Macbooks and Peripherals

Gig Performer on Mac OS X
1

I’m hoping that my GP colleagues can assist with this one…

I have a MacBook Pro 2021 14" with an M1 Pro chip, 16GB Ram and a terabyte SSD. I have two dongles hooked up to the USB C ports on the left side of the MacBook.

  1. A 12-port replicator with USB -C power passthrough
  2. An Apple branded USB-C to HDMI and USB-A adapter

The 12-port replicator has three HDMI ports, 1 USB C, 2 USB A 3.1, 2 USB A 2.0, VGA and Ethernet. I have an additional 4-port USB–3 adapter coming off of it.

I keep having strange issues with my USB peripherals and my external monitor.

I am mirroring my laptop screen to the external monitor so that I have a larger screen in a more convenient place while I’m programming in GP. The mouse will simply ‘disappear’ from the external screen, but still be visible on the laptop screen. This happens regardless of if I am using the external bluetooth mouse or the pad on the laptop itself. I’ve tried the usual suggestion of making the mouse cursor larger which apparently fixes this for some people, but not for me.

With regards to my USB peripherals, if I either restart the macbook or I power it off and then power it on later, some or all of my USB peripherals (NI S88, Roland FA07, Novation LaunchControl, Behringer XR18, PandaMidi MidiBeam, USB thumbdrive with my Waves licenses) simply ‘vanish’ from my configuration. I have to power off and then power on the peripherals for them to show back up. While I’m definitely liking the performance on the Mac, I have to say that my experience with peripherals is horrid compared to what I have been used to with Windows. This is not the only MacBook I own that I have had issues with both peripherals and external monitors, but they are different issues on every MacBook.

Any thoughts on how to alleviate these issues would be very appreciated.

Help me GP Mac community, you’re my only hope.

X

2

I have the same MBP :slightly_smiling_face:

What happens if you attach the HDMI directly to the MacBook?

Currently I‘m running Power either by the power port or the second USB-c on the left side and all other stuff (Scarlett 8i6, 2x USB MIDI) by a self powered 4port hub attached to the 1st port on left side.

From time to time (programming…) I attach a 24“ on the HDMI on the right

Absolutely no issues!

3

Yeah, I have an anker self powered hub on my laptop and when I’m at home I also plug in a large monitor via the HDMI port and mirror the displays. I’ve never had a problem either.

4

@tripleB , How did I not notice that HDMI port… on the right side… feeling silly now. Plugged it in and we’ll see if it stays stable with the mouse. My 2019 MacBook pro didn’t have an HDMI port on it.

@dhj , which Anker hub do you use?

thanks,

X

2 Likes
5

Good to hear that you could locate your troublemaker :slightly_smiling_face:

As an alternative- I use this one https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B08P3GDLVP

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