the power to everything, restarted, everything.
3. Used a new USB-C cable
4. Started Safe Mode and changed display settings to defaults
5. Did the PRAM reset.

PRAM reset worked for a day until the computer was in sleep mode, woke it up, then back to the same issue. Although, when it did work, the way I managed to switch the resolution to 4k was very delicately, as I clicked on one of the other options the external monitor went blank and I carefully moved the mouse over to the next selection carefully and I got visual again. I managed to use the monitor for about a day.

Avoiding a fresh install until I know for sure I need to do this. I don't want to waste any more time and it appears that is not a solution by the OP.

I also have external monitor problems with Macbook Pro 16 2019, MacOS BigSur 11.1 and a LG 34WN80C (ultrawide 4k HDR10).

• The Usb-c to Usb-c connection only has a refresh rate of 30 with the native resolution, I can't choose another option because the option bar is greyed out.
• With a Usb-c to HDMI connection I can choose a refresh rate of 60 with the native resolution. But HDR is disabled; there is no option to enable HDR. This is enabled on the usb-c connection but that is with 30 FPS.

Thank you everyone for your feedback. There are two things I want to try:

1. 1. Change the resolution on BigSur to 1080, but I can't see how to do that. BigSur has changed the Resolution options and I no longer see numbers, only icons with no numbers.
   2. If I can't successfully change to 1080 manually, I will see if it is possible to switch back to Catalina OS.

BTW, I find opening documents so much slower with BigSur now and, yes, I do have lots of free space, so that is not the issue. Opening docs was lightning fast with Catalina.

I agree so far with one of you who said BigSur is not ready for release.

I spent nearly an hour trying to chat with support. Twice the chat ended due to a « temporary system issue ».

The response was the standard

1. reset NVRAM
2. reinstall OS.

I pasted the link to this thread in the chat and I am sure they ignored it.

I tweeted from the cooltoystv official account and my account to get this started. Beachstreetnews is next.

Just because I have nothing better to do with my day, I’ll stop working on Fan2stage.com and CoolToysTV.com and reinstall the OS. Maybe I’ll call my dentist and get a root canal at the same time so I don’t notice the pain.