Feedback about driver v3.0 beta 2
 

Hi All,

The little elves at DisplayLink have been working hard and have delivered a new beta at http://www.displaylink.com/downloads/osx

The purpose of this beta has been to keep the performance improvements whilst removing the artefacts introduced in beta 1. In our testing it has behaved well so we think it's worthy of you attention.

The feedback we have received about beta 1 has been extremely useful to us. Please let us know what you think about this new version.

Kind regards and happy Christmas,
Carlo

I installed 3.0b2 a couple days ago and it is definitely "better" but still not all the way there. I have a lot of artifacting still when doing simple operations. I made a video -- I think that's the easiest way to show some of the glitches:

https://vimeo.com/197186133
:)

Update on 3.0b2
 

So what I'm seeing is that the mouse artifacts have gone away but the artifacts from the windows or the icons are still there. If I take two finder windows and run them near each other, the shadow of the top window will white out the bottom one vs being translucent. And if I drag a window over the other it artifacts the bottom window.

But this doesn't happen 100% of the time. I can start dragging it across quickly but when I slow down or stay on the other window long enough it goes into that mode. And the top window blanks white usually at the same point.

But its enough that I'll try to run with that second monitor on for another few days and see if its usable.

Still have the overlapping window refresh problem. Acute with finder desktop. Any window dragged over finder desktop erases desktop to white.

2560x1600 displays

Hi thank you,

We're struggling to reproduce what is shown in the excellent video from luckman212 or any sort of window-over-window corruption.
Unless it's a mirroring setup of course, in mirror we can easily see similar issues, which are a problem introduced in macOS some time ago.

Are you using mirror? If not any specific setting maybe in Accessibility/Display?

One check you may want to do is to take a screenshot of the whole desktop when the issue is visible. Is the corruption visible also on the screenshot?

Best regards,
Carlo

Thanks, no I am not using mirroring. 3 independent displays: 2 native and 1 using a Plugable DisplayLink usb3 adapter. All 3 monitors are identical (Viewsonic VP2365wb) and running at 1920x1080 resolution. Nothing special in Accessibility, I do have "Reduce Transparency" turned on but I re-tested with it off and it did not make any difference on the corruption.

accessibilty control panel:
https://monosnap.com/file/PnFviRoqIB...IxOraPIcUh.png

displays:
https://monosnap.com/file/dSlEhPE55u...OLbPaWgUhn.png

Ok I did this and actually the corruption *is* in the screenshot, which is a little interesting (I didn't think it would be). Is there any other info I can send to help debug further? I attached the screenshot of the corrupt desktop.

Video of the finder issues
 

I have the same settings in my Accessibility and Display as luckman showed. But I'm on 2 4K displays, one native on the multi-adapter on a Macbook, the other through the USB port.

I took screenshots and I find that it doesn't show the artifacts when I do that. Both when I do that as a full screen shot and when I grab a portion of the screen. Interestingly, when I grab the portion of the screen with Shift-Cmd-4 it actually whites out both of the finder windows as I travel over them while leaving the background normal. But in the image that is grabbed they show what is there.

So I have created a quickie video you can view to see what I'm seeing. I can do this in a higher resolution if you want but low res allowed doing this upload very quickly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBkdXS-q16A

Phrogg

unfortunately beta 2 did not fix the problems i'm seeing.

the lower 2/3 of the desktop background of the displaylink scree are still white and the shadows erasing the contents behind to white is also still happening.

Thank you for the information. It is really useful indeed.

We found what the trigger is (thanks to Christian from the team here, good he's around this week!).
To see all these issues you have to disable "Displays have separate Spaces" in the Mission Control system preference.

In all cases it looks like the contents we receive are corrupted but I can confirm Phrogg's finding that taking a screen shot forces the rendering of some contents so those corruptions won't be captured.
A quick test in 10.11 shows this is another regression in Sierra, unsure if something introduced in a minor update. We'll open a bug with Apple immediately.

As for the other defects already fixed in 10.12.1 and 10.12.2, the priority of this issue can be raised by opening more bugs with Apple at bugreporter.apple.com
We'd be grateful if you could open bugs there as well.

In the meantime you may want to enable separate spaces, currently the default setting in macOS. You won't be able to show windows across displays but there are quite a few advantages.

Thank you again for the feedback, keep it coming!

Best regards,
Carlo

That is great to hear!

Would be happy to open a case, but could you guys post somewhere the details or wording that you'd like us to use, so we can be sure all of the cases are linked together properly to generate the higher priority?

I haven't tried in a while but I remember not liking this setting when I first encountered it. What are some of those advantages?

Much better with proper settings
 

Performance, stability, and graphical glitches have been greatly improved from their baseline state in this release. I'm loving the progress the teams is making - it's a huge leap from the days of 2.x and brings DisplayLink up to a level at which I can recommend using it again with macOS.

Once I checked the "Displays have separate spaces" option, I saw a further improvement in performance and decrease in visual artifacts. I am so happy with the way this is working now. Great job guys - keep up the amazing work.

The new driver is improved. Maybe a notch faster. and transparency works well with it remaining on. However, it still significantly falls behind Duet Display where the experience is almost native. Not to mention that that one is passed over USB 2.0 connection (low bandwidth) and pushes a retina 2048x1536

What's interesting about DD is that they have an option of selecting either the dedicated GPU or the iGPU to process it.. which leads to me to think that there might be some kind of GPU acceleration involved. Now i dont know how DL does it but maybe DL can harness more of that power too. Comparing the two, the displaylink gobbles a ton of CPU while the DD does not go up as much for the same tasks

OS: El capitan 10.11.6

Hi luckman,

About the separate spaces bug simply describe the issue as you see it, attach your system profile and mention our own bug ID: 29825934

Off the top of my head some advantages of the separate spaces:
- Menu bar on all screens
- Full screen video on one screen does not blank all others
- Easier to keep all window contents in one screen

I'm sure the are advantages to the Spaces feature but I'm not using it enough to notice really. Maybe others can share their impressions.

Regards,
Carlo

Blanking off and on
 

So I switched that preference and it makes the second screen really work pretty well! Overall I like that configuration and I'm not sure how I ended up with that choice turned off!

So things are much better in most respects. The one other issue I have been having is still there and finally got me to just pull the plug on that DL monitor.

I am apparently losing sync with it constantly. It was occasionally but it just kept happening more and more often to where it is now 3-5 times per minute. Both screens blank, it resets all of the windows onto the monitor attached to the built-in graphics card, then it blanks again as it sees the second monitor and puts things back on the DL monitor. This now reoccurs maybe 3-5 times per minute and is making working infeasible.

I am hooked up with a Macbook into the AV adapter where I have one 4K monitor via HDMI and a USB 3 connection to a USB 3.0 hub. That hub has a hard drive (for backups) attached and the DL adapter for the second monitor.

I can drop the hub and backup drive out of the middle of this, but is there any known issue with doing this over the AV adapter on a Macbook?

Well dropping the hub out of the middle sure didn't help :(.

It happens often enough I can probably catch it on video if you really want to see.

Thanks Carlo. To me having a menu bar on all screens is not really useful, plus it wastes some space. The rest of the features are good but for me, I noticed more crashes in WindowServer (or Finder? not sure which) when I had this option on. Mostly Finder would "freeze" and the menubar would start flickering very rapidly and I would get the spinning beach ball and have to force quit. For me having the option off is more stable, even though there is more artifacting as was seen in my video.

I will try to open a bugreport with Apple in the coming days and reference your bug 29825934

thanks.

Hi Phrogg,

By the description it looks like the device is falling off the bus. As we have found out investigating another report on the forum, both the 2015 and 2016 MacBooks have problems in keeping the USB3 bus going.

We'll probably have to raise a bug against the hardware for this one. We have to collect USB traces and everything.

If that is the issue (and you are indeed using a USB 3 device), the only workaround I can suggest for the moment is to force the system to use USB2 by using a USB2 cable or a USB2 hub. It should be OK for resolutions up to 2560x1440.

If the explanation does not apply to your case, please raise an issue following the instructions in http://support.displaylink.com/knowl...to-displaylink
Please collect the logs immediately after the screens have come back.

Kind regards,
Carlo

+1 dropping the bus
 

Yes, I've also moved to the new beta and there are both improvements and new problems.

Our company has just installed 170 workstations with Targus ACP77EUX DisplayLink docks, mixed Windows and Mac OS.

Our mac users are all on MacBook Pros, Sierra, attempting to use the internal display plus one external through the dock. (Currently on a DVI connection, switching to DisplayPort for higher resolution once the cables arrive.)

I've upgraded one machine to these new beta drivers and the 'dropped bus' issue is annoying, as others have reported above - occurring a couple of times a minute.

Is it just the video that's being reset, or ethernet, keyboard, external drives etc connected to the dock?

Thank you,
Simon

I filed my bug with Apple this morning, #29881919 :)

Hi seastwood,

If the issue is only visible with the new drivers it's something else and quite concerning. Can you please open a bug on support.displaylink.com with the logs just after the issue has happened?
Please follow the instructions in http://support.displaylink.com/knowl...to-displaylink

Best regards,
Carlo

Last version of Mac Sierra (Beta) does not fix any of the issues.

There is another ugly problem as well. How to reproduce:

1. Lock your Mac with two monitors attached via DisplayLink
2. Drink a coffee
3. Unlock you Mac (with latest Sierra beta)

Expected result: nothing is wrong.
Actual result: windows from the monitors are moved to different random places.

Note: It looks like something is happening before logging in. When you click/keypress to see the login prompt, something happens, main Mac display starts flickering a bit.

Does anyone else have this issue?

I believe this is a known issue with the beta drivers (wake from sleep and startup behavior is still wonky). Until the problem is resolved, I have adjusted the behavior of my Mac a little so that it no longer puts the displays to sleep, and starts the "Message" screen saver with just a single press of the spacebar as the text to display (which then basically just displays an Apple logo on your screen that shifts around periodically). I've found this to work great in almost all situations.

Instead of having the DL device connected at startup, I just wait for the login prompt, and then plug the DL device into the computer, at which point everything works swimmingly.

Hope that helps.

This started for me after I upgraded from 10.12.1 to 10.12.2. Checking "Displays have separate spaces" resolves the issue.

I also noticed it happened regardless of whether I was using the current stable DisplayLink driver or the beta driver.

Looks like this is a regression in 10.12.2. :(

Almost Unusable
 

I recently got a docking station to use with my MacBook operating Sierra. I was using the driver 2.6 and it was working fine but with a little keyboard lag. One day it completely stopped working (nothing would show up on monitors when plugged in), so I upgraded to the new beta even though there was the warning against performance issues. I didn't seem to have a choice.

Now I am semi-operating but with some severe issues that make it so that most of the time I would rather just work from my laptop. Any advice on either of my major issues listed below? At this point I think I need to switch to another brand as this is majorly cutting into my work productivity...

1. SEVERE keyboard and mouse lag (wireless Logitech). Mouse lag seems to slightly improve if laptop is open instead of closed, but keyboard connection is very intermittent and sometimes will work fine then sometimes will not work for up to 3 minutes then come back fine.

2. 2nd monitor plugged into HDMI port is completely not available as a display (tried gather windows, detect displays, etc). This monitor was working fine before the beta update, and works fine if I plug into the DVI port with an adapter.

CPU Hog
 

I've pretty much stopped using the displays on my Hub as the CPU impact was typically 50% on a MBP i7 (Previous model). Anyone else finding CPU consumption an issue.

Driving two DisplayPort Dell Monitors @ 1920 * 1080 and MBP @ Retina.

Hi yes we discovered this issue too. It's worse the more monitors you have connected.

We definitely want to fix this for the final 3.0.
I'm trying now a build that resolves this issue, seems to be working fine so far.

Best regards,
Carlo

Alyson I'd suggest to write to our support including the logs: http://support.displaylink.com/knowl...to-displaylink

Please also try to install 2.6 again to see if it behaves better, from what you wrote it looks some kind of hardware issue and the logs may be able to confirm it.

Regards,
Carlo

@Carlo, did DisplayTeam also work on this issue and white rectangles issues?

Thank you!

Potential breakthrough
 

Hello all,

I've been having problems with a DisplayLink screen dropping in and out every minute or so, as I reported somewhere above. (And logged with support.)

However, I might have made an unexpected breakthrough.

The dock, a Targus ACP77EUZ has DVI and DisplayPort video connections. We have all been connected by DVI since day one, but a colleague found me a DP cable to try.

I'm very happy to report that one hour in, everything is absolutely rock solid.

This is a MBP on Sierra 10.12.1, with 3.0b2 drivers.

Simon

Has anyone gotten the chance to test on 10.12.3 (16D30a) ?

Thank you Simon,

This is really useful information.
On Monday we'll try your same configuration with DVI connection. Are you all using those Philips 258B6QJEB monitors or are there any others we can try?

Regards,
Carlo

Hi Carlo,

We're all using the same monitors. Some of our users do use a different config with mirroring and their laptop closed, but the hardware is consistent: MBP - Targus - Philips.

Thanks very much,
Simon

My feedback
 

I've MBA early 2014 i7/1.7GHz on 10.12.2 + DELL D3100 w/ DL driver 3.0 b2 (just one monitor connected on the HDMI with full HD resolution)

I tried different combinations:
DL 3.0b2 + OS 10.11.6, 10.12.2

The DisplayLinkManager goes crazy every second day and uses >100-110% of the CPU, event with no windows or application running on that desktop.
Other colleagues experienced the same problem with slightly different configurations.


Best,
V.

The "White squares" become annoying! I am not able to see when I receive a new email and I missed a call because my screen (Chrome) was WHITE. I cannot "click it" each 2 minutes.

Please fix this as soon as possible!

Don't forget Carlo's suggested temporary workaround for the artifacts/window paint failures:

1. Open System Preferences
2. Click on Mission Control
3. Make sure "Displays have separate Spaces" is checked

I haven't had any artifacts or paint failures since enabling this option. I don't typically prefer to run with this option selected, but it's better than the alternative with the current DisplayLink driver! Hopefully it doesn't make WindowServer super unstable for you like it seemed to for @luckman212 (it hasn't affected stability that way for me as far as I can tell).

Just came to report that I installed the 10.12.3 (16D32) final yesterday and still have the same artifacting as before, so Apple has once again left us hanging it seems. :mad:

sorry. but this is not a really viable option. it does not allow a window to span multiple displays.

I totally agree with you.

With the current driver, it's more of a pick-your-poison situation than an actual workaround. If you don't typically have windows that span multiple displays, then you might prefer this to the artifact/repaint issues at the cost of the other shortcomings of enabling that option. On the other hand, if you need windows to span multiple displays, then you're stuck with the artifacts/repaint.

Unfortunate and annoying, I hope it gets resolved satisfactorily soon!

Having an issue with colors seeming very washed out. Greys are hard to see and kind of just blend with whites. Anyone else have these issues?

I'm seeing high CPU usage (90-100%) for the DisplayLinkManager task with 3.0 beta 2 drivers on Sierra (10.12.3)

MBP (Late 2013, 13") Intel Iris Integrated graphics
Kensington SD3500V dock driving 2 displays, along with Mac Retina panel for a 3-diaply setup.

Anyone else seeing this high CPU usage which I thought we'd seen the back of some time ago? It's certainly new (again) for me, but can't be sure which of the upgrades (displaylink drivers or OSX) I've applied recently has caused this.

Can I provide any further info for debug purposes?

Rob.