External Displays Swapping - Arrangement Not Remembered!

Question

External Displays Swapping - Arrangement Not Remembered!

I'm hoping for some help.

I just bought a MacBook Pro (2021 M1) and I'm running Ventura.

I have attached two monitors and am continuing to use the MacBook's monitor for a total of three monitors.

The problem is that, after arranging the external monitors, whenever the Mac goes to sleep or reboots the monitors lose their arrangement. I have to go back to settings and re-arrange them every day. This is, needless to say, maddening.

There has to be a setting I'm missing. Can anyone help?

MacBook Pro

Posted on Nov 4, 2022 11:19 AM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Grant Bennet-Alder

Level 10

132,871 points

Nov 9, 2022 1:35 PM in response to RealEstateDude

to get a Mac display to become active, you need the Mac to query the display, and the display to answer with its name and capabilities. Otherwise, the display will not be shown as present, and no data will be sent to the display. "No signal detected" is generated by the DISPLAY, not by the Mac.

This query is only sent at certain times:

• at startup

• at wake from sleep — so momentarily sleeping and waking your Mac may work

• at insertion of the Mac-end of the display-cable, provided everything on that cable is ready-to-go

• hold the Option key while you click on the (Detect Display) button that will appear in Displays preferences (from another display)

so try doing some of those things and see if the display comes alive.

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Answer 2

Nov 9, 2022 11:41 AM in response to RealEstateDude

<< I have them connected through a startech "splitter" with two HDMI cables plugging into the splitter and a usb 3 input into the Mac. >>

Mac does not support multiple displays on one cable, EXCEPT on a genuine ThunderBolt cable to a genuine ThunderBolt device.

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Answer 3

Nov 4, 2022 12:29 PM in response to RealEstateDude

what make&Model displays?

how are they connected to your Mac? please mention every item in the chain.

If these are exactly the same, i.e, TWIN displays, then this may apply to you as well:

MacBook Pro 14 external monitors keep swi… - Apple Community

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Answer 4

Nov 29, 2022 5:40 PM in response to Jalvilla

if you have two different models, or two different maker's displays, they do not swap around, unless one is VERY late coming on.

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Answer 5

Nov 7, 2022 2:06 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for your response, Grant.

I have two identical Asus VE247 displays. This caught me off guard because I just switched from a mac mini and they worked great.

I have them connected through a startech "splitter" with two HDMI cables plugging into the splitter and a usb 3 input into the mac.

I did sort of resolve the issue by going to desktop & Dock/mission control and toggling off the automatically rearrange spaces and displays have separate spaces buttons. The end result of that is that the displays stay arranged but now I have no toolbars on them. At this point that is the lesser of two evils, though if I could find a way to leave those toggled on that would be best for me.

Again, thank you for your super-quick response.

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Answer 6

Nov 9, 2022 11:27 AM in response to RealEstateDude

Whoops! I spoke too soon.

Same problem exists. Solution failed.

Help?

(BTW, I have tried taking the displays off of the splitter and connecting them separately. That did not work. The solution in the article suggested above also did not work.)

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Answer 7

Nov 9, 2022 1:32 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Sure. That's a profitable business model.

But the crux of it is that this WORKED on my 2018 Mac Mini (which didn't have Ventura). I bought this because it supported two additional monitors.

I don't want to complain, but I do want it to work like my Mac mini did.

Is there a fix?

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Answer 8

Jalvilla

Level 1

8 points

Nov 29, 2022 2:47 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

I would like to jump on board this discussion because this is something I have suffered for year with different Mac laptops and have found very frustrating. I keep hoping it will be fixed with every new OS release or machine update to no avail. I now have an MacBook Pro with M1 Max.

What is the answer to the question: is it possible to run non-Apple monitors (I have 2x external Samsung 4K monitors) without this re-arrangement of desktop/windows spaces happening every time the machine wakes up?

If the answer is no, end of the story and I will have to keep re-arranging.

If the answer if yes, how to do it? Thank you.

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External Displays Swapping - Arrangement Not Remembered!

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