Dual monitors reversed and resolution different.

Question

Dual monitors reversed and resolution different.

Hi, I have been using my 2006 Mac Pro with Dual monitors since I bought it without problems, however today somethng happened and now the monitors have switched sides and the resolution is different between them.

The screen without the finder menu bar (which was formerly on the right) has swapped to the left and has a magnified resolution. I've tried lots of things in system preferences/displays, but nothing works. If I go to the "arrangement" tab and swap the screen positions, both screens go blue and then light up again but the screen positions haven't changed. The screen icons in the pereferences window do change but make no difference to the actual screens.

If I change the resolution in the "display" tab, again the screens appear to reset but only the finder menu screen (now on the right) changes resolution.

I've tried resetting the PRAM, repairing disk permissions and rebuilding the disk with disk warrior. Nothing works.

Prior to this happening I was trying to set up Logic nodes, connecting via ethernet to my macbook pro. I was having some issues and saw some advice on a forum that I should try deleting the preference file com.apple.alf.plist. I think the screen issue happened after I deleted this file and restarted. I've since returned the original com.apple.alf.plist file (from the trash), repaired disk permissions, restarted etc. but no luck.

I had also selected screen sharing in file sharing (system preferences) prior to this problem occuring and have since turned it off as I thought that might have contributed.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I have looming deadlines and can't work until I resolve this problem.

Thanks in advance.

OSX 10.6.8

2006 Mac Pro

2 x 2.66 GHz Dual-core Intel Xeon

6 GB 667 MHz DDR2 FB-DIMM

Posted on Jun 15, 2014 1:52 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Aug 19, 2017 6:35 PM in response to Lanny

Hi

I am having the same problem. I have a Mac Pro and the monitors are connected by thunderbolt. I first tried changing the screens in system preferences, and while they swapped sides, the mouse still thought they were as before, so I couldn't drag the mouse from far right to far left, if you understand what I am trying to say. The Mac Pro has 6 ports for thunderbolt, so I tried directly swapping the cables, no effect, then I tried various combinations of connections, no effect. I have been putting up with it as I can still do my work, but after years of having a "dominant" monitor in your brain, it is hard to switch. No doubt I'm missing something obvious and I do not recall doing anything of any significance that triggered the swap. Would appreciate any suggestions

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Answer 2

Eric Root

Level 10

684,015 points

Aug 20, 2017 6:16 AM in response to Bigfantilnow

You might want to consider starting a new discussion. Since this one is marked solved and is a couple of years old, less people are likely to look at it. A new post would be much more visible. You can link to this one.

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Answer 3

Jun 15, 2014 2:11 AM in response to CommanderCool

Ok, feeling a bit dumb right now. After spending 3-4 hours searching through forums and trying to fix this, I hadn't actually tried physically swapping the leads. I'd assumed that the screen positions would swap but the magnified resolution issue would remain. I tried swapping them directly after posting and now my monitors are back to normal.

I hadn't swapped them prior to the problem occurring so i'm not sure what caused this, but its fixed now.

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Answer 4

Lanny

Level 6

13,183 points

Jun 15, 2014 9:00 AM in response to CommanderCool

You should have been able to just swap the positions of the displays in the Displays System Preferences.

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