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Macbook glitch causes remote control of other Macbook

Something very bizarre happened today. So I own a 2019 15" Macbook Pro which is my personal computer and I have a 2019 16" Macbook Pro which is my work computer. Yesterday, I updated my personal computer to OS Ventura 13.2 and my work computer has been running Ventura 13.1 for a while now. I often have both laptops open next to each other at my desk during work. I have two monitors that I connect to via a StarTech.com dongle. They are usually being used as secondary/tertiary displays for my work laptop but today I had it connected to my personal for a bit. While I was using my personal computer, all of a sudden the mouse pointer disappeared and I couldn't find it on any of the three displays. To my dismay, I saw my mouse pointer moving around on my work laptop while I moved the trackpad on my personal. Once I realized what was going on, I hit the trackpad on my work computer and all controls on both computers returned to normal. The two computers had no wired connections to each other. For about an hour, I wasn't sure if I was going crazy or not until it happened again! This time I got a video and realized that both my mouse and keyboard on my personal device were controlling my work computer... What is going on?? Is this some type of glitch? I have checked the system settings on both and all types of sharing settings are off, including remote login and remote management.

MacBook Pro 16″, 13.1

Posted on Feb 7, 2023 4:42 PM

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Posted on Feb 7, 2023 5:09 PM

Hi,

This is because of something called Universal Control, it lets you move your cursor between your devices and control multiple iPads or Macs from one device. To turn off Universal Control, Search up "Universal Control" in System Settings and click on "Universal Control Displays" then turn off all of the switches within the "Link to Mac or iPad" section.


Hope this helps!

-Dallen

2 replies
Question marked as Best reply

Feb 7, 2023 5:09 PM in response to MikeBliss

Hi,

This is because of something called Universal Control, it lets you move your cursor between your devices and control multiple iPads or Macs from one device. To turn off Universal Control, Search up "Universal Control" in System Settings and click on "Universal Control Displays" then turn off all of the switches within the "Link to Mac or iPad" section.


Hope this helps!

-Dallen

Macbook glitch causes remote control of other Macbook

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