Desktop arrangement lost after waking from sleep

I’ve found that if I just wake the monitor before waking the laptop nothing has changed since putting the laptop to sleep. This made me realise that there isn’t a problem with the MacBook and only that the monitor is not as quick as the laptop when waking.

Yes i'm having the same exact problem. I have 2 additional identical displays - Benq and i only use them with the laptop screen closed. Pretty much every time it goes to sleep and wakes up it's swapped them over, so when i login i have to manually swap them back in preferences and it's driving me nuts!! I've tried physically re-arranging the monitors and a combination of usbc, display port and hdmi arrangements but they all give the same outcome. come on Apple a fix please!!

I did a little research on this issue and it seems it's been going on for a while. This is ridiculous! how come Apple has not fixed this yet?! I'm a new Mac user and just bought a Macbook Pro Max. I had issues with my monitors from day 1. Every time I locked my Mac, the arrangement of my monitors randomly changed! Like my Mac forgot my middle monitor and thought it was on the right side...I replaced my Asus monitors with BenQ ones but it didn't fix the problem. I had a DisplayLink USB-C docking station that used with my windows machine for a long time and never had a problem with it. I replaced that with one of the cheap USB-C adaptors from Amazon and it seemed it fixed the monitor arrangement problem for my Mac. However, now I have the issue @tomgiebel mentioned. Every time I unlock my Mac all my windows go to my Mac monitor and I have to bring them back where they were before...This is sooo annoying! Can someone please suggest a proper solution for this?

That’s right. This issue has been running for a while. It just seems that two conflicting interests in the driver in Mac that cause this issue. One being the order of connecting monitors (including waking up from a sleep or shut down) and the other is already existing monitors order.

I believe this all boils down to driver using the monitor brand name instead of the serial number or something unique to that monitor. And ideally then the driver should set the position based on previously persisted location user set for each monitor as the monitors come to power on. While doing that same algorithms that make sure content is synced appropriately can be applied.

Its a simple fix as I see. Just that it’s not appropriately understood as a priority and not thought through well enough.

Result is a massive issue running for years that’s hidden beneath covers….

I have the same issue: MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021) with M1Pro and two different screens: 32 and 24". EVERY time Mac wake up from sleep all my apps are reassigned, sometimes to main laptop screen, sometimes change places and sizes randomly. Olde MBP with i7 Intel was working fine with the same monitors.

I have read Universal Control may be at blame, disabled it - no change.

It Is EXTREMELY annoying, doing that couple times a day. For all the money Apple makes they are really slacking off with updates!

@Blazejos thanks!

The step you said to clear the LaunchDaemons worked so far for me. ie: deleting all under the folder

Macintosh HD -> Library -> LaunchDaemons.

One thing I did extra is to backup everything in there before deleting (tar -zcvf ~/Desktop/LaunchDeamonBackup.tgz /Library/LaunchDaemons).

I haven't restored anything yet but I notice Microsoft Office Update started complaining about this cleanup.

Spoke too soon, removing the LaunchDaemons didn't quite fix the issue.

So, let me clarify my expectation here though, when I connect a single monitor and work for a little, and then connect both monitors, I want Mac to organise the screens in the way I set up when both screens are present.

However, let's say I ran around with my Macbook, then came to the station, plug one screen in, worked a bit and then plugged the second screen, then Macbook completely lost its mind now. It has swapped screens exactly the way I don't want them to be. If I removed/changed cable order via behind screen (to simulate changing monitors, as I use one USB-C and HDMI in my Macbook pro), Macbook doesn't seem to understand. It still want to keep screens exactly the way I don't want.

Ideally Macbook should identify screens uniquely. And have "profiles" of combinations of this screens available, allow user to clear these organisations as they prefer (to not clog the O/S) and to keep things tidy and performant. When an existing combination of screens (combination of serial numbers or hardware IDs) connected, correct profile should be picked up and screen organisation from that profile.

Simple thing to do, but looks like that design hasn't gotten there or lost along the way. I see everyone talking about this since 2016! For some reason...

I have a similar problem and it sounds like this has been an issue for years with Mac OS. So hokey. How is it Windows has never had this issue and this seems to be an insurmountable technical challenge for Apple?

I think they do identify screens, each of mine has different color profile listed. What is puzzling (and annoying) is how Launch Daemons of external apps can influence macOS ability to remember where each app was and should be? It's odd. I think we are paying the price of being M1 chips early adopters.

It is very annoying.

What helped me was to define the external monitor as the main display.

You have to rearrange everything initially, but it works quite well since I did it four weeks ago.

Hope this helps

-Rob

An obnoxious solution that actually worked for me is ensuring that i allow the external monitors to completely wake before signing back in.

That means you need to make sure that when you come back from sleep, you are presented with a login screen. Then wake the computer; allow all the screens to wake up; and THEN login.

The core problem seems to be that the OS doesn't care about external monitors being there or not and makes no effort to check for their existence before attempting to arrange windows for the user at login; which in that split moment only has the one monitor.

That means you need to make sure that when you come back from sleep, you are presented with a login screen. Then wake the computer; allow all the screens to wake up; and THEN login.

This simple (but still annoying) little solution helped to resolve most of my issues. I keep several windows of Chrome/Word/Excel/etc open with different projects/information on different desktops. It was driving me crazy to have to redistribute every time my new M1 MacBook took a nap. If I can just be patient, and wake my (very fancy) MacBook Pro slowly, like a sleep deprived toddler, it seems to remember which window belongs to which desktop. Maybe part of the problem is going through a mini-display port to USB-C adapter?

While it does seem to remember everything after waking from sleep, it still forgets some app locations after a full restart. For instance, it relocated InDesign, Word, and Excel windows after a restart. Maybe I could assign these to a certain desktop. But it was still able to keep all of my Chrome windows (all seven of them) in the right desktop/space.

Tomorrow I need to go into my office, where I have a different monitor setup. We'll see how that goes.

This was exactly the solution that mostly always works for me as well. I also find that my display settings aren't kept some of the time for instance I have a vertical and horizontal line that flickers so to get rid of the distracting flickering I set it to 60hz instead of the promotion option.

Sometimes, it's kept sometimes it has reverted back.

Need to send my laptop to be sorted but I am told by Apple that it will take a long time to fix the lines issue, however, I can't afford to be without my laptop so I have to live with it. This happened at 6 weeks old.

Ok, but the first series M1 MacBook Pro only has 2 usb-c / thunderbolt ports.

I’m using TB for one monitor and an apple made adapter to HDMI for the other. It It’s either one external Monitor or the other but not both at the same time! The issue of switching when plugging in is it defaults to 2 side-by-side monitors of the external monitor & the laptop screen. But what I keep setting up is the laptop screen underneath the external monitor so that I can access the keyboard and trackpad et cetera- however it remembers that for a short while and then loses it , particularly after sleeping. Not good.

Surely it’s a very simple matter of MacOS saving the settings in a file once you have changed monitor arrangement and settings. If you change them again then it should over write that file. When you wake the system (or plug in the monitor (s))you read that file for the configuration. Surely that would be a very simple fix?