Macbook Pro unable to recognise secondary display

[bogartibi]

Hi Folks,

I bought my new macbook pro - Apple M4 Pro / Sequoia 15.5. The new macbook pro does not recognise our Epson EF-12 projector (4 years old). The projector recognises it, but not the other way around. In the input source the projector says: "Mac" and suggests to use Mirror or "Extende display". Even with these settings the projector does not show up, not even with the "detect displays" option.

We have 2 macs in the household, besides this new one, my old macbook pro (12 years old) and my partner's macbook air (5 years old). Both of them have been working perfectly fine with the projector, it shows up immediately as soon as the connection is made with a either a hdmi to hdmi, or a usb c to hdmi cable respectively.

Epson support only provided basic troubleshooting. But I would feel this is Apple's problem. How is it that a current mac does not have the same functionality as old macs? Apple are shrugging their shoulders because the new mac works with all other displays, except the projector.

As you can see this predicament is a trap 22. I would be grateful, if anybody would be able to help with a suggestion.

Thank you in advance!

 

[Alameda]

9 times in 10 it’s the cable. Try using a direct, HDMI to HDMI cable, with the shortest possible distance, like a 2-meter cable. Then try the longer cable you require.

 

[Honza1]

It is surprisingly complex mess of standards for display data we have today, which may cause new Apple device not work properly with older devices. You could try to check what the standards supported by the mac and projector are to see if there are common standards. It is lots of names and version numbers which may be challenge to navigate. If you have chance, try different HDMI cables. There are few versions supported by different cables and it is difficult to find out which cable supports what, but older cables do not support new standards and may not work. Packaging usually states what HDMI version is supported, but once you take it out, this info usually disappears.
You may need some specific dingle to convert USB-C Mac output to HDMI, but how to find the correct one is impossible to say.
My TV required new version of HDMI cable (luckily came with the TV) as the older one (pulled through the wall, worked with prior TV and older Mac) did not work with my TV and new M4 mini. Apparently did not support the right HDMI version. USB-C is the same mess - USB-C is connector hardware and what data standards the cable supports varies wildly and is difficult to guess looking at the cable without spec sheet - and even there, standards names are confusing and even change occasionally.
We all think about these cables as "same" when they have the same ends, but in reality, it is much more complicated.