iPad Extended Desktop not working

CobraBLS wrote:

any news if this is fixed.

I've tried 4 different monitors, 2 with USB-C connection.

4K monitor from LG

and some HD monitors with the support of the Apple dongle to HDMI, but all I get is the mirroring option.

FYI, iPadOS 17.4.1 (released 21/3/2024) restores previous behaviour.

Unless directly interacting with Apps displayed on the external monitor, Stage Manager for a connected external display does not now require connection of a Keyboard and Wireless/Mouse Trackpad to the iPad.

I tested two EDID emulators and both of those worked: ATEN VC080 and ATEN VC081A. With both I first connected to a display that supported my target resolution 1920x1200 and worked properly with iPad. The EDID emulator then learned the EDID profile from that monitor. Then connecting to the monitor that used to have issues iPad selected the correct resolution because the EDID profile was now coming from the emulator instead of the monitor itself.

Please note that different USB-C adapters seem to behave in a different way. With the Apple USB-C Digital AV adapter the EDID emulator did not help, and iPad still chose to use the wrong resolution 1280x1024. Another brand (Linq 6 in 1 USB-C multiport hub) worked fine.

At least for my use case the EDID emulator does the trick, and I'm able to connect to the monitor that I want and get the proper resolution.

ATEN VC080 is more versatile and stores up to three profiles and allows even manually editing the profiles to add or remove resolutions. Editing requires connecting with a RS-232 interface to the emulator. VC081A is more simple and only learns one profile at a time. That should do for the simple use cases.

Like you, I have a monitor that while recognised doesn’t provide access to the Arrangement settings - and another that does (from which the screenshots I have provided were derived).

The monitor that only allows mirrored display has a display resolution of 1280 x 1024 - whereas the monitor that supports the Stage Manager extended desktop is 16:9 widescreen 1920 x 1080.

While waiting for Apple to fix this bug, I was able to temporarily solve the issue by using an EDID emulator connected to the HDMI between the iPad and the monitor. The EDID profile in the emulator should be recorded from a display that is compatible and supports the required screen resolution. Some emulators allow selecting or programming the display mode without having to learn it from another monitor.

My use case is to use a HDMI scaler to get the external screen support on a lower resolution screen (1440x900). Although the scaler box supports higher resolutions iPad chose to use 1280x1024. With the EDID emulator I was able to make iPad use 1920x1200 instead. The external screen without mirroring is not available for resolutions less than Full HD.

You’re very welcome.

I’ve not found any documentation that suggests availability of Stage Manager is linked to the aspect-ratio or native resolution of the external display. This behaviour may be a bug introduced with iPadOS 16.4.

You might consider submitting a Bug Report via Apple’s Product Feedback portal. For iPad and iPadOS:

Feedback - iPad - Apple

Every report counts - as until a sufficient number of reports have been received, Apple may not allocate resources to identify and fix the problem.

As tagged as "best answer" this answer should contain the information that this behaviour IS a bug - as some others already mentioned, it worked fine in iPadOS 16.3! I have a case even more weird with my beamer that is capable of 1920x1080 but of course can switch to other resolutions too. While working perfect with iPadOS 16.3 it now has really weird behaviour - connecting to the iPad the extended desktop with stage manager starts, BUT IN 1600x1200 RESOLUTION as if it was mirroring. Opening e.g. Prime Video "changes" the resolution (beamer picture pauses, new source sync) to AGAIN 1600x1200! And if starting to play a movie in most cases but not always resolution changes to 1920x1080 (beamer picture pauses, new source sync).

What a mess compaired to iPadOS 16.3 - and it's still there in 16.4.1! A bug that really reduces the entertainment factor :(

With your external display connected to your iPad, check your settings:

Settings > Display & Brightness > [Displays] Arrangement

If present, tap to expose the related settings:

To enable Stage Manager for the external display, ensure that Mirror Display is disabled.

I also have this issue. For some reason, one of my display suddenly start mirroring my display instead of extending and another display would still extend my display. Then i reset my network settings and its works. My M1 iPad Pro 11inches is currently on iOS 17.2

dpdp-it wrote:

I have a case even more weird with my beamer that is capable of 1920x1080 but of course can switch to other resolutions too. While working perfect with iPadOS 16.3 it now has really weird behaviour - connecting to the iPad the extended desktop with stage manager starts, BUT IN 1600x1200 RESOLUTION as if it was mirroring. Opening e.g. Prime Video "changes" the resolution (beamer picture pauses, new source sync) to AGAIN 1600x1200! And if starting to play a movie in most cases but not always resolution changes to 1920x1080 (beamer picture pauses, new source sync).

I see this behaviour with a HDMI scaler box and iPadOS 16.6. The scaler can accept input resolutions up to 1920x1200, but iPad chooses to use 1280x1024 and thus only allows mirroring, not extending the desktop.

Then when playing media content, the iPad output resolution switches to 1920x1200. When again displaying the mirrored home screen, the resolution switches back to 1280x1024.

I agree with the others that it looks like a bug in iPadOS that it prefers the lower 4:3 resolutions over higher 16:9 resolutions for the external screen. Perhaps it tries to choose a display mode with an aspect ratio that would be native to the iPad home screen. Then it prevents selecting the mirroring off because the 4:3 resolution is less than the minimum resolution for the extended desktop.

Peace and good day!

I am relieved to see this on the community support pages. I am in a very similar situation following the latest 16.4 update. The last few months I’ve been extending my 12.9 M1 iPad Pro screen to a 22” Sceptre branded monitor. Up until 16.4 there were no issues and it worked exactly as Apple advertised. However, following the 16.4 update the option to change the displays arrangement goes away within the display settings panel. Similarly to you this simply just stopped working after the update. Additionally and strangely enough my iPad DOES work correctly with SOME displays but for whatever reason after 16.4 it does not work with my Sceptre branded display. Peace and good day!

domingo265 wrote:

New iPAD OS update (16.4.1) and the problem still remains. It seems there is not enough people affected with the lack of extended monitor capability for Apple to solve this bug. I really don’t understand that a minor change in the OS means that you lost a capability of the iPad without any warning notice anywhere.

👍

iPad Pro with M1 chip running iPadOS 16.4.1, and same problem as everyone above (i.e., can mirror iPad display, but not extend the display to a monitor). I get no “Arrangement” option in the “Display and Brightness” setting of iPadOS. I did not try connecting an external monitor until today, so cannot say if the problem in my case is specific to this version of the iPadOS operating system. My external monitor is a 1920x1080 display with a DVI connector (no HDMI available) - it is not a recent vintage. Directly connecting from the monitor to the iPad Pro, or going through a dongle, has the same issue.

I have submitted a bug report to Apple via the link that someone left in the chain of messages above. Thank you.

New iPadOS update (16.5) and the problem still remains since 16.3; it seems there is not enough people affected with the lack of extended monitor capability for Apple to solve this bug. I really don’t understand that a minor change in the OS means that you lost a capability of the iPad without any warning notice anywhere.

Unfortunately, I have an LG 32' (with 4K resolution) monitor and also on it the arrengment option disappeared after updating to 16.4. Before, it worked normally. The monitor has an option to change the mode from 4:3 to 16:9, but that doesn't change anything:(

But the most interesting thing is that on my other old display, note - an 8 years old Apple one!, it also does not work....