Desktop arrangement lost after waking from sleep

Sounds like it's time to publicly shame them into fixing this. I suspect remote work has slowed and in some cases hindered quality control and planning. Though this issue has been around for a while, it's clear it keeps getting missed.

If you participate in Apple beta program, consider submitting a Feedback ticket via the Feedback Assistant. I've created several. At the very list it helps route the message to the appropriate team within Apple and provides them with data to analyze on the size of the problem.

They likely know this is a problem just haven't figured out a fix. Which is odd for Apple.

Update:

After speaking to three different people at Apple, I am now onto a guy who seems to be taking this pretty seriously. In our last call, he told me that he has heard from the development engineers who have confirmed to him that this is in fact a known issue, and they are "working on it". Whatever that means. He said they are keen to get more log dumps from suers who are affected.

So, I advise all of you who have this issue to contact Apple Support, and stick with them until you get the point where they are willing to capture sysdiagnose log dumps.

Maybe this will actually lead to a fix. Hopeful thinking!

For clarity, my issue is not windows rearranging across multiple displays. My issue is minimised/hidden windows rearrange themselves after computer wakes from sleep, or if external display is turned off then on again. For clarity, I am using a Mac Studio running the latest Ventura with a 3rd party (Asus ProArt) external display connected via Thunderbolt 3. No other displays.

I have a M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14" 2021 with our work's standard Kensington Dock using 2 Dell S2721Q monitor. Yes, the arrangement in displays get flip-flopped from time to time. I'm on Monterey, and planning to update to Ventura.

The biggest annoyance I have is even the old-standard work-around of having it not sleep still messes with my window arrangement.

I setup 6 Chrome windows on one screen, 2 on an other, a slack window, an iterm2 terminal on each, and leave finder and calc and some stuff on the builtin screen. Then when I have a meeting, I need to disconnect, doing so without putting it to sleep. I use the machine throughout the meeting, it doesn't sleep as I'm carrying it back with the screen open either, and then I plug it back in… maybe the monitors' backgrounds are swapped maybe not (indicating an arrangement issue I have to fix by dropping into Displays Preferences). But worse, is that only the Slack app moves its window to the screen it used to be on (though sometimes that's to the wrong left-right monitor) and everything else stays on the built in display. Causing me to have to spend time rearranging everything… and it's a lot of dragging, and of course not simple one time dragging, because as soon as you drop the window on the other display it resizes slightly due to various retina dpi choices, despite EVERYTHING having "Default for display" selected.

Please take the time to hassle Apple Support about this. The more people do, the more likely it might get addresses.

Do not give up with them – push through to second tier support, and insist on feedback from engineering.

Please take the time to hassle Apple Support about this. The more people do, the more likely it might get addresses.

Do not give up with them – push through to second tier support, and insist on feedback from engineering.

Was also having this issue, and tried the solution suggested above to turn off mission control and that worked for me.

doubt this is "the solution" (what solution?? not-my-problem ≄ answer). I've had this problem for years and two MBP, including my latest M1 Pro and prior OS versions. For me, this occurs when I have set a display resolution that is not the default. It results in all displays ( have two additional) being mirrored and back to default resolution.

Apple - what is the fix?

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?

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!

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.

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.