Dual Monitor Studio Display XDR fails on MacBook Pro M3/M4 Pro

I can confirm that I am seeing the same as well. 2 Studio Display XDRs, apple supplied T5 cables and a 2023 MacBook Pro with M3 Pro. It can not display to both monitors at the same time.

I opened a support case and here is what we found. According to everything online and in Apple's own internal documentation, the M3 Pro can run displays up to 2 6K displays at 60 Hz. In my testing, even taking the XDRs down to 60 Hz manually, I can still only output to 1.

They had me bring my Mac to the Apple Store and they plugged into the only XDR they had and a standard Studio Display. It worked fine until they unplugged one of the displays, then the system crashed. They ended up replacing the logic board. I just picked it up today, get home, and same issue. I can not output to 2 displays at the same time.

I think that their documentation is incorrect. The M3 Pro will not run 2 Studio Display XDRs simultaneously. I am starting to see a lot of complaints across forums for people having the same issue. I have an M4 Max MBP and it works fine.

Their next step was that they wanted me to bring both displays in with my MBP. I am not going through that. It's not worth the hassle and possibility of damaging $7k in displays in transit. They will give me $1900 for my current MBP so I am going to trade it in. The M5 will support the 120Hz anyway.

Apple needs to fix their documentation and specify that the M3Pro and possibly the M4Pro can NOT run 2 Studio Display XDRs but it can run 2 standard 5K whether it's the standard Studio Display or a non-apple monitor

The original Apple Pro Display XDR used a trick to connect with one Thunderbolt-3 or -4 cable. It actually consumes TWO display-generators when connected on a Thunderbolt cable.

XDR display

The 6K Apple Pro Display XDR, which macOS allows to connect using two HBR3 connections to a Mac, doesn't support Display Stream Compression (DSC). That would be 51.84 Gbit/s, impossible for Thunderbolt 3, but it works because the two 3008×3384 10bpc 60 Hz 648.91 MHz signals of the XDR display only require 38.9 Gbit/s total and Thunderbolt does not transmit the DisplayPort stuffing symbols used to fill the HBR3 bandwidth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)

This means the M3 and M4 PRO processor models of MacBook Pro you are testing with do not have enough display-generators to support TWO Apple Pro Display XDR 32-in, and likely the same issue with the new 27-in Apple Studio Display XDR.

The issue is documented in below reddit link. It's tied to the thunderbolt firmware and the handshake between the non MAX chips (MAX chips use a different driver path): https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/1rzafpz/troubleshooting_the_studio_xdr_with_claude_code/

Works fine with a MAX chip but the pro and regular chips do not work. These m4/m5 chips support dual display. I have a regular M5 and did not work either. I was also told to go to the Apple Store and bring my laptop and cables to test. The test was not successful.

At the Apple Store we tried:

1. My M5 MacBook Pro with the studio XDR cable against their Studio XDR and Studio Display non daisy chained <-- did not work
2. Same test as above but daisy chained <-- did not work
3. Same two tests as above with their cables and my M5 MacBook Pro . <-- did not work
4. Plugged in a Mac Studio with M4 Max Chip and it worked (daisy chained). <-- worked
5. Used another customers M4 MAX MacBook Pro and it worked (with my cables daisy chained). <-- worked

I am not the one you have to convince on this, but I am willing to work with you to see where we can go on this.

Standard timing without Display Stream Compression gives 105 percent utilization of one Thunderbolt to support a 6K 6144 by 2456 display at 60 Hz at HDR 10 bits/color. So when set to full color space, resolution, and refresh rate, it grabs two display-generators.

Dropping the refresh rate to 48 Hz -OR- dropping HDR 10 bits/color and going back to 8 bits/color gets you around 83 percent. Dropping the resolution should be another way around it, but we need a way to get off two display-generators.

The Mac generally does not allow pre-setting up the display parameters -- it wants to ask the display about its capabilities and "do it myself".

My educated guess about why it does not work is that the Mac sees what that displays capabilities are, sees that it can not make the full resolution, and changes to two half-displays on two display generators before you can intervene to tell it something else.

Perhaps if you set up the first display at a lower refresh rate or a low color palate or lower resolution, then Restarted, the settings would 'stick' [But NOT using two display-generators]. Then maybe the second display could be added.

another possible way to work around would be to start the display when suing safe mode. safe mode takes defaults for most settings, including that display settings are set to very low, safe values.

The "trick" with safe mode is that if you change display settings off the default, those values will 'stick' in regular mode.

If we assume Safe Mode sets the display very low resolution with one display generator, then change it very slightly upward, perhaps it would come up with those same settings on one display-generator in regular mode.

CMala wrote:

Studio Display XDR in Dual Monitor configuration fails. It only work on one monitor. Tested with two different Macbook Pro with M3 and M4 Pro chips from two different users.

• I tried daisy chaining the displays.

I would expect daisy-chaining to fail with the displays plugged into the M3 Pro MacBook Pro. While the new 27" Studio Display and Studio Display XDR support Thunderbolt 5, your M3 Pro MacBook Pro does not. It supports Thunderbolt 4. Which means that the connection is going to fall back to a Thunderbolt 4 level of capability.

Going by Apple's Technical Specifications for the M3 Pro and M4 Pro MacBook Pros, both laptops should let you drive "two external displays with up to 6K resolution at 60 Hz over Thunderbolt", provided that those displays are your only two displays. So hopefully you would be able to drive two 5K Studio Display XDRs if you plugged them into different Thunderbolt ports, and limited their refresh rate to 60 Hz or less.

If things do not work with the displays plugged into separate Thunderbolt ports, I would suggest calling up Apple Support and asking them what is going on.

Granted, Apple wrote the Technical Specifications for the M3 and M4 MacBook Pros before either of the current Studio Displays came out, but the Compatibility section in the Studio Display XDR's Technical Specifications lists

• 16-inch MacBook Pro (2021 and later)
• 14-inch MacBook Pro (2021 and later)

which means that it should be compatible with both of your MacBook Pros. And I don't see any footnotes saying that this display counts the same as two of the older 5K displays – if that is the case, that's something that Apple needs to make much more clear.

<< Apple needs to fix their documentation and specify that the M3Pro and possibly the M4Pro can NOT run 2 Studio Display XDRs but it can run 2 standard 5K whether it's the standard Studio Display or a non-apple monitor. >>

That assertion needs to be posted (by every User experiencing problems) as a Bug Report on the Apple Product Feedback page, so that the list of complaints gets tall enough to tip over and this gets fixed.

Product Feedback - Apple

Welcome to the Apple User-to-User Support Community. Readers here are other Users like you.

Most Apple employees are prohibited from posting here, so they simply do not participate.

To get the attention of Apple employees, you can post a terse message on the Apple product feedback pages:

https://www.apple.com/feedback/

If you feel the Specs of your computer are misleading, you can contact support and ask for a Specialist to assist you with this complex issue. They can file a Bug report on your behalf, but [in my opinion] most likely result is that an asterisk is added to the specs with a footnote that only ONE Apple Display XDR can be supported, or similar weasel-words.

Apple support has some respect for what we do on the forums, and can read what has already been posted if you tell them how to find it. But they do not take our word for things -- they have their own more rigorous procedures that they must follow.

I have skipped over a question I usually ask because you had already done so much debugging. That is a question about what CABLES you are using.

These displays require a very highly engineered data cable, such as the one meter ThunderBolt 5 PRO cable shipped in the box. Use of longer cables, unless they are (much more expensive, starts at over US$100) ThunderBolt PRO cables with ACTIVE signal Re-Drivers, will not produce a picture reliably.

<< that this reduces the total number of external displays you can have. >>

I think you may have cracked the code.

There is no indication that the Thunderbolt -3 or -4 ports can go faster than 40 G bits/sec.

There is no previous hint that there was any sort of bandwidth sharing between display-generators.

But there is precedent as far back as Thunderbolt-2 Apple displays that you can send the data in the output Thunderbolt port if the captive cable became damaged.

you lose the ability to run an additional display because...

...you need to use another display-generator (and in some cases another cable) to get the speed you want.

Today's release of both MacOs and Studio Display Firmware (https://9to5mac.com/2026/03/24/apple-rolls-out-studio-display-and-studio-display-xdr-firmware-updates/) did not address the issue. .. FYI on the firmware update, plug the displays into your Mac separately (or two different ports - not daisy chained). Doesn't look like they both update if daisy chained.

To add on to this. I can confirm that the speakers do work and the monitors do both show up in System Info. I can switch audio between the 2 monitors.

Re: “And I don't see any footnotes saying that this display counts the same as two of the older 5K displays”

On the other hand, that may be the case. The specifications for M5-family MacBook Pros and Airs do mention support for 5K, 120 Hz displays, but always with a tradeoff that this reduces the total number of external displays you can have.

These specifications, including the revised ones for 14” MBPs with plain M5 chips, would have been written at about the same time that the new displays came out.