Mac 10.9.3 - Displaylink and J5Create devices don't play nicely together

[unusedusername]

So as an attempted workaround to multiple displaylink monitors not working at the same time under Mavericks, I purchased a single j5create device.

I have the latest version of both drivers.

For some odd reason, when the displaylink drivers are installed, the content that is supposed to be displayed on the j5 monitor is superimposed over the content that is supposed to be displayed on the displaylink monitor. It's like the two drivers are fighting over who gets to control the monitor that is connected via the j5 controller.

Also, when the machine boots, the monitors under Prefrences->displays are very confused... some of the monitors are mirrored and some of them are not.

http://www.displaylink.org/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=1826&stc=1&d=1401233951

I guess I'll be needing to get another J5 device since they have multiple monitor support. I was hoping I could run one of each to reduce my migration costs...

[Carlo]

You're hitting multiple problems here.

First of all, the bugs in Mavericks affect any virtual screen device, including J5create. We have tried those as well as iPad virtual screens and as soon as there are two on the system the layout won't be remembered between reboots and replugs and the other issues happen as well (if anyone has a different experience please tell us!).

Second, you're hitting another OS X with multiple screens, where the changes on one screen are sent to the wrong one.
To avoid this issue in version 2.2 we are running the screens in a sort of slower legacy mode on Mavericks when 2+ DisplayLink screens are connected.
This is not a problem if you use version 2.1 of our drivers but you'll experience lower performance even on a single DisplayLink screen. It's not nearly as slow as other solutions (ehm...) but nevertheless a different user experience.

So in terms of working solutions right now I see a few scenarios:
1DL+1J5, using version 2.1 of our drivers. This should work as "Slow and slower".
2DL, using version 2.2 of our drivers. We can call it "Slow and Slow"
2J5, no DL drivers, called "Slower and slower"

Please note that at the moment we don't support or recommend any of these solutions on Mavericks because of the OS limitations.
In all cases you still would have issues with layout persistence, you may introduce or resolve Window Server crashes (these are timing issues, so any change in the configuration affects them) and most other known Mavericks problems with 2 virtual screens would occur.

Hope this helps

Cheers,
Carlo

[unusedusername]

So in terms of working solutions right now I see a few scenarios:
1DL+1J5, using version 2.1 of our drivers. This should work as "Slow and slower".
2DL, using version 2.2 of our drivers. We can call it "Slow and Slow"
2J5, no DL drivers, called "Slower and slower"

Please note that at the moment we don't support or recommend any of these solutions on Mavericks because of the OS limitations.
In all cases you still would have issues with layout persistence, you may introduce or resolve Window Server crashes (these are timing issues, so any change in the configuration affects them) and most other known Mavericks problems with 2 virtual screens would occur.


Do you have a driver that reliably drives 2 displaylink adapters under Mavericks now? I was under the impression that this is broken?

I hear you on the WindowServer Crashes. I'm getting a lot of these.

J5 tells me that they have resolved these crashes entirely with their latest drivers, but I'm not seeing that on my machine. I'm going to hard-reinstall just to make sure, but at this point it seems broken all around :(

[Carlo]

Do you have a driver that reliably drives 2 displaylink adapters under Mavericks now? I was under the impression that this is broken?

I hear you on the WindowServer Crashes. I'm getting a lot of these.

J5 tells me that they have resolved these crashes entirely with their latest drivers, but I'm not seeing that on my machine. I'm going to hard-reinstall just to make sure, but at this point it seems broken all around :(

The information from our testing and the information we got from Apple is that we cannot do anything in our drivers to work around the multiple screen issues in Mavericks.
Out attempts so far to find workarounds have only found further issues. Our list on bugreporter is quite impressive nowadays.

It would be great if it was possible to find a workaround and we would be very excited if any of J5's claims turned out to be true. In case please let us know.

Our hopes are in 10.9.4, it's now in beta.

Cheers,
Carlo