Bit of a long shot but maybe someone else has a notion… I’ve got a vintage 2018 MacBook Pro (i.e., the era where absolutely everything external has to connect via Thunderbolt 3). I also need to get some paid development work done and I do it on a nearby identical MBPro that runs a far newer ver of MacOS, and to do so I use Splashtop. The remote MBPro has an external screen added and when I remote in, the remote sessions sprawls across two screens on the computer I sit at. Oh, and it, itself, the computer I sit at, is running four screens.
The issue is that three consecutive times this afternoon, I’d be typing away (or mouse-clicking away) editing a script or putting a button on a layout or whatever when all of a sudden all the screens at the local MBPro I’m sitting at go dark.
One of the three times it was a complete crash requiring reboot. The other two times, there was a shitload of blinking and random screens lighting up briefly and eventually, in fits and starts, the screens would resume functionality. During that phase, mouse, external keyboard, network connection, external headphones, etc, (all of which are attached by Thunderbolt) would be lost to the computer and it would gradually reacquire use of them, also, in fits and starts. The remote Splashtop connection would always be missing in action (although I could reconnect).
Does this sound like the GPU is overloading and doing a faceplant, or does it sound more like the whole USB-4 / Thunderbolt 3 environment is crashing? Or is the computer in its entirety overheating?
I suppose it could also be a Splashtop bug since it’s only cropped up while using Splashtop.
How do I troubleshoot this? I kind of need it to Just Work. (Don’t wish to update the native OS on this computer for long boring reasons)
I don’t know the exact reasons, but similar things have always happened to me with every Macbook I’ve used, Intel or Apple Silicon, Thunderbolt 3 or 4, daisy-chained or not. It just doesn’t seem like a very reliable protocol =/ I can usually get them to work for a day at a time (which is more than what you have right now), but at least once a week I have to unplug something or restart a computer to get one of the monitors to show an image. I hate it. Never had issues like that with real DisplayPort or HDMI ports. This has been the case at 3-4 jobs, with like 4-5 different Macbook computers, 5-6 different monitors, 3-4 different hubs, and dozens of cables.
Sorry, no real answer for you, but a few things you could try:
If your Mac has more than one Thunderbolt port, try using another one. They don’t all go to the same controllers internally, and depending on the particular model, sometimes one port or another might have more bandwidth (it’s crazy, I know… you can google that though)
If you’re not currently using an external powered Thunderbolt hub, that could be worth a shot, instead of daisy-chaining them or however you’re doing it now. They can be expensive though (like $150+)…
If you have an HDMI port, you can try connecting one of the monitors to that instead (or by way of a Thunderbolt or USB-C to HDMI adapter if you don’t)
Similarly, I also had better luck with I used a direct Thunderbolt connection to one monitor and a separate Thunderbolt to DisplayPort adapter for the other monitor (even though both monitors were the same make & model). That worked way better than daisy-chaining them together.
There are other remote desktop apps, including Apple’s own screen sharing, but not sure how well they work with different external monitor configs.
Depending on your stack and dev environment/IDE, you might be able to just host the dev server on the remote computer and stream over code instead of pixels, e.g. VS Code Remote Development or Remote Development by JetBrains. That way all the graphics are handled locally and it’s just data, not screens, you’re sending across the network.
It happened to me just now, on a barely-few-months-old M3 Air and a brand-new Dell Thunderbolt 4 monitor with an internal Thunderbolt hub connected to a second external monitor. The second monitor mysteriously stopped working no matter what I did. Had to restart the computer AND unplug the monitor AND flip the cable to get it to detect it again — none of those things individually did the trick. This exact set up was fine for the last few days, but I had to reset it last week too. It’s just such a crappy stack =/
I have four Thunderbolt ports. But no other ports whatsoever, unless you want to count the headphones port (it does at least have one of those!).
TB1: I bought an AC powered device that lets me use TB1 for powering the MacBook while still attaching peripheral devices. The device I attached is a four-port hub that has HDMI and USB 3.x (classic USB port) . External monitor #1 is attached to that HDMI port. The hub also has VGA and DVI ports but you can only run one display at a time. The USB port has a cable to which I can attach my camera to download pix but it spends most of its time unoccupied.
TB2: Has a plain Thunderbolt-to-DVI converter and external monitor #2 is attached to it.
TB3: Has a hub that provides gigabit ethernet (in use), passthru Thunderbolt, DVI, and USB 3.x. The DVI port has external monitor #3 attached. The USB port has a USB hub which in turn has my external keyboard (via a USB to ADB converter), headphones, mouse dongle, and a USB label printer all running off it. It’s an AC powered USB hub. The passthru Thunderbolt has a cable to which I attach an external hard drive when I’m running backups but otherwise it stays unoccupied.
TB4: Has a Thunderbolt 3 - Thunderbolt 2 converter cable, to which is attached a Thunderbolt 2 hub that has a FireWire 800 port on it. I attach external FireWire drives to it as need be but they’re not regularly on there.
I do have an external GPU card (an NVIDIA) and an enclosure for it, but I haven’t located a Mojave driver for it and I need to run at least Mojave on this rig. (And at most Mojave, for that matter).
The laptop gets quite hot in the area just above the delete key / lower right corner of the TFT screen.
Overheating? Overloaded Thunderbolt/modernUSB bus? Overloaded GPU? Bad Apple fairies?
I’m on Mojave on a 2018 MacBook Pro 4 port and 40 years in the Mac biz but that’s a horrid bunch of connectors and externals you’ve got hung off the poor beast.
Mojave is getting long in the toothbut I’m “cold dead hands” with it.
You’ll just have to trim down to what is minimum you need to do you work and reconnect a bit at a time keeping an eye on activity monitor.
There are just too many permutations
So, if I’m reading you correctly, it’s most likely more to do with the total load on the bus rather than the video load on the GPU, right?
I was mostly wondering because the times it misbehaves are Teams meetings and Splashtop. Both of them are spraying a lot of video pixels, and/or being prepared to share any of your own screens, or both. On the other hand, Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection does that too, and MS RDC doesn’t make my system unstable.
The difficulty of it is that the computer doesn’t misbehave whenever I use Splashtop or Teams. It’s that when the computer does misbehave, it’s for sure running Splashtop or Teams. It would take a while before I could conclude that its reliability is different, and all that while I’d be working with less screen
I’d try dialing down refresh rates first. No need to be running Teams at 144Hz.
If that does not do it dial some screens down in resolution. No need for 4k everything. 1440p is great. 1080 will do fine for some things too. You can decide where you want to lose a little fidelity.
If all that does not work then start turning some monitors off (as a test).
Try watching activity monitor to see what is spiking. Then also look up the log files after a crash …don’t ask me how to do that - I had staff for that.
Just a thought - are you running Safari on Mojave ??? It is horrid for overloading processes.
Me too but have a few links on Safari that are useful for quick reference but sure way for my machine to get hot and bothered.
You are just have to be methodical watching processes and logs and see what is glitching.
I’d say you are moving beyong the Intel Apple laptops design remit.
You might succeed with M- series then no Mojave
I’m right in the middle with that. My backup 2019 MBP i7 4 port died and figured I had to bite the bullet and learn the new OS - good and bad.
Effortless power and no fan
Stuff in the OS I don’t like - stuff I do.
Keyboard way better, ports better and cheap thrills but overkill security.
I don’t know how the GPU compares…overall insane speed for the money. Weighs nothing. ( 13" M2 Air w 16 256 ) $1000. Better chassis too.
I’m looking forward to M-series but not yet. I still use 32-bit apps. Hell, I still use PowerPC apps. I have a lot of time and energy invested in Parallels virtual machines. I don’t look forward to trying to convert all those to QEMU, and Parallels isn’t doing anything to permit me to run Intel operating systems on an M-series Mac.
I resisted going off Mojave for a long time …have one critical app in use daily that is 32 bit and there are few other things I didn’t like in the newer OSes.
But my backup 2019 bit the dust AND my 2015 iMac as well so no way I’m sitting with only one machine. I may get the 27" iMac back which I dearly miss seeing our travel photos on that 5k screen but that’s not really a laptop backup.
Snagged a 2024 Air 16/256 for $1k Aus …still in warranty and quite impressed.
It’s only for use riding …that’s likely what killed the last one.
So the remaining 2018 MPB remains pampered at home and the love new Air is lighter, more screen real estate and never any worry about running out of battery.
So catching up with 10 years of MacOS changes and the different processor has been interesting.
Wrong steed sir. :dragon
9 months of the year I’m out on the motorcycle listening to audio books.
Part of the ride is stopping for lunch or at a picnic spot where I read and catch up online for an hour or so.
I have a daily blog
So this much newer, and lighter MacBook Air handles the rigours of being in the top case for hours on end - where my main laptop …getting old like me age 7 rather than 77, stays home pampered.
I’m online perhaps 12-15 hours a day. The machines get a lot of use.
The new Air is also the learning platform to accommodate 10 year newer MacOS
You’ve also turned your computer into the world’s biggest iPod!
