Apple spaces switching screens after sleeping

sleep-wakespaces

I have a 2017 Macbook Pro. I connect to two external screens via a Belkin Thunderbolt 3 Express Dock HD. They are arranged external|external|internal left to right. I have my 'menu bar' dragged to the far left external screen in the Displays preference pane, which is where I want my dock (on the far left hand side).

My issue is that whenever I wake the machine from sleep, the internal and central screen switch spaces, which is infuriating as I have to drag them all back to the correct place all the time.

Some other places say try switching the screen the menu bar is on, but this isn't appropriate for me as it would move my dock position.

I have 'Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use' disabled in Mission Control settings.

Is there any way to solve this problem, so that the spaces remain on their correctly affiliated screens, or failing that a quick way I can (preferably with a keyboard shortcut) cause the spaces on screens 2/3 to switch all in one go without the laborious dragging of up to six spaces back and forth?

Best Answer

Have you been doing an upgrade instead of clean install? If so, you will definitely find issues like these.

Try using Onyx - https://www.titanium-software.fr/en/onyx.html to clear the caches and run some maintenance. Hopefully your issue should get solved.

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MacOS – Why does spaces keep capturing keyboard input some times after switching spaces

I find that killing the Dock only sometimes makes the problem go away. Usually keyboard input returns, but if I switch spaces using the keyboard shortcuts, the visualisation sticks around & keyboard input is stolen again.

What I have found to work is putting the display to sleep. I've had the bottom right corner of the screen set to do that for ages, so it's quite convenient for me. I've never had this method fail; once the screen is awoken, the problem is gone & doesn't return when I switch spaces again.

To me this suggests that the problem isn't actually in Dock, it's in the system's EventTap subsystem, the bit that lets stuff like Spaces, Screen Sharing, LaunchBar, & Spotlight take keystrokes before the focussed application gets them. I've actually experienced a similar problem with Screen Sharing, where the system whose screen is being shared gets its keyboard input mangled if a modifier key is pressed on the viewing computer & not released until Screen Sharing has lost focus. It's sort of the reverse problem, but it indicates that perhaps the Spaces problem is the EventTap framework getting stuck in a similar way, never sending the message that Control isn't being held down any more.

Microsoft Word Forcing “Spaces” Switching

Note: This is a blind answer attempt: I don't have Microsoft Office on any of my computers.

Could you try:

System Preferences
    Mission Control

to deactivate:

    ☐ Automatically rearrange Spaces based on most recent use
    ☐ When switching to an application, switch to a space with open
               windows for the application

I deactivated both because they were always disturbing my working environment in a way I wasn't able to go ahead with what I was running in parallel on many spaces. Since I made this setting I'm able to work with an environment not running under my feet.

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