Any ideas? Display issues with 10.6 using external monitor

[scubasteve03]

I have noticed a problem since I have done a clean install of 10.6. I have a Unibody Macbook hooked up to a Dell 2409 monitor. In 10.5 I was able to use my macbook as an extension my desktop. Now all it shows it just the regular snow leopard background on the macbook and my regular desktop on the dell. I am in display setting and under arrangement, it show no windows inside. When I click on mirror desktop, the display windows come back in the "arrangement" tab. If I click on "Mirror Displays," it works ok doing mirroring the image of the macbook.
I want to use the Dell as the primary display and use the macbook display for things like Itunes and IM. Right now I cannot drag anything from one display to the other. This is becoming a problem because I cannot use my macbook screen at all to drag any apps to that screen. The weird thing is that when I open some applications, they open on the macbook screen. I am able to moved the mouse around on the screen in sync with the Dell, but I am not able to click on anything in the macbook. I bought SwitchResX and so far, that has not been able to help me. Thanks for your help, I need any I can get. This is getting very frustrating. I really don't want to have to do a full format and reinstall everything just because of this one issue. Thanks guys.

 

[BlueRevolution]

Try adding a new user account. Does it work properly there?

 

[scubasteve03]

that did not work :-(

Try adding a new user account. Does it work properly there?

No, I just tried doing so and I am getting the same problem. It's weird, I can move the mouse around on the macbook display but it will not click on anything in that screen. I really do not want to have to reformat and reinstall everything. I cannot find any settings in SwitchResX to fix this type of issue. Is there an option to "repair" when booting from the 10.6 disk? Thanks for the help.

 

[d0mth0ma5]

I'm having the exact same issue. uMBP and a Sony LCD. Upgraded to 10.6.1 yesterday, any ideas, hopefully 10.6.2 will resolve...

 

[BlueRevolution]

Try resetting the PRAM. On startup, hold command+option+P+R until you hear the startup chime a second time.

 

[d0mth0ma5]

Try resetting the PRAM. On startup, hold command+option+P+R until you hear the startup chime a second time.

Nope that didn't work. Cheers for the attempted help.

 

[scubasteve03]

Problem persists still, help.....

Does anyone know of any other things I can try to fix this issue? It's getting ridiculous that I cant even use my MB as a display with an external monitor. I really don't want to have to do a clean install.
If I do a clean install from the time capsule, is it ok to restore all my applications and settings or is it going to give me the same result?

 

[scottness]

Does anyone know of any other things I can try to fix this issue? It's getting ridiculous that I cant even use my MB as a display with an external monitor. I really don't want to have to do a clean install.
If I do a clean install from the time capsule, is it ok to restore all my applications and settings or is it going to give me the same result?

It'll likely give you the same result. I know you don't want to do a full restore from a time capsule. Time consuming and painful.

Have you tried creating a smaller partition on your MacBook? You can do a clean install to that and see if it does the same thing before you decide to do the full restore option.

 

[scubasteve03]

I have not tried installing on a new partition yet. I'm guessing I will just Have to do a clean install. Apple's solution was to delete my entire HD and reinstall os x. There has got to be some setting that just got screwed up. This happened right after Snow leopard was installed.