Phantom 3rd Screen

[prettyby7]

DisplayLink,

I'm carrying over this issue since it was closed in the other thread.

Has there been any resolution to this issue yet?

Please advise,

Thanks

[ChristianP]

Unfortunately this issue has not been solved yet. Anyway we will try to solve it, but at the moment I can't estimate when it will be ready.

[cshbell]

Unfortunately this issue has not been solved yet. Anyway we will try to solve it, but at the moment I can't estimate when it will be ready.

Come on, seriously? This has been a problem for months, and you reported months ago that you were able to reproduce it.

What do we have to do to get some engineering time dedicated to this? It’s a showstopping bug for those of us experiencing it. I’ve purchased three DisplayLink adapters over the years; it would be great to get support on this issue.

[kkoldewyn]

I'd also like to note that some support on this issue would be great. We have users who won't even use their dock anymore because of the phantom screen. It seems to only happen after the computer goes to sleep. A restart will generally correct the issue but that's not really something that anyone would want to do throughout the day.

[cshbell]

This bug is still present in the just-released Mac OS X 10.7.3. Unfortunately.

[cshbell]

Any update?

[prettyby7]

Any update?

Second that question....

I saw a new update just released. Does the new update resolve the phantom 3rd screen ChristianP? :confused:

[viper1701]

Right now, I have one monitor connected via DisplayPort, another connected with DisplayLink, and my MacBook Air is closed. I can see that the MBA's screen is active because the Apple logo is glowing, and I have taken a screen capture of the System Preferences as well which shows three active screens.

Pressing "Detect Displays" doesn't help.

This is clearly an issue with the DisplayLink software, because this behavior does not occur if the drivers are uninstalled.

I'd be happy to help experiment on ways to fix the issue. I am fairly comfortable with the terminal. I've been wondering if there is a way to force the system to reevaluate which displays are active more thoroughly than the "Detect Displays" method does, but haven't found any success.

[Carlo]

I'm afraid I don't have any good news for this clamshell mode issue. We're not really sure this is our issue since we can't directly modify the behaviour of the internal screens, but it may be a side effect of something we can avoid doing.

We have one possible lead and most importantly looking into this area as a whole so the hope is to come up at least with a convenient workaround for you.

As usual I prefer not to give time scales: you never know when the OS vendor decides to throw a spanner in our schedules.

Cheers
Carlo

[mikefoley]

I would hope the OS vendor we're talking about would be interested in helping you solve this problem. :confused:

I wish we could dynamically load and unload the drivers in the meantime. Then at least I could script it.

Thanks for your efforts guys. It's much appreciated. Please keep us updated more frequently?

[cshbell]

We're not really sure this is our issue since we can't directly modify the behaviour of the internal screens, but it may be a side effect of something we can avoid doing.

Our impression is that it's DisplayLink's issue since the problem does not occur when the DisplayLink drivers are not installed. Can you confirm that the driver team has at least been able to reproduce this problem?

[Carlo]

Our impression is that it's DisplayLink's issue since the problem does not occur when the DisplayLink drivers are not installed. Can you confirm that the driver team has at least been able to reproduce this problem?

Of course this use case needs additional screens present on the system, this does not tell us much about the root cause or who's responsible for it though.

We've been able to reproduce this issue some time ago on 10.7.2, but when we retried last week on the same system we could not see the issue. We'll be trying different power saving options and login options to see if it has any effect.
You are welcome to help finding the exact use case!

Cheers,
Carlo

[prettyby7]

Of course this use case needs additional screens present on the system, this does not tell us much about the root cause or who's responsible for it though.

We've been able to reproduce this issue some time ago on 10.7.2, but when we retried last week on the same system we could not see the issue. We'll be trying different power saving options and login options to see if it has any effect.
You are welcome to help finding the exact use case!

Cheers,
Carlo

I've successfully recreated the issue by simply 1) sleeping my macbook pro; 2) undocking; 3) wake up undocked and work for a bit; 4) re-dock and the third screen appears.

This happens constantly without a doubt. The ONLY rememdy is to completely reboot my macbook while docked. Once it is put to sleep again, the problem reoccurs again. :confused:

I've been patiently waiting on a fix for this.

Other than that, the adapter works perfectly fine for what I use it for.

[jeff-y]

I've also found this issue to be regular on multiple configurations of hardware, driver version, and OS version.

Since I can't restart my computer every time I return with my laptop to my desk, I haven't been able to use multiple monitors for ~8 months.

Aren't people at DisplayLink needing to restart their Mac laptops every couple of hours?

[cshbell]

We've been able to reproduce this issue some time ago on 10.7.2, but when we retried last week on the same system we could not see the issue. We'll be trying different power saving options and login options to see if it has any effect. You are welcome to help finding the exact use case!

As others have reported, it's pretty easy for us to reproduce. I'm on a mid-2011 MacBook Air (4,1; i7 11-inch) with 10.7.3, and stock software preload (no odd kernel extensions or drivers). Here are the power settings from System Information:

AC Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 0
Wake on AC Change: No
Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes
Wake on LAN: Yes
Current Power Source: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: No
PrioritizeNetworkReachabilityOverSleep: 0
RestartAfterKernelPanic: 15
Standby Delay: 4200
Standby Enabled: 1

Battery Power:
System Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15
Disk Sleep Timer (Minutes): 10
Display Sleep Timer (Minutes): 15
Wake on AC Change: No
Wake on Clamshell Open: Yes
Display Sleep Uses Dim: No
Reduce Brightness: Yes
RestartAfterKernelPanic: 15
Standby Delay: 4200
Standby Enabled: 1

Using a BVU195 DisplayLink adapter; I see this problem whether I'm connecting two 19-inch LCDs in one location or one 20-inch LCD in another.

And as others have said, steps to reproduce:

Boot the MacBook with the lid closed, power adapter attached, external keyboard (Apple Bluetooth keyboard, in my case), and an external monitor attached to the DisplayPort/Thunderbolt port; does not matter whether or not the DisplayLink adapter is connected. Only the external monitor will be enabled at this point, as desired.
Now disconnect the power and external monitor from DisplayPort/Thunderbolt port, causing the Mac to sleep. Wake it back up from sleep. Only the internal LCD will be enabled at this point, still as desired.
Now close the lid, reconnect power, external monitor, and keyboard, press a key on the external keyboard to wake the system up. The external monitor will be enabled, but so will the internal LCD (and the Apple logo is illuminated from the internal LCD's backlight being on). Not desired.


Let me know if you're able to reproduce it following these steps. I'll even make a video of the process if that will be helpful. Please try and help us out with this.

[xuslaw]

There is still no update? Unsolved?
Annoying!

[cshbell]

This problem is going on over six months now, and it’s been given peripheral attention, at best, when given any attention at all. If it’s being actively worked on — which would be great — we haven't heard about it.

DisplayLink team: What else can we do by way of logging, driver testing, or any other troubleshooting to help track this problem down? We’re willing to help solve this problem alongside you, but we can’t help if we aren’t hearing any communication that this is being worked on or even acknowledged.

[jeff-y]

Just bumping again.

There's about seven threads that talk about this in the DL forum, and there's a few threads over at Apple also. Bu,t it still isn't even mentioned as a "known issue" in the README.

I had uninstalled the DisplayLink driver for the last few months. As soon as I install it, the problems return like clockwork:

* phantom 3rd screen in clamshell mode
* mouse disappears during full screen games (even when DL is unplugged)
* problems detecting when external monitors are plugged in or unplugged (even when DL is unplugged)

Please, please, please acknowledge that you can reproduce the problem and are looking into it. As a former developer of graphics drivers, I wouldn't so quickly write it off as Apple's fault (although it's possible).

[cshbell]

A few weeks ago I emailed the VP of Engineering for DisplayLink, hoping that maybe some additional attention could get the ball moving on this. I've not heard anything, much like we've not heard anything here.

[prettyby7]

A few weeks ago I emailed the VP of Engineering for DisplayLink, hoping that maybe some additional attention could get the ball moving on this. I've not heard anything, much like we've not heard anything here.

What good is a company that doesn't even take heed of their own customer's woes of their own product.....

[Carlo]

Brief update.
We have a repro only on one system to date (MBA), but it's reliable. All the other systems we tested don't show the issue. Might it be connected to the Intel GPU drivers? Does anybody see this with AMD or NVidia (in high performance mode if dual GPU)?

We're suspicious since this appears to be system specific so we're going to remove any custom behaviour out of the DL SW to see if we can actually affect the issue.

In the meanwhile the most effective workaround is still the same: don't let those pixels go to waste and use the Mac's screen as an auxiliary screen.

Carlo

[jeff-y]

Thanks for the update, Carlo!

My system is a MBA.

Thanks!
-Jeff

[mikefoley]

As I posted back in March and others before that, this problem is a killer on the 2011 MBA's. Any chance we can get a fix for that in the meantime? I'm getting tired of rebooting a couple of times a day as I switch between displays at home, work and when I present using the VGA adapter.

Please? I'll happily beta test it if you'd like. Reach out! :)
mike

[Carlo]

Ok so now that we have a reproduction everything is a bit easier. We've been able to reproduce in the same conditions with another unaccelerated frame buffer product and with a basic frame buffer without any of our magic.

Everything points to a bug in the driver for the HD3000 graphics card, we opened bug 11655548 with Apple: you are welcome to push with them for its resolution.

Regards
Carlo

[prettyby7]

Ok so now that we have a reproduction everything is a bit easier. We've been able to reproduce in the same conditions with another unaccelerated frame buffer product and with a basic frame buffer without any of our magic.

Everything points to a bug in the driver for the HD3000 graphics card, we opened bug 11655548 with Apple: you are welcome to push with them for its resolution.

Regards
Carlo

Thank you for the update Carlo!

[mikefoley]

I called Apple Support and gave them the bug report number and made it clear that I'd like to see it fixed. We'll see what happens. I suspect that by the time Mountain Lion comes out (which I hear the bug is not in ML), I'll probably just update to that.

[cshbell]

Just wanted to report some happy news on this nearly year-old problem: This appears to be fixed in Mountain Lion. I installed 10.8 yesterday, and I'm no longer seeing the phantom third screen. Hooray!

[jeff-y]

Yaay! Are you seeing the kernel panics that other users are reporting?

[ChristianP]

Great news:). Thanks for reporting it.

[cshbell]

Yaay! Are you seeing the kernel panics that other users are reporting?

Yes, but all in all, they're infrequent and less disruptive than having to reboot multiple times per day.

[mikefoley]

Hi,
Just a followup to my previous reply to this thread. Mountain Lion and the latest 1.8 driver fixed the "clamshell" problem for me as well. No crashes, very stable on a 2011 MacBook Air.

SO glad this is fixed. My Mac is now back to "it just works" mode.

Thanks,
mike