Hi Everyone,
There are multiple variations on the same problem posted on these forums: namely about external displays used with MacBooks in clamshell mode not being recognized when waking from sleep, specifically Thunderbolt displays. Sometimes the problem is seen with monitors connected to Thunderbolt docks, or to external thunderbolt hard drives. The only way to get things working again is to plug the monitor into a port on the other side of the laptop, or do a reboot. There is a lot of discussion about this being related to M1 Macs, or third party displays, etc but I have an Intel Mac (MBP 13 inch 2020 with Iris Plus Graphics) and had the same problem with an LG 4K Ultrafine display purchased from Apple. Also if you google this issue, people have been experiencing it for years, specifically with Thunderbolt connections. I even found some discussion about individuals having issues with Thunderbolt docks on Dell and Lenovo laptops after diving deep into a google rabbit hole.
Only resolution I had found was to basically never let the MacBook sleep, but I wasn't very keen on this because of wasting energy and increased wear and tear on components.
However, on a hunch I seem to have fixed the problem: Instead of connecting the laptop to the monitor with the supplied Thunderbolt Cable, I changed to the USB C cable. The switch from a Thunderbolt to a USB C connection seems to have solved the problem (its been a few days and all good so far, anyway): I can now reliably wake the MacBook in clamshell and the monitor from sleep everytime. The issue seems to be something in the software or hardware (I'm convinced its a MacOS issue) with Thunderbolt connections and sleep/wake. It may also be related to the Displayport version as I believe Thunderbolt is 1.4 and USB C is 1.2 (if I'm not mistaken), and I had read others have fixed external display problems by forcing their displays to use 1.2 instead of 1.4.
Anybody else have a similar problem and a similar fix? Worth a shot if you are having issues.
There are multiple variations on the same problem posted on these forums: namely about external displays used with MacBooks in clamshell mode not being recognized when waking from sleep, specifically Thunderbolt displays. Sometimes the problem is seen with monitors connected to Thunderbolt docks, or to external thunderbolt hard drives. The only way to get things working again is to plug the monitor into a port on the other side of the laptop, or do a reboot. There is a lot of discussion about this being related to M1 Macs, or third party displays, etc but I have an Intel Mac (MBP 13 inch 2020 with Iris Plus Graphics) and had the same problem with an LG 4K Ultrafine display purchased from Apple. Also if you google this issue, people have been experiencing it for years, specifically with Thunderbolt connections. I even found some discussion about individuals having issues with Thunderbolt docks on Dell and Lenovo laptops after diving deep into a google rabbit hole.
Only resolution I had found was to basically never let the MacBook sleep, but I wasn't very keen on this because of wasting energy and increased wear and tear on components.
However, on a hunch I seem to have fixed the problem: Instead of connecting the laptop to the monitor with the supplied Thunderbolt Cable, I changed to the USB C cable. The switch from a Thunderbolt to a USB C connection seems to have solved the problem (its been a few days and all good so far, anyway): I can now reliably wake the MacBook in clamshell and the monitor from sleep everytime. The issue seems to be something in the software or hardware (I'm convinced its a MacOS issue) with Thunderbolt connections and sleep/wake. It may also be related to the Displayport version as I believe Thunderbolt is 1.4 and USB C is 1.2 (if I'm not mistaken), and I had read others have fixed external display problems by forcing their displays to use 1.2 instead of 1.4.
Anybody else have a similar problem and a similar fix? Worth a shot if you are having issues.