[Solved] New MacOS Catalina breaks DisplayLink

[lspintzyk]

Great!

You need to follow the article:
https://support.displaylink.com/know...lay-is-working

tl.dr
1. Uninstall DisplayLink driver first
2. go to recovery mode
3. invoke kextcache command as described in that article.

[silverscreen]

Originally Posted by lspintzyk

Great!

You need to follow the article:
https://support.displaylink.com/know...lay-is-working

tl.dr
1. Uninstall DisplayLink driver first
2. go to recovery mode
3. invoke kextcache command as described in that article.

Based on the title I thought this KB article was not relevant, but it fixed the first problem. The extension is now loaded and I have a mirror of my main monitor.

How to switch this from a mirror to a extended screen (as I had before)? Reconnecting the USB doesn't fix the issue. The Airplay icon is not visible and the only option for AirPlay Display is Off.

[lspintzyk]

Originally Posted by silverscreen

Based on the title I thought this KB article was not relevant, but it fixed the first problem. The extension is now loaded and I have a mirror of my main monitor.

How to switch this from a mirror to a extended screen (as I had before)? Reconnecting the USB doesn't fix the issue. The Airplay icon is not visible and the only option for AirPlay Display is Off.

Do you have latest 5.2.1 DisplayLink driver installed?
https://www.displaylink.com/downloads/file?id=1433

You can easily switch to extend mode in "System Preferences->Displays->Arrangement" where you have to untick "Mirror Displays" option.

[silverscreen]

Originally Posted by lspintzyk

Do you have latest 5.2.1 DisplayLink driver installed?
https://www.displaylink.com/downloads/file?id=1433

You can easily switch to extend mode in "System Preferences->Displays->Arrangement" where you have to untick "Mirror Displays" option.

I did a couple of uninstall / installs with 5.2.1 beta 2. Mirror displays is unchecked. AirPlay Display says only off in the select list. I see the Air Play icon and that also says off.

I see the two displays extended (directly connected) and the third (DisplayLink) as mirror. No option to extend the DisplayLink monitor.

I have the following setup: 1-2-3. Where 1 is the display link and 2 and 3 are connected to the Mac Mini. Playing around on the arrangement tab:

• When the menubar is on 1, then all displays are extended.
• When the menubar is on 2, then 1 is a mirror of 2.
• When the menubar is on 3, then 1 is a mirror of 3.

I also noticed that I can move my mouse cursor around on the mirrored screen, like it's a actual extended display, but I cannot click on anything! I want the menubar on 2 because this one is directly on front of me.

Any idea?

[lspintzyk]

Originally Posted by silverscreen

I did a couple of uninstall / installs with 5.2.1 beta 2. Mirror displays is unchecked. AirPlay Display says only off in the select list. I see the Air Play icon and that also says off.

I see the two displays extended (directly connected) and the third (DisplayLink) as mirror. No option to extend the DisplayLink monitor.

I have the following setup: 1-2-3. Where 1 is the display link and 2 and 3 are connected to the Mac Mini. Playing around on the arrangement tab:

• When the menubar is on 1, then all displays are extended.
• When the menubar is on 2, then 1 is a mirror of 2.
• When the menubar is on 3, then 1 is a mirror of 3.

I also noticed that I can move my mouse cursor around on the mirrored screen, like it's a actual extended display, but I cannot click on anything! I want the menubar on 2 because this one is directly on front of me.

Any idea?

Try reset screen preferences:
sudo rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.windowserver.plist
rm /Users/$USER/Library/Preferences/ByHost/com.apple.windowserver.*

If does not help, please gather logs using that tool and raise bug here:
https://support.displaylink.com/
You can gather logs using that tool:
https://www.displaylink.com/downloads/file?d=66

[steelvoltage]

I was able to fix the issue this morning.

Steps that I took:

Uninstalled the displaylink driver.
Shutdown my mac and entered recovery mode.
Opened up the terminal and ran:

kextcache -i /Volumes/Local

Note: Local is the name of my disk. Yours may vary.
The command returned a string/id/guid (not sure what it entails), but there was no error message.

reboot

After it booted back up, I opened up terminal again.

kextcache | grep DisplayLink

The grep returned nothing, which now I knew the driver was gone completely. Grep is a regular expression search, meaning it returning nothing is what we want here as we cleared the cache.

I installed the beta driver and it rebooted.

Afterward, success!

[ElKekoTopo]

I tried above solution, after it booted back up, I opened up terminal again. I type kextcache | grep DisplayLink and that's what I get, idk if this is good or not (or should I type that code in recovery mode?). I attached my output logs.

EDIT: Added screenshot of kextstat | grep DisplayLink. It returned nothing so the driver was gone?

EDIT2: Added screenshot of kextstat | grep DisplayLink in recovery mode because I don't knot where I should type this. It retuned command not found.

[NancyV]

thanks for your post steelvoltage, it gave me some progress towards a solution

Originally Posted by steelvoltage

I was able to fix the issue this morning.

Steps that I took:

Uninstalled the displaylink driver.
Shutdown my mac and entered recovery mode.
Opened up the terminal and ran:

kextcache -i /Volumes/Local

Note: Local is the name of my disk. Yours may vary.
The command returned a string/id/guid (not sure what it entails), but there was no error message.

reboot

After it booted back up, I opened up terminal again.

kextcache | grep DisplayLink

The grep returned nothing, which now I knew the driver was gone completely. Grep is a regular expression search, meaning it returning nothing is what we want here as we cleared the cache.

I installed the beta driver and it rebooted.

Afterward, success!

this solution got output to my 2 DisplayLink driven external monitors, but required some extra work in the system preferences.
reboot broke it all again

Steps:
1. uninstalled DisplayLink driver
2. rebooted and checked the kextcache to verify it was cleared and verified DisplayLink software no longer installed
3. reinstalled DisplayLink driver v5.2(15)
4. rebooted

Results: 2 external DisplayLink monitors are recognized by the OS (cursor displays on each) but only shows black screen. app windows moved to the monitors do not display, nor does the desktop background image

5. Opened System/Preferences/Displays
Selected: Arrangement Mirror Displays
all external monitors display everything perfectly
deselecting 'mirror...' and the DL monitors go back to black, but clicking on each monitor in the arrangement display shows the thin red line indicating another monitor adjacent to the main display
Selected each of the external monitors in turn and selected "Optimize for display"
Unselected 'Mirror Displays" and all are working as expected

6. Rebooting computer - external DisplayLink monitors return to black w/ cursor state.

any other thoughts or suggestions welcome ... I'll try anything at this point. this is my work computer.

Thanks, All!

[ver0n]

Originally Posted by lspintzyk

Great!

You need to follow the article:
https://support.displaylink.com/know...lay-is-working

tl.dr
1. Uninstall DisplayLink driver first
2. go to recovery mode
3. invoke kextcache command as described in that article.

At first the new beta driver did not work, but after doing the kextcache, now 5.2.1 beta works

Thanks you

[Bartonyn]

Originally Posted by lspintzyk

Great!

You need to follow the article:
https://support.displaylink.com/know...lay-is-working

tl.dr
1. Uninstall DisplayLink driver first
2. go to recovery mode
3. invoke kextcache command as described in that article.

Tried to do it this way, but terminal command is not available in recovery mode on my mac which runs catalina.