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Displays Graphics OS X Operating Systems Desktops (Apple) Software

Latest macOS Update Disables DisplayLink, Rendering Thousands of Monitors Dead (displaylink.com) 331

rh2600 writes: Four days ago, Apple's latest macOS 10.13.4 update broke DisplayLink protocol support (perhaps permanently), turning what may be hundreds of thousands of external monitors connected to MacBook Pros via DisplayLink into paperweights. Some days in, DisplayLink has yet to announce any solution, and most worryingly there are indications that this is a permanent change to macOS moving forward. Mac Rumors is reporting that "users of the popular Mac desktop extension app Duet Display are being advised not to update to macOS 10.13.4, due to 'critical bugs' that prevent the software from communicating with connected iOS devices used as extra displays." Users of other desktop extensions apps like Air Display and iDisplay are also reporting incompatibility with the latest version of macOS.
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Latest macOS Update Disables DisplayLink, Rendering Thousands of Monitors Dead

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  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @06:07AM (#56378997)

    JustWontDuet
     
    Thanks, I'll be here all week!

  • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @06:16AM (#56379035)

    Is the external screen hardware bricked beyond repair or simply unusable until some driver software fixed? Dead sounds like click bait if a simple reinstall or patch rollback gets it working again.

    • by Ogive17 ( 691899 ) on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @07:42AM (#56379515)
      Well.. based on my limited experience with Apple and their products.. rendering "older" hardware useless is a key ploy to get people to buy brand new Apple products.

      If I'm going to pay a premium for a product that "just works".. it better keep working for as long as the hardware holds up. They basically used an obsolete OS version to hold my wife's macbook hostage unless we paid around $100 to update it.
      • by harrkev ( 623093 )

        DisplayLink is not exactly an "older hardware." They are still actively marketed, chips are updated as new USB standards come out, and drivers are updated regularly. The latest driver release is from last month (Windows, Mac, Android, and Ubuntu). Chrome support is baked into the OS so no drivers needed.

        So, yeah, it isn't like this is old-fashioned hardware that isn't being updated any more.

    • by TheFakeTimCook ( 4641057 ) on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @07:48AM (#56379547)

      Is the external screen hardware bricked beyond repair or simply unusable until some driver software fixed? Dead sounds like click bait if a simple reinstall or patch rollback gets it working again.

      The latter. And DisplayLink and Apple are already working on a Driver Update.

  • by DeplorableCodeMonkey ( 4828467 ) on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @06:18AM (#56379043)

    One of the commenters in the first link is a perfect example of the blame-everyone-but-Apple mentality:

    I must have macOS 10.13.4 to run the version of Xcode that allows me to develop for iOS 11.3.

    Rolling back my OS, even if I wanted to which I don't, is not an option. My options are 1. wait for a fix, again I might add, DisplayLink died on the last macOS update as well. Or 2. Buy a USB video adapter from another more reliable source.

    While I don't want to go spend potentially hundreds, I also will not accept that a thousand dollar monitor is now sitting blank.

    I should mention as a macOS and iOS developer, as others have that macOS has a beta program and you could easily have identified this issue weeks ago. Also as a developer, I will always need to update to the new macOS and xCode on the day of their release.

    This issue is already 4 days old, waiting on an update from Apple is 100% unacceptable. Having this issue even crop up in the first place is about 98% unacceptable.

    Who makes a good USB video adapter capable of between 1080p and 2k? I'll have an answer to this in the next 10 minutes. My relationship with DisplayLink that has lasted years is within 48 hours of being over. Nothing personal, but this is simply untenable.

    Yes, blame a peripheral manufacturer for thinking that an update (10.13.3 ->10.13.4) wouldn't do something like break the subsystem that their drivers depend on. Couldn't possibly expect Apple to put some more QA on macOS updates and stop treating the OS like it's a legacy product WRT support.

    Dude, I get why you're upset. Your livelihood has just been hit by Apple. However, you should be blaming Apple for doing stupid shit like breaking your drivers in an update and then forcing you to have that particular point release to run an IDE.

    You want proof that Apple is now firmly a cult? People would be howling from the rafters if Visual Studio updates required a highly particular set of bleeding edge patches from Microsoft to run. No one outside of the SCADA space would tolerate this level of tied-at-the-hip releasing.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @06:37AM (#56379135)

      One of the commenters in the first link is a perfect example of the blame-everyone-but-Apple mentality:

      I must have macOS 10.13.4 to run the version of Xcode that allows me to develop for iOS 11.3.

      Rolling back my OS, even if I wanted to which I don't, is not an option. My options are 1. wait for a fix, again I might add, DisplayLink died on the last macOS update as well. Or 2. Buy a USB video adapter from another more reliable source.

      While I don't want to go spend potentially hundreds, I also will not accept that a thousand dollar monitor is now sitting blank.

      I should mention as a macOS and iOS developer, as others have that macOS has a beta program and you could easily have identified this issue weeks ago. Also as a developer, I will always need to update to the new macOS and xCode on the day of their release.

      This issue is already 4 days old, waiting on an update from Apple is 100% unacceptable. Having this issue even crop up in the first place is about 98% unacceptable.

      Who makes a good USB video adapter capable of between 1080p and 2k? I'll have an answer to this in the next 10 minutes. My relationship with DisplayLink that has lasted years is within 48 hours of being over. Nothing personal, but this is simply untenable.

      Yes, blame a peripheral manufacturer for thinking that an update (10.13.3 ->10.13.4) wouldn't do something like break the subsystem that their drivers depend on. Couldn't possibly expect Apple to put some more QA on macOS updates and stop treating the OS like it's a legacy product WRT support.

      Dude, I get why you're upset. Your livelihood has just been hit by Apple. However, you should be blaming Apple for doing stupid shit like breaking your drivers in an update and then forcing you to have that particular point release to run an IDE.

      You want proof that Apple is now firmly a cult? People would be howling from the rafters if Visual Studio updates required a highly particular set of bleeding edge patches from Microsoft to run. No one outside of the SCADA space would tolerate this level of tied-at-the-hip releasing.

      It should have been asked by any professional long ago what exactly their intent is to support ANY 3rd party. The latest I/O changes make it VERY clear they want you running running hardware made by Apple, Apple, Apple, or Apple. Between that and removing a headphone jack standard in favor of their proprietary bullshit, I will likely have nothing to do with them going forward. Their arrogance has become too much for the professional world which demands a certain level of interoperability. I'm fucking surprised they haven't been arrogant enough to create their own voltage standard in order to sell iPower transformers to everyone who dares not run at 77V/127hz.

      Wake up professionals and stop giving them money. They clearly have little intention of supporting you in the long run.

      • by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @06:44AM (#56379171)

        Apple should make their own voltage standard. It would be far superior to the crap we have now.

      • The price of inter-operability is the introduction of attack surface, back doors, and other vulnerabilities. Perhaps Apple is shooting for the stronger security crowd. I think that is a factor, along with what you said. Hey, why not do both right?
      • Their arrogance has become too much for the professional world which demands a certain level of interoperability.

        Wait, what? There are many examples in the software / hardware community of exactly this, why are you complaining about Apple?

        • Microsoft XBox is an entry-level PC with a Palladium chip. There is no technical reason a PC (with certain minimum specs) couldn't be used instead. But you must buy Microsoft's locked-down PC. You may not use that PC for other tasks or install other software on it. This is an example of artificially created vendor hardware lock-in
        • Microsoft software in the Enterprise often has inter
        • by sosume ( 680416 )

          Funny how when Apple fucks up anything, their customers always start pointing fingers at Microsoft. "B..b..b..but Microsoft is INSECURE! And it CRASHES!" Meanwhile ignoring that Apple is overpriced crap.

          "Microsoft XBox is an entry-level PC with a Palladium chip."
          A Macbook Air is an entry-level laptop with a smartphone chip

          "Microsoft software in the Enterprise often has interdependencies with other Microsoft software .[snip].. an example of vendor software l

    • by Joce640k ( 829181 ) on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @06:56AM (#56379227) Homepage

      In other news: People pay $1000 for a monitor.

      • If you want more than 1920x1080 (and who doesn't?), things get more expensive quickly. I've got a Dell 27" 2560x1440 that cost $600 last year.

        • The same in 25 inches cost me less than 400
        • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

          I just bought a 50" 4K IPS monitor for $600. Sure, you *can* spend $1000+ for a monitor, but why would you want to drive it over a single USB port with an entire dock of peripherals?

        • I just want 4K resolution at a 16:10 ratio which doesn't exist. I think even a 4:3 ratio would be cool at that resolution.

      • In other news: People pay $1000 for a monitor.

        As far as I know Apple discontinued their monitor line. The newest Apple brand displays that are still available sell on Amazon for around $550. The one this Apple user bought was a 27 inch 4k Asus display for around $450. I don't know a single Apple who bought a display at the Apple store any more than I know anybody who bought their Bluetooth earplugs. In all cases you can get better products from 3rd party suppliers.

      • by dfghjk ( 711126 )

        a $1000 secondary monitor that can only be used through DisplayLink!

      • A really crappy monitor that can't even be driven by something that uses a GPU. I have a 4-year-old MacBook Pro and a few of my colleagues have newer ones. They'll all quite happily drive a pair of external 4K monitors (we've been buying 4K as standard for 2-3 years, because they're not much more expensive than 1080 ones). I've no idea why you'd want to buy a display that didn't have a standard DisplayPort or HDMI interface.
    • The release notes in the 'App store' aren't cut-and-pasteable, but they're replicated here: https://support.apple.com/en-g... [apple.com]

      No mention of anything to do with DisplayLink (the only 'display' related stuff is the addition of GPU support). Most of the release looks like it's a Safari update (one of the reasons I haven't yet applied it - it doesn't look important as I don't use Safari directly).

      A pretty poor show from Apple on this one.

      • by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @09:01AM (#56380081)

        The reason there’s no mention of DisplayLink is because DisplayLink isn’t part of the system any more than Adobe Flash or other unsupported third-party products are. I suspect that you and many others may be confused and thinking of DisplayPort instead.

        DisplayLink is a third-party company that I know as one that produces chips and drivers for use in USB devices that allows those devices (e.g. adapters or hubs) to appear as displays to the computer. I used a USB adapter of theirs to add a third monitor to a computer that only had video outputs for two monitors, and it worked okay for the most part, so long as you didn’t breathe or look at it funny, and so long as you were okay with the advertised 1080p being at about 5-10 Hz, making it suitable for web browsing static pages and not much else. The whole setup was incredibly brittle and seemed as if it was built of top of a pile of hacks, since I had it stop working more than once in the few years that I was using it. Driver updates to my Windows partition would break it. Driver updates to my Mac partition would break it. Driver updates to the device itself wouldn’t always fix it. Occasionally you’d plug it in or just turn everything back on after being off for the night and it just wouldn’t work, even though nothing had changed.

        My experience using DisplayLink products years ago was poor enough that I stopped using them as soon as it was practical to do so.

        Blaming Apple is a deflection from the real issue: it sounds as if their product is still built on top of a pile of brittle hacks and that their QA is still as poor as it was years ago. I was able to make it work because I was only using it for personal use; I couldn’t imagine anyone trying to use their stuff in a business environment.

    • You want proof that Apple is now firmly a cult?

      You want proof that Apple is now firmly a cunt? There, fixed that for you.

    • Not sure what the poster is saying, but you donâ(TM)t need the latest os to use the latest Xcode.

    • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      > I will always need to update to the new macOS and xCode on the day of their release.

      If this guy was a mouse he would be the first to get his head snapped in a trap too.

    • you should be blaming Apple for doing stupid shit like breaking your drivers in an update and then forcing you to have that particular point release to run an IDE

      Reminds me of "you should be blaming Apple for doing stupid shit like removing the headphone jack and then forcing you to have that particular adapter to listen to your headphone"

    • by guruevi ( 827432 )

      Apple releases beta and developer software updates WELL ahead of release and it's free. I got this update in mid-January. If your vendor does something very low-level and can't be bothered to fix their shit in 3-4 months, then the problem lies with the vendor, not Apple.

  • by Hognoxious ( 631665 ) on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @06:31AM (#56379095) Homepage Journal

    ROFLMAO.

    • by Greyfox ( 87712 )
      I know, right? I hurt myself laughing at the title. And all those Apple users. I was also laughing at them. Maybe I can use this to sell my company on giving me a proper Linux laptop with a proper fucking keyboard when all their Display Link monitors stop working.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

      ROFLMAO.

      Sure does. On Monday I upgraded my early 2001 MacBook Pro and haven't had a single issue with the external monitor I have.

      And even if I did have an issue I could have rolled back to one of 2 complete backups I made prior to the upgrade (made using the built in Time Machine functionality)

      • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        I mean 2011 .. I hate typos.

        • If you were talking about Windows, the original "2001" might have been correct. You can run Windows 10 on a Pentium IV, which released in 2000. It's painful, it's slow - but it would still work.
    • It does!

      It just stops working at some point.

  • Buy Apple.. (Score:3, Funny)

    by Daemonik ( 171801 ) on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @06:32AM (#56379107) Homepage

    ..It Just Works! So simple a grandmother can use it!

    • That used to be the truth for Apple.

      Apple computers were something that you could buy and hand to your grandma, with little more concern than doing a backup of her stuff from time to time just in case. Not because it was necessary because even if she fucked up, there was nearly no way she could possibly actually cause any damage.

      It kinda went downhill when Timmy took over. What you have now is the stability of Windows with the elitist attitude and compatibility of Linux.

  • Thousands of white slabs all measuring 1x4x9, have neen spotted floating in orbit
     
    Happy fiftieth to 2001: A Space Odyssey

  • I used to run MacOS as my main Desktop OS and run Linux in multiple VMs. When I updated to High Sierra I noticed my MacPro was not as fast as it used to be. With all the hoopla about Apple throttling old iPhones I no longer trusted Apple. I now run Ubuntu 17.10 bare metal on my Macpro. One of my D700's are used for my Virtual machines, the other for the Host OS applications. it's fast! It's a better development environment. I run Simplify3d for my Robo R1+ printer on the native OS. I use my 2nd
    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      Can you create paragraphs on your Linux MacPro desktop? Sure doesn't seem like it.
      • by OzPeter ( 195038 )

        Can you create paragraphs on your Linux MacPro desktop? Sure doesn't seem like it.

        Give him a break. He bought a Trashcan Mac Pro to run Linux. I am seriously concerned about his/her/it cognitive abilities over that decision alone.

        Either that or he's a troll, as the iPhone throttling was a trade off between battery capacity and phone performance.

  • Courage! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 04, 2018 @07:35AM (#56379465)

    Only Apple has the courage to break shit for no reason, and their users love it.

  • The truth of the matter is, DisplayLink driver support for OS X has always been rather shoddy.

    I purchased a $100 or so docking station a while back, from "j5create" (who makes a lot of products that specifically claim Mac compatibility). They rely on rebranded/customized DisplayLink drivers to make their video ports on their docks work. When I installed the latest Mac drivers from them for it, I found out that screen rotation wasn't supported -- so I couldn't use my second display that was rotated to "portr

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