Sonoma - smooth scaling resolutions for external displayss temporarily not available after wake or reconnect

[traderdude123]

Hi,

I m on the latest macos Sonoma on mac mini m2 pro connected to sony A95L.

Betterdisplay 2.0.11.

Everytime i reboot the resolution is defaulting to 1080p. I made sure of config protection. but on reboot the resolution settings are reset.

EDID override is not taking effect on reboot.

I currently have apply resolution and load EDID on every reboot.

On ventura , resolution and EDID overrides were applied on every reboot.

Any resolution?

[d-bohn]

I'll add that I'm on an M1 MacBook Pro on Sonoma and the settings do not persist even when I close the lid or the computer goes to sleep and I wake it back up. Resolution scaling can be resolved for the external displays by unticking and ticking "Configuration override" in the Display portion of the BetterDisplay settings (which triggers applying the settings without computer reboot), but this is getting rather annoying. EDIT: Similarly, not only do the display settings get reverted, but the display arrangement--both of settings were maintained across reboots/sleep Ventura

[javiergonzalezGenially]

Same problem here. Even letting it go to sleep without closing the lid and then waking it up makes the settings disappear. In my case the most annoying setting to loose is the "smooth scaling one", since it reverts to a huge hi-dpi resolution. The only way to fix it is to uncheck, check it again and press apply every time the laptop wakes from sleep.

[waydabber]

This is a generic Sonoma issue, some displays (especially those that have wake problems or tend to wake slowly or in multiple attempts) don't have their settings applied by the OS. This results in layout issues, showing default resolution and general lack of any custom configuration.

If you use smooth scaling, you should enable this checkbox as a workaround on Sonoma:

The EDID issue might be the same/related, but this setting will only reinitialize displays that have smooth scaling enabled. This bug was present in Sonoma since early betas and is still present in 1.4.1 beta2. Apple will fix it eventually I think but it doesn't affect first party and most well-behaving displays (but affects my CoolerMaster GP27U for example which is a typical "misbehaving" when used on macOS).

You can also use this option (manually):

Let me know whether the setting (for smooth scaling problem) or this option (must be applied whenever the issue presents itself) helps as a workaround or not.

[waydabber]

I think this discussion was somewhat hijacked by the Sonoma display detection issue. The EDID problem seems to be something else. Did you configure the EDID to be auto-applied? Can you show a screenshot of how the EDID section is set up for the display?

[traderdude123]

Here is the screenshot of the setttings.

[traderdude123]

@waydabber

Issue fixed.

I deleted the window server plist files and rebooted.

Now the settings are taking effect on reboot. Both resolution and EDID is applied on reboot now.

[waydabber]

@traderdude123 - huhh, nice! From the screenshots it looks like everything was set up properly, I am not sure what could have been the issue honestly - so I'm glad it was fixed by recreating the windowserver configuration files. :)

[traderdude123]

@waydabber

Yes. I think recreating the windowserver config files fixes most of the issues related to things not taking effect.Similar issues were fixed in previous version of macOS as well.

just a suggestion , you could add this feature in betterdisplay. I think it would help a lot of people facing these kind of issues.

[waydabber]

Similar issue discussed here:
https://discord.com/channels/903276571773771796/903276571773771799/1159826663169867807

[waydabber]

Also, related issues:

#2180
#2218
#2204
#2240

[javiergonzalezGenially]

Regarding smooth scaling, the reset workaround option seemed to work, but also deleting com.apple.windowserver.plist and com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist files in /Library/Preferences (I had none in ~/Library/Preferences) and rebooting seemed to solve it as well with the workaround turned off.

(and actually only the com.apple.windowserver.displays.plist file got recreated, the com.apple.windowserver.plist one is nowhere to be found now)

[javiergonzalezGenially]

I take it back, you still need the workaround for it to work after a reboot

[waydabber]

Yeah, with Sonoma 14.0 the issue will come back from time-to-time, even with BD not running. This is just a bug in this release, hopefully Apple will fix it after a while as it affects not only BetterDisplay but a host of other stuff as well. I am afraid Apple does not test its releases enough on third party displays, all those Apple engineers are probably mostly using their Pro Display XDRs and Studio Displays. :)