Ventura - External Displays not working

HI, in case you're getting the issue of the garbled external display in macOS Ventura I just found a temporary solution:

• Sign in the macbook without the USB type-C attached
• Open Terminal and Type:

sudo sleep 20 ; sudo kill -9 $(pgrep WindowServer)

• Type your password
• Connect your USB Type-C
• At this moment both of your screens might get garbled but don't worry as the command above will run in 20 seconds, after that the process will restart and hopefully after that your external monitor should be working by now.
• By default the resolution should be defaulted to 3200*900 but you can updated the settings, I'm now running at 5120* 1440 without any issues.
• If you restart your mac you need to run the command again.

Turned out to be an issue with the Brydge docking station for me. Switched to a different docking station and can now power the external monitor. Perhaps, a driver issue with the Brydge docking station.

Ok got my screen working Dell 4919DW for Venture 13.1 on MacBook 2021 pro 13 inch:

What didnt work

• Safe Recovery mode (shutdown, hold down power, select HD, hold down shift and choose recovery mode)
• sudo sleep 20 ; sudo kill -9 $(pgrep WindowServer)
• Created a guest account
• Shutdown/restart monitor

What Worked

• Unplug cable directly from Monitor (unplugging from Laptop port won't work)

Each time you restart your computer you will need to unplug from monitor and replug.

***Originally I wrote switching cables you just need to unplug from port from Dell monitor side.

Hope this helps others and FU Apple for providing no help on this!

Further update to my comment of unplugging the cable from the monitor end. Rather than shutting down I restarted my computer and when I tried it didn't work. However going into Safe Recovery mode (shutdown, hold down power, select HD, hold down shift and choose recovery mode), login and then unplugging the cable from the monitor end and rep-plugging works.

I wasted my first day back at work on this, thanks Apple!

I rolled back to Monterey. Been working just fine like it used to. You need to create a boot media to a USB stick or such with latest Monterey on it and do a clean install of macOS through that. If the process is not familiar, I was able to find instructions with a short googling session.

All these voodoo Instructions, contacting monitor manufacturer etc. is complete BS, as rolling back to Monterey has restored ALL functionality of my peripherals with the laptop. Not going to waste time with any more specialists reciting the same list of no-good tricks anymore - what we need is a patch where this software issue has been identified, isolated and fixed by Apple.

Hi, don't waste your money on cables, this is clearly Software because:

1. I'm still able to use the monitor perfectly on Safe mode
2. I tried with another laptop Macbook air M1 with Ventura and it works perfectly so no problem on the monitor or cable

So I suspect this is related to some specific models, my laptop is a Macbook Pro 2017, but as mentioned above macbook air M1 is working perfectly

Thanks for the explanation.

So the essence is to force-quit the WindowServer process.

(for me, I find using Activity Monitor more understandable and direct)

That will log you out and restart WindowServer, but likely it will be OK when restarted.

I just rolled back to Monterey 12.6 and can confirm the monitors and everything work as before now.

I do not recommend updating to Ventura until there is an official patch from apple that fixes this issue in Ventura.

Still waiting for a reply from Apple. It's a shame not being able to upgrade to Ventura because of a simple and stupid issue like this. I hope more comments here would get more traction towards them to investigate and fix this.

Some of my colleagues have successfully upgraded to Ventura, but they are using regular and pro M1 chips. At least at our office it seems this issue is mostly affecting the M1 max users like myself - however based on the replies here, the issue seems to occur across all chipsets.

Also I would like to highlight for all the people rushing to buy new cables and peripherals - that is a waste of time and money, I have confirmed that rolling back to 12.6 has restored all functionality of the devices and monitors I have previously used, which did not work on Ventura.

ploferreira wrote:

• HI, in case you're getting the issue of the garbled external display in macOS Ventura I just found a temporary solution:

Sign in the macbook without the USB type-C attached

• Open Terminal and Type:

sudo sleep 20 ; sudo kill -9 $(pgrep WindowServer)\

• If that is your solution, can you explain what those commands do and why it works?

• if that is a 'found' solution, is there another source with more info on how and why it works?

Did you ever get a response? I just did the same thing yesterday and they all acted surprised that this was happening… but with how many threads there are on here about it I can’t imagine it is a surprise. They gave me a long list of things they wanted me to try (all of which people on here had tried with little or no success).

Then they tried telling me if these steps didn’t work that I’d have to talk to my monitor manufacturer (LG) because it must be on their end. But I told them I had spent two hours that morning reading through hundreds of comments from owners of every monitor type having this issue… the only common denominator is Apple… so the issue has to be with them. They dropped that argument and connected me with a senior advisor.

The senior advisor ran me through all of the suggestions everyone else had to go through, but I found even rebooting in safe mode (which seems to help others) does not work for me. They even had me re-install Ventura, which also did nothing.

They said if none of that worked they would escalate to their engineering team. So I need to reach out today to let them know it made no difference. I just want to go back to Monterey. I have photos and videos to edit and it is impossible like this. I can’t believe this has gone on as long as it has. How have people dealt with this for so many months??

Did you get it working? My M1 ran out of battery again and monitor wouldn't display on boot, unplugging the cable on the laptop end didn't work but unplugging from the monitor end worked. I am on macOS Ventura 13.1