Why doesn't mountain lion remember my external display settings?

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pL2002 Author

Level 1

4 points

Why doesn't mountain lion remember my external display settings?

I'm a teacher. I have a 13" early 2011 MBP with mountain lion (10.8.1, clean install on new SSD). I have external monitors in my office and at home. I want them to be the primary when plugged in (with the menubar/dock, and the MBP LCD on the left as the secondary display). When I'm in classrooms, I want the projectors I connect to to be the secondary display (with the MBP LCD on the right as the primary with menubar and dock). Snow leopard remembered all of this for each display. Mountain lion doesn't. Projectors almost always come up mirrored even if I've connected to them before and reset it.

To make matters worse, the displays menubar option is gone in Mountain Lion. Argh........

Ideas?

MacBook Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.1)

Posted on Sep 10, 2012 5:58 PM

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Answer 1

pL2002 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 12, 2012 5:40 PM in response to pL2002

Ok, I think I found a solution. I disabled the new clamshell mode behavior by using

sudo nvram boot-args="iog=0x0" and rebooting, make it work like snow leopard. Since, it seems to be remembering my 3 displays (classroom projector as secondary on the left, office monitor as primary on the right, and home monitor as primary on the right). The downside is if you connect everything with the lid closed and get only one display, opening the lid does nothing and there is no easy "Detect Displays". Maybe I can write an applescript to easily detect displays.

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Answer 2

pL2002 Author

Level 1

4 points

Sep 12, 2012 6:03 PM in response to pL2002

I feel like I'm talking to myself, but I just learned that cmd-"Brightness Up" (or F2) does Detect Displays.....

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