Desktop arrangement lost after waking from sleep

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?

None of the fixes so far discussed unfortunately haven't yet worked for me.

Either they work for a couple of times or not a single time...

I think this is a super simple fix too. And one that's extremely essential as many forums and many people have been talking about it. Not good for Apple's brand reputation though if this kept going further.

I don't think its due to LaunchDeamons, I tried this a few times. It looks like fixed, but not a real fix there at all.

Best is to give the control to the user, not the app-developer. If the user has the control, the apps getting lost in their view once the external monitor unplugged also would be resolved.

For me, your thought process makes a lot of sense. I will give that a try later. There has to be SOMETHING concrete that causes this issue so attempting to find and only remove the culprit(s) is the best option. We all seem to have a very similar problem depending on how many external monitors we have, so hopefully, we are getting closer to an answer between us.

Thanks for this.

So I found 5 in total, (3 in ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost/WindowsServer.plist) and (2 in /Library/Preferences/WindowsServer.plist).

As this is a safe thing to try as the files can easily be be put back from the bin so I'll try it and I'll share my results for others after restart.

Unfortunately, I still have the same issue. Instead of my Desktop arrangement how I left it, my Mac swaps them around it to be and also the windows on different desktops and not where I left them. Windows that were maximised at sleep are minimised on wake and vice versa.

I can't change the arrangement to suit my Mac's preference because I have a 49" monitor with BIP split and my Mac sits on the RHS of it. On waking or rebooting, my Mac swaps the arrangement of the external monitors as well as arranges my mac on the LHS. In addition, I change my refresh rate to 60hz and my mac changes it to promotion every single time I wake or reboot. AAARGH.

It is one things to try deleting all the LaunchAgents LaunchDaemons etc, but then I found it is necessary to re-install Microsoft Office afterwards, because that software will break-down saying its configuration is now broken.

Even with removal of these the fix seem temporary.

Further update: this morning the arrangement was as I left it; the only difference was that one of the maximised windows was minimised. I didn't put the mac to sleep, it went to sleep after being inactive for a period. I also noted something else, when I Mac went to sleep with power saving it would make ticking noises but there weren't any.

Final word on my post: I would definitely recommend trying the steps suggested by Blazejos.

Got an update for MacOS today (12.5.1 (21G83)), will monitor to see if the issue is now fixed.

There's so much algorithm/technology/hardware-support there for todays' programming.

I don't understand why an end user group has to suffer for this many years to see it fixed more gracefully...

It didn't take too long to realise the new version hasn't fixed the problem as well....

The display arrangements are super hard to move around (so sticky!).

And the sleep is what makes the arrangement lose the order.

I created a screencast to show what I mean through an unlisted YouTube video:

https://youtu.be/lJoG35eAiTw

There wasn't a way to record actual hardware. But if I explain what's going on there, when I click and move the right top monitor in the video, my left top physical monitor was getting highlighted. Just at this moment after a system sleep-wake cycle, top two external monitors were swapped opposite way. So this recording is just before I re-fit them back in order. But this hassle I have to go through a few times during the course of a single day.

I've tried a few apps myself. All of them concerns about placements of the windows (I've got one for that already).

But the core problem is that once the screen positions are swapped your mouse pointer doesn't cross the joining-border middle of the two screens, and you having to go around the screen to navigate between the two screens!

This problem isn't solved by any software yet. And this I believe should be solved not at the application layer software but at the driver/OS layer software.

Many people suggest third party tools but none have worked so far for me.

I think its best we all try and setup a list of steps how to consistently re-produce this issue.

Thinking loud here, perhaps a shared sheet or something?

It happens to me all the time, with just a single external display directly attached (no hub, no adaptors) to my MacBook Pro 14 Max...very annoying, never had that problem with the same setup and display and my MacBook Pro intel...