I have a Macbook Air 2013 model that I use at work and at home. At work I hook it up to an external Dell 27" monitor via a display port adapter. At home I like to hook it up to my Samsung 40" TV.
When I get home after using the mac with the Dell monitor, I plug it into the TV and it doesn't detect the external display (the macbook blinks off briefly, as does the TV but that's it). Even if I go to preferences and hit 'Detect Displays'.
It seems to work if I restart my computer, but I would like not to have to reboot in order to switch external displays. Are there any steps I might be able to take to stop this from continuing to happen?
Edit: I have also noticed that when re-connecting to my monitor at work I can't drag certain programs (iTunes, Sublime Text, maybe others) to my external monitor. They claim to be on the monitor, but aren't visible. Restarting the computer fixes this.
Best Answer
I solved the problem in the past with two steps :
If you start your computer screen drop but the monitor connected, the display will default to the external and your notebook is turned off.
To change which is the main screen you must enter the "Alignment" tab and drag the menu bar to the screen you want to be the main screen.