MacBook doesn't remember Screen Orientation

Question

I've got at work two external displays + a MBP 13" 2017. (OS: Mojave 10.14.1 Beta)

The monitors are both BenQ (GL2450), connected via HDMI to a Thunderbolt 3 port. (one through hub, one through plain adapter)

Now I have rotated the left screen by 90 degrees and set up the Internal Display on the right, it all works fine. Until I come back to work after disconnecting everything for > 1h. Then all my screens rotation are messed up, the normally pivoted display is back to default, and the default display is now rotated by 90 degrees, though I did NOT switch Ports on the MBP or Adapters.

Only way to fix this is to manoeuvre the mouse through messed up displays and go to the system settings and change everything back to normal. Problem there is, if I rotate the most left monitor (default -> 90), it asks for confirmation, and most of the times I can't reach it fast enough through the messed up displays. Interestingly enough, if I rotate the middle monitor first (90 -> default), it doesn't ask for permission.

It's annoying to do this every morning I arrive to work, though I started to see it as kind of a challenge. No the OS is not the problem ... I'm in this situation way longer than Mojave was announced.

EDIT: tried to narrow down the problem by plugging in cables at different times, rebooting, other monitors etc. nothing of that worked. I'm out of ideas.

Answer 1

I had this same issue. So the solution is:

• The external monitor should be connected.
• From App drawer open ColorSync Utility.
• In Devices column, select display and Under Displays select your external monitor.
• Check if "Factory profile" path and "Current profile" path both are same.
• If not select drop down arrow next to "Current Profile" and select "Other".
• Select the same file name which is mentioned under Factory path.

Now your monitor will remember the screen orientation. Hope it helps :)

Answer 2

There are (at least) two different problems here. I'm "lucky" enough to have experienced both :-(

If you use two identical models, be aware that macOS doesn't care about their serial numbers. So when you connect both at the same time (e.g.: through a dock) then they are racing against each other. Some people are lucky because the same monitor always loses the race (longer cable? slower microcontroller?). Others are less lucky and see more random results. See complete details including log files, reproduction steps and workarounds at https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/377836/236162

I've been using a single external monitor for a long time now and obviously stopped experiencing the previous issue. Everything was fine until 10.15.7, then macOS stopped remembering my 90° orientation, now reverts to "standard" every single time I reconnect it. Never happened with 10.15.6. @Charanjeet_Singh 's answer gave me a lot of hope because I immediately found a ColorSync profile mess: 5 files for that same monitor, all with almost the same info except for some extra vcgp field, just different GUIDs. I deleted them all except for the Factory one however this made no difference. BTW macOS keeps recreating a DELL U2713HM-FFFFFFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFF-FFFFFFFFFFFF.icc copy of the factory profile.

10.15.7 seems to have broken rotation in more than one way: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252025348

UPDATE: I now use an AppleScript as workaround, see below.

UPDATE2: on the 19th of January 2020 the rotation bug has magically disappeared. There's been no software update I've been aware of. EDIT: because I... rebooted.

UPDATE3: following a security update (without any version number bump!), the issue came back on the 3rd of February 2020 EDIT: the problem happens like clockwork every time there is an OS update. An additional reboot fixes it!

# This rotate ONE external monitor of any model. Tested with Catalina.
# Note sure what this does with more than one monitor. 
#
# Note macOS has a race condition when you connect two identical monitors
# at once with a dock or MST daisy chaining (which is just hiding a 
# "dock"/hub inside the first monitor)
# https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/377836/236162
#
tell application "System Preferences"
    activate
    reveal anchor "displaysDisplayTab" of pane id "com.apple.preference.displays"
end tell
tell application "System Events"
    tell application process "System Preferences"
        delay 1
        set frontmost to true
        tell window 2 # monitor type not hardcoded
            click pop up button "Rotation:" of tab group 1
            keystroke "90" & return
        end tell
        # No infinite loop and force quit.
        # Retraining monitor links may take a while
        repeat with i from 1 to 12
            delay 1
            try
                # It is now window 1 because it has focus
                tell sheet 1 of window 1
                    click button "Confirm"
                    exit repeat
                end tell
            on error errText
                log errText
            end try
        end repeat
    end tell
end tell

Answer 3

There is a button labelled "Gather Windows" that ought to help you, but I am also looking for a real fix and there seems to be none.

Answer 4

No native MacOS solution that I could find. I use a free little app called 'Display Rotation Menu' - it works well.

Answer 5

Check your monitor built-in menu and look for any personalised option for rotation.

Mine had that option and now MacOS remembers.

Answer 6

I solved the problem using a DP cable and an HDMI cable instead of 2 HDMI cables. I now have 2 different EDIDs and AlphanumericSerialNumbers.

See my detailed case and solution here.