> every single login involved rearranging my windows because MacOS moves them all to whatever display woke up first
Maybe we can get to the bottom of this. What is your use case?
I ask because as long as I plug them into the same ports it remembers how I arranged them previously (2018 macbook pro 15"). I haven't had to arrange them in over a year... even remembered when updating to latest operating system. Occasionally, I even plug in my LCD TV as a third external monitor and it remembers where that one should go in the arrangement too.
MacOS cannot drive one 5120x1440 display using Intel display hardware. It will happily drive two displays at 2560x1440. The monitor had multiple inputs so by putting it in PBP mode I was able to drive one input as USB-C and another as HDMI through a dock converter. This means the wakeup was not in sync. MacOS would see one monitor, arrange everything on that then realize there was a second one and fail to move anything back in this "new" arrangement.
The fact that it was all one physical monitor may have further confused the OS as a sibling comment mentions.
The solution was to sell the monitor to a Windows-using architect friend and buy a different panel with a resolution MacOS supports. She has a macbook too but it's the fancy one with discrete graphics which can drive 5120x1440.
The value proposition of MacOS to me is that I plug things in and they work. Any fiddling beyond that destroys the benefits of using this platform. I'm willing to iterate on hardware until I find something that works.
I do not have a 2020 MacBook so I cannot test but the Pro Display XDR is not 5120x1440, it is 6016x3384. The problem with my current MacBooks ('14 15" RMBP and '17 13" MBP, both with Intel Iris graphics) is that while they can drive 4k displays they cannot drive the 5120x1440 resolution specifically.
This limitation is specific to the MacOS drivers. Windows in Bootcamp is able to drive 5120x1440 on these devices.
Yeah I read through all those. It’s a work laptop so I’m not comfortable doing things like disabling SIP or mucking around in any system settings. That machine is my livelihood so I don’t mind finding devices that just work.
Ah ok, ya maybe it's related to it being the same monitor.
I have two different monitors that wake up at very different speeds and it's no problem here. My 15" 2013 and 2015 macbook pros had no problem with this either, and I've had 4 different monitors in the mix through those years too. I've transitioned to a CalDigit Thunderbolt 3 dock now and still no problem with it remembering.
So there's definitely something unique about that monitor. That is sad news for me too -- I'm hoping they make a 2x4K ultra wide monitor like that someday. Hopefully they've solved this problem by then.
Maybe we can get to the bottom of this. What is your use case?
I ask because as long as I plug them into the same ports it remembers how I arranged them previously (2018 macbook pro 15"). I haven't had to arrange them in over a year... even remembered when updating to latest operating system. Occasionally, I even plug in my LCD TV as a third external monitor and it remembers where that one should go in the arrangement too.