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I am so sick of #macOS and it's inability to consistently manage any sort of peripheral.
Normally I just bitch that it can't remember anything about my monitor setup. Now it will only communicate with USB or Thunderbolt peripherals if they're connected and powered on when the Mac starts up. Turn them on after that? Nope, Mac won't talk to it. Connect them after the Mac starts up (maybe connecting a flash drive or connecting to an iOS device? Nope, Mac won't talk to it.
#Apple. Honestly.
FWIW, this is new as of Sonoma 14.4. Connecting peripherals worked as expected in previous versions.
But no version of #macOS on Apple Silicon has been able to properly manage monitors.
@geoffduncan I’m increasingly convinced that the people who work at Apple HQ don't use Macs on a regular basis. There are so many micro-frictions in using the OS that makes me shake my head.
@krishnadraws
Micro-frictions is a good term.
I would be more inclined to believe the that people who work at Apple HQ use Macs in fairly narrow/prescribed ways.
I also feel (but have little evidence to suggest) that those folks rely on marketing data and material from focus groups to prioritize, rather than attempting to collect feedback from long-time/professional users. If you want to make a mass market product, I guess you try to ask the mass market, not partisans.
@geoffduncan I suspect that's true. Difficult to know for sure, because any feedback I've provided to Apple regarding certain macOS issues seems to go unanswered.
@geoffduncan I'm not on Sonoma but my Apple Silicon Mini only keeps my dual monitor setup right after creating Display Overrides and editing and locking my displays plist. If you don't know how to do that manually try something like the "Better Display" app.
As for the other problems, you can't roll back a point update, so it's either a full downgrade or wait and hope 14.5 fixes it. Or try this temporary workaround first if you haven't already done so: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/03/13/macos-sonoma-14-4-usb-hub-issues-reported/
@OffWorldGirl
I haven't tried anything new with Display Overrides on 14.4—I'll give that a whirl.
I locked the windowserver.dispay plist when I moved to Apple Silicon (I don't remember where I learned that), but I just found a much older (2014) plist preference.display that…is probably killable. There's also a com.apple.Displays-Settings.extension plist. Guess I'll look all these up.
Curiously, I don't have "Allow accessories to connect" in Settings > Privacy & Security.
@geoffduncan I thought my locked display plist would carry over but I had to redo it from scratch. Not for point updates, only major version upgrades. But it's possible they changed something in it between 14.3 and 14.4.
If you search for "Allow accessories to connect" you won't find it, you have to go to System Settings -> Privacy & Security directly. At least according to someone further down in the comments on that MacRumors thread.
@OffWorldGirl
My windowserver.display plist is still locked, but I'll twiddle it.
Curiously, I *can* search preferences for "Allow accessories to connect" and it claims to find a hit…but there's nothing there. Also nothing there if I navigate to Privacy & Security directly without a search. I wonder if it's specific to particular Macs.
Micro-frictions. Loving that term.
@OffWorldGirl
Ah: "Allow accessories to connect" is a laptop-only preference.
https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/allow-accessories-to-connect-mchlf779ae93/mac
@geoffduncan
So... from my understanding, with a bit of branching, #MacOS is glorified #BSD. Why not make the switch to #FreeSoftware? It's all #UNIX under the hood. 
Maybe #Gentoo #GNUlinux and it's Portage system would be a suitable replacement?
If you seriously want control, use #KDEplasma as your desktop environment.
@GothFvck
Yeah, macOS is POSIX-compliant: XNU kernel with big helpings of FreeBSD. And a panoply of layers above that, mostly proprietary.
I'm kind of the worst kind of Mac user: been at it for decades, use lots of Mac-only software, and only want my computer to work and never be a problem.
I am in the free software universe on other systems. The experience never fails to remind of Alan Parson's thoughts on audiophiles.