Native smooth scaling does not work properly for Intel macs

[coolaj86]

I have two 2015 MacBook Pros that fault and reboot every other time or so that they go into sleep mode - but only when BetterDisplay is active.

• one is a dual-graphics with macOS 12.5
• the other is integrated graphics with macOS 12.6

I just reinstalled the second one fresh today and the only things I have installed are:

• BetterDisplay
• BetterTouchTool
• Karabiner Elements
• Brave
• iTerm2, fish, gpg, and other developer tools

The problem seems to only occur when BetterDisplay is active - if I unplug my external monitors, going to sleep doesn't cause a faulty reboot.

When BetterDisplay is in use connected to two Apple Thunderbolt Displays (Thunderbolt 1), which are each set up to mirror and be optimized for their corresponding dummy display, the laptops will panic and reboot most times when they go into sleep.

This has been happening for several months (I believe it started after BetterDummy was renamed), but I waited until I was able to test on a fresh system to report it (I had some other display-related tools on the other system).

I'm not sure how to get proper system report that will help with debugging.

[waydabber]

Hi @coolaj86,

• does the sleep issue arise when there is no dummy connected?
• if not, then the issue might be that generally a mirrored dummy does this to macOS or a sleep workaround employed by the app causes this. To test the latter, you can try disabling all of these options:

If the issue still persists, then we'll have a core macOS issue I am afraid which will be difficult to address. However if you want flexible HiDPI scaling, it might be better to use native smooth scaling. Now this latter feature was tested on Apple Silicon and will probably not work with the 2015 MBP - but not because it is impossible to make it work but because I simply did not have the Mac to properly test and tune the feature. If you are willing to help me test it with your 2015 MBPs (both with integrated and discrete graphics), we could make it work.

A related discussion: #1035 (reply in thread)

[waydabber]

Hi @coolaj86 - there is an interim built you could test to see if native smooth scaling works with your Intel macs (it would be great if you could test both the discrete and integrated GPU versions).

(download removed)

This way you don't have to use dummies which probably causes the issue with those models. Enable it here (with dummies disconnected/discarded):

[coolaj86]

Dual-Graphics 2015 Intel MBP

It took a few reboots, disconnecting the dummies, and switching the resolutions back and forth, but it did eventually work.

🥳

Crisp fonts again at last!

[coolaj86]

Integrated Graphics 2015 Intel MBP

Even doing it the second time the order of operations to transition was a little confusing, but it works!

🥳

Many thanks! Pro is worth every penny!

[waydabber]

Great, thanks for the testing and the confirmation! :)

[coolaj86]

Unfortunately, it still crashes on sleep.

Maybe it's just the fact that no one at Apple is still using Thunderbolt Displays and Thunderbolt 1 just isn't supported anymore.

I will just disable sleep. 🤷‍♂️

panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff8000ac3a1a): Wake transition timed out after 180 seconds while calling power state change callbacks. Suspected bundle: com.apple.iokit.IOThunderboltFamily. Thread 0x14e454.
Failure code:: 0x00000004 00000027

Backtracing specified thread
Panicked task 0xffffff8b68f1d670: 229 threads: pid 0: kernel_task
Backtrace (CPU 0), panicked thread: 0xffffff9032eeb540, Frame : Return Address
0xfffffff2a8aab770 : 0xffffff80003c952b 
0xfffffff2a79cbc00 : 0xffffff80002aa642 
0xfffffff2a79cbc70 : 0xffffff80002a83d7 
0xfffffff2a79cbcc0 : 0xffffff8000294aae 
0xfffffff2a79cbcf0 : 0xffffff8000a434db 
0xfffffff2a79cbd30 : 0xffffff8000a44a9c 
0xfffffff2a79cbd60 : 0xffffff8002fd08ed 
0xfffffff2a79cbd80 : 0xffffff8002fcd639 
0xfffffff2a79cbdb0 : 0xffffff8002fccd7c 
0xfffffff2a79cbde0 : 0xffffff8000a2831f 
0xfffffff2a79cbe50 : 0xffffff8000a280ca 
0xfffffff2a79cbe70 : 0xffffff80002d2655 
0xfffffff2a79cbee0 : 0xffffff80002d3722 
0xfffffff2a79cbfa0 : 0xffffff800021f19e 
      Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
         com.apple.iokit.IOThunderboltFamily(9.3.3)[9AB070CC-D78B-30F5-9E6B-E74709EDA06B]@0xffffff8002fc9000->0xffffff80030affff
            dependency: com.apple.driver.AppleSMC(3.1.9)[795F0AA3-9CF8-3F06-BBC1-8EA86EB09FEA]@0xffffff8001a6f000->0xffffff8001a87fff

Process name corresponding to current thread (0xffffff9032eeb540): kernel_task

Mac OS version:
21G83

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 21.6.0: Wed Aug 10 14:25:27 PDT 2022; root:xnu-8020.141.5~2/RELEASE_X86_64
Kernel UUID: D0DC2052-71F4-3DCB-B189-BEE5A59B3B42
KernelCache slide: 0x0000000000000000
KernelCache base:  0xffffff8000200000
Kernel slide:      0x0000000000010000
Kernel text base:  0xffffff8000210000
__HIB  text base: 0xffffff8000100000
System model name: MacBookPro11,5 (Mac-06F11F11946D27C5)
System shutdown begun: NO
Panic diags file available: YES (0x0)
Hibernation exit count: 0

System uptime in nanoseconds: 97516888138176
Last Sleep:           absolute           base_tsc          base_nano
  Uptime  : 0x000058b0eb7a2502
  Sleep   : 0x0000586a9cc44dc1 0x00000000766053e6 0x000051786431ec4f
  Wake    : 0x0000586abae2a27e 0x00000000767f8bcc 0x0000586ab2cdafc4
Compressor Info: 6% of compressed pages limit (OK) and 11% of segments limit (OK) with 1 swapfiles and OK swap space
Zone info:
  Zone map: 0xffffff803479d000 - 0xffffffa03479d000
  . PGZ   : 0xffffff803479d000 - 0xffffff803679e000
  . VM    : 0xffffff803679e000 - 0xffffff8502f9d000
  . RO    : 0xffffff8502f9d000 - 0xffffff869c79d000
  . GEN0  : 0xffffff869c79d000 - 0xffffff8b68f9d000
  . GEN1  : 0xffffff8b68f9d000 - 0xffffff903579d000
  . GEN2  : 0xffffff903579d000 - 0xffffff9501f9d000
  . GEN3  : 0xffffff9501f9d000 - 0xffffff99ce79d000
  . DATA  : 0xffffff99ce79d000 - 0xffffffa03479d000
  Metadata: 0xffffffb0749ed000 - 0xffffffb0949ed000
  Bitmaps : 0xffffffb0949ed000 - 0xffffffb09a9ed000

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[waydabber]

Well, based on this crash log, it is not in fact a BetterDisplay related issue it seems. Seems to be a Thunderbolt problem and as AppleSMC also seems to be involved, it has something to do with low-level housekeeping stuff on Intel macs (SMC handles machine specific stuff and also coordinates what happens on sleep and wake).