Booting on wrong screen, Multi monitor setup

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Level 1

5 points

Booting on wrong screen, Multi monitor setup

Hi,

I've been googling for hours, but I've not been able to find any solution that works. So I hope someone can help me out here.

The problem

I've two LG 4K displays of the same model connected to my Mac:

Primary monitor in landscape
Secondary monitor in portrait (on the right)

and while in macOS everything works fine, BUT when booting up or installing an update it uses the portrait monitor to show the apple logo and the loading bar.

What I've tried so far

Deleting `~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.*`
Deleting `~/Library/Caches`
PRAM/NVRAM reset

After doing all those things above I turned it on using only the primary screen and connected the secondary screen after it was fully booted up.

What I've noticed

In display settings, they're recognized as "LG HDR 4K (2)" (primary) and "LG HDR 4K (1)" (secondary)

In About This Mac -> System Report -> Graphics/Displays they're listed in the wrong order as well.

I don't know what to do anymore, does anybody have an idea what I can do to fix this? My OCD can't handle having updated install rotated on a portrait display.

Posted on Jun 19, 2021 6:40 AM

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Answer 1

Tobii5 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 24, 2021 5:28 PM in response to Eric_G1

Hi Eric,

thank you so much for helping me.

Unfortunately swapping the monitor connections around doesn't do anything. I think macOS is recognizing them by their ID instead of the port they're plugged in to.

I don't know if it's important or not, but both monitors are connected using active Thunderbolt 2 to HDMI adapters, to be able to drive two 4K monitors at 60Hz with the Mac Pro 6,1 (2013).

Best regards.

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Answer 2

Eric_G1

Community Specialist

Jun 20, 2021 10:24 AM in response to Tobii5

Hi Tobii5,

We see you're having some issues with the Apple logo startup screen showing on the unintended display, and we'd like to help out.

A couple of steps you may try out, if you haven't yet, would be to reset the SMC, as well as an NVRAM reset.

How to reset the SMC of your Mac

Reset NVRAM or PRAM on your Mac

Then, try leaving just the primary monitor connected afterwards. Restart the device as normal. When you're logged back in, shut it down as normal without connecting the other monitor yet. Then, try and connect the secondary display afterwards, and see if it helped out.

Take care.

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Answer 3

Eric_G1

Community Specialist

Jun 24, 2021 12:26 PM in response to Tobii5

Tobii5,

Thanks for trying those steps out. Have you been able to try and swap around the monitor's connections, as a test? If not, that may be worth a shot to simply reverse the current connections for each of them.

If that doesn't help, it may be best to try and reach out to Apple Support directly for further investigation.

This link can help with that, if needed: Get Support

You can also find the direct worldwide numbers here: Contact Apple for support and service

Cheers.

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Answer 4

Tobii5 Author

Level 1

5 points

Jun 20, 2021 3:56 PM in response to Eric_G1

Hi Eric,

I really appreciate your help. I've tried these steps twice:

Shut down Mac Pro
Unplug secondary monitor
Unplug power for 15 seconds
Plug power back in and wait 5 seconds before pushing the power button
Hold CMD+Option+R+P until I heard the startup sound
Let it boot up (apple logo appears on the primary monitor, obviously, since it's the only one connected)
Shut it down again
Plug in the secondary monitor
Push power button

Unfortunately, the apple logo appeared on the secondary monitor again.

If you have any other things I could try, I'm happy to do so.

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Booting on wrong screen, Multi monitor setup

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