Tiny extended desktop with SideCar on iPad

Hey, for anyone who hasn't found a fix to this, I tried deleting Removing com.apple.windowserver.*.plist and the local file mentioned here- (https://www.madrau.com/support/support/faq_files/ns_Ive_defined_a_new_resolution101.html?TB_iframe=true) after a reboot it was fixed :)

Hi BlueberryLover,

Thank you for posting in Apple Support Communities. It sounds like your iPad is not displayed properly when used as a second display. There are a few display options.

"After you set up your iPad as a second display for your Mac, you can change the options in Display settings.

On your Mac, choose Apple menu > System Preferences, click Displays , then click Display Settings.

Select the name of your iPad, then do one of the following:

• • Click the “Use as” pop-up menu, then choose whether you want to use your iPad as the main display or to mirror or extend your display.
  • Select Show Sidebar and use the pop-up menu to choose whether to show the sidebar on the left or right.
  • Select Show Touch Bar and use the pop-up menu to choose whether to show the Touch Bar on the top or bottom.
  • Select “Enable double tap on Apple Pencil.”

Click Done."

As discussed here: Use your iPad as a second display for your Mac

Cheers!

Same exact problem here, quite annoying and really disrupting my work flow...

There needs to be an option to switch the resolution in the display settings, but there is none. And now it's stuck like this.

12 Feb 2022 - I have exactly the same problem. Sidecar basically unusable, and it's important for my professional work. Tried contacting Apple support but they're not in the least bit interested in helping.

This solution worked for me. I'm running on a MacBook Air (12.2.1) on 2/27/22. My iPad Pro is running 15.3.1. Using terminal, I had to sudo rm two files: /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist and my version of "com.apple.windowserver.XXXXX.plist" in /Users/(your name)/Library/Preferences/ByHost. After deleting the files, I reboot the MacBook and it worked again. Hopefully this will also fix the stability issues for sidecar. Thanks so much!

The original author (@BlueberryLover) should mark this as solution because it really works! For those seeing this: In my case the user specific file was the problem. The path of the file to "delete" is:

 /Users/(your name)/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.XXXXX.plist where the Xs are a seemingly random number. I suggest you don't delete the file but only "rename" it, so you have it as backup.

I had the problem on a most up to date system running: Monterey 12.3 and iPad OS 15.4 on an Intel based MacBook Pro and an iPad Pro 12.9 4th gen.

Hi! I finally found a solution to this issue. It’s a bit odd but it definitely works for me. The thing is this program called BetterDummy, which you can find here: https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/63642/betterdummy. It creates a virtual display which you can then utilize as a mirror main. So what I do is:

1. Menu Bar > BetterDummy > Create a new “dummy” display with my iPad screen size
2. Connect the iPad to Sidecar
3. The iPad sidecar display should automatically adjust to the size of the dummy (which is the correct iPad screen size)
4. Then, in order not to have a non-existent screen just floating on one side, and to have just the Mac screen + iPad screen, in System Preferences > Display, I set the iPad screen as a “Dummy duplicate” 
5. When you disconnect the iPad from Sidecar you can disconnect the dummy too from the menu bar icon, in order to have back just your Mac screen and get rid of the virtual display

This works perfeclty for me, I hope that Apple fixes this bug as soon as possible though. Sorry too if i didn't explain myself properly as english is not my main language :) I hope this helps!

Unfortunately Monterey 12.1 didn’t fix it for me so there must be another factor here.

@BlueBerryLover have you used screen mirroring optimized for the MBP since? Maybe the update reset something but it could still recur? I can’t get mine to go back to normal still and no response from Apple. The fix wasn’t listed in any update notes either. My guess is it’s some setting that got stuck that luckily your update reset but it did not for mine. I’m assuming a Factory Reset would fix it but screen mirroring which I still use would make it happen again.

Well, I'm jealous. Updated to latest Monterey and iPad, but no change on my end - same problem.

Same exact issue here. Did you figure out some way to fix it? Thank you so much