I have two regular matching monitors and a wacom cintiq that functions as a third. Depending on what I'm working on, I want my wacom cintiq to mirror my secondary monitor, extended and used as third monitor, or off.

In DisplayFusion, I saved three profiles:
2 Monitors (left monitor is 1, right monitor is 2, cintiq is off)
3 Monitors Mirrored (left monitor is 1, 2|3 is mirrored)
3 Monitors Extended (left monitor is 1, right monitor is 2, cintiq is 3)

DisplayFusion can't seem to match the right monitor to the settings and the positions I'm saving. This is what happens:

If I'm using "3 Monitors Mirrored" while it's displayed properly and switch to "2 Monitors", my cintiq turns into my primary monitor, my left monitor turns into my secondary, and my right monitor turns off.

If I then go back to "3 Monitors Mirrored", my primary monitor goes back to my left monitor, but my cintiq settings (wallpaper/taskbar settings/calibration profile) override the right monitor.

If I then switch back to "3 Monitors Extended", the positions and color settings seem correct, but if I look at the profile the numbers actually changed from 1|2|3 (as they were when I saved the profile) to 2|3|1.

I tried starting over and eliminating the "2 Monitors" profile in case disconnecting a monitor between profiles was throwing things off, but the "3 Monitors Mirrored" profile continues to have the same problems with my cintiq settings overriding the right monitor and monitors being assigned different numbers. At the very least, I absolutely cannot have my calibration profile associated with the wrong monitor because I use it for work.

Any suggestions on how I can make a setup like this work?

System info:
Windows 7, DisplayFusion 8.1.2, 13hd Wacom Cintiq, nvidia geforce gtx 1070 graphics card. The left monitor is plugged into the DVI port, the right monitor is in a DisplayPort and the cintiq is HDMI (might changing the cable configuration help? The 1070 only has one dvi and one hdmi, and I don't have another Displayport cable here to test this).

Your issue sounds extremely similar to mine. I have 2 monitors and a TV.
Mon1 = Right, DVI
Mon2 = Left, DisplayPort (Used to be HDMI until I upgraded from AMD to NVIDIA)
TV = HDMI

I had a ton of different monitor profiles before my upgrade, including selectively disabled monitors and mirrored monitors. I went through and re-saved everything but I've been running into more problems than I had before the upgrade.

When one of the screens sleeps or gets turned off, all my screens flash black and then Windows seems to recognize my monitors in a different order. Where before it was 1/2/3, it just becomes 1/2 (2 became 1, and 3 became 2). This wreaks havoc on my saved DisplayFusion profiles. If Mon2 is off, pressing my hotkey to "Single" setup (Mon1 on, all else off) will suddenly turn the TV on and disable everything instead. I keep trying to re-save but things keep getting shuffled around.

Going to deleting all my settings again and start from scratch.

veggiesama, that does sound like it could be the same problem. I even have the problem with monitors sleeping, flashing black and coming back in a different order. Please update this thread if you figure out how to get yours to work (I'll do the same). I miss having functional monitor profiles.

Did some research, so here's my hypothesis and possible solution.

When only the dvi monitor and displayport monitor are plugged in, Window's default behavior is to make the dvi monitor and displayport monitor #1 and #2. When an hdmi device is added to the mix, Windows always gives it priority for spot #1 and the other monitors get their numbers reassigned to #2 and #3.

DisplayFusion seems to get all mixed up when these numbers are reassigned and then the wrong settings get matched to the wrong monitor. For example, when I tried to go from the 3 monitor profile to the 2 monitor profile, what I wanted was for the cintiq to be disconnected and both my other monitors to stay on. It didn't work because the cintiq had become #1 so it was given all the settings the original #1 had, original #1 was #2 so it got all the settings the original #2 had, and original #2 was #3 so it got turned off.

It seems that frequently reassigning monitor ids can cause things to get really wonky with settings sticking in the wrong place and not swapping properly.

Unfortunately, this problem extends beyond DisplayFusion. Windows does not offer a way to permanently assign ids to particular monitors to make this reassignment stop. Some third party software does have this capability, but from what I've read it doesn't sound like it's guaranteed to be reliable either and may compete with what Windows wants to do. There may be other factors that also override and break this functionality, such as the nvidia control panel also having features that control these settings.

My idea is to get the cintiq off the hdmi port so it never gets reassigned to #1. I think if it will keep its #3 position natively by plugging it into a different port , I'll be able to toggle it on and off without it causing setting swaps with my other monitors. I had to order a displayport to hdmi adapter to try this, so I won't be able to test it for a couple of days. The adapters can be found for less than $10 USD and can transmit sound and video, so it may be an affordable fix for hdmi tvs with this problem too.

Has anyone found a way to stop this crazy train?

Monitor profiles basically are unusable now because the monitors keep getting assigned different numbers. As soon as I save a profile and then switch away and back it's already messed up.

This only started happening in the last 6 weeks or so I think.

I was trying to switch from

[1] 4 monitors with 2 of them cloning each other *( 1|2 3 4 )*
-->
[2] 1 monitor (one of the ones that WAS cloned) *( 1 )*

After being so frustrated I finally gave up on using cloned monitors on one of my profiles and deactivated the one of the monitors in my original setup. This setup works but it's not as convenient:

[1] 3 Monitors *( 2 3 4 )*
-->
[2] 1 monitor (not one of the original 3) *( 1 )*

This seems to be working...

I had experimented with the order I set the primary monitor before cloning and which monitor I set the clone from.
Example: Cloning monitors 1 and 2 I tried setting 1 to primary and from 1 selecting "clone with 2" and permutations of that.

If there is any formula I can use that will let me switch between a setup with clones and one without it would be great.

Giving this a gentle bump because I haven't discovered a solution yet, but I have some more observations and possible solutions.

Here's my monitor setup again:

1. Monitor_DVI = Right monitor, DVI port
2. Monitor_DP = Left monitor, DisplayPort port
3. TV_HDMI = HDMI port

When Monitor_DVI is enabled alone, Windows assigns it to #1.
Monitor_DVI = 1

If I turn on Monitor_DP, then:
Monitor_DP = 1
Monitor_DVI = 2

If I turn on TV_HDMI, then:
Monitor_DP = 1
TV_HDMI = 2
Monitor_DVI = 3

If I turn off Monitor_DP (so only Monitor_DVI and TV_HDMI remain), then nothing happens. Monitor_DP is still recognized, even though the screen is black. However, when I go to sleep mode and resume:
TV_HDMI = 1
Monitor_DVI = 2
Monitor_DP = does not appear.

As has already been mentioned, DisplayFusion seems to apply monitor profiles based on these IDs without checking any other attributes of the monitor. Turning monitors on/off causes Windows to rearrange everything and confuse DisplayFusion.

NovusChroma said:



It doesn't seem like I'm running into that exact outcome, but I'm getting a similar port hierarchy happening. Instead, the priority of my monitors seems to be: DisplayPort > HDMI > DVI. All detected DisplayPort monitors are given IDs first, followed by HDMI, followed by DVI. Maybe my GFX card (EVGA GTX 1080) has something to do with that.

The next solution I'm going to try is simply buying 2 DisplayPort adapters to force my HDMI/DVI-only monitors into the GTX 1080's three available DisplayPorts. From there it's possible the 3 ports will hard-code the order Windows recognizes them, and from there I can just rearrange the ports as needed. However, that might fix some of my problems (eg: force main monitor to 1 always) but I'm not sure it'll work for every possible monitor arrangement scenario.

Another idea would be to pick up this: http://monitordetectkiller.com/ Forcing all 3 monitors to have a live signal would let me bypass all of Windows's stupid automatic re-arranging. However it seems a little expensive, especially since I'd need to grab a bunch of extra DisplayPort=>HDMI adapters, and it might not work with my 4K 60Hz TV (website says 4K 30Hz).

Any word on DisplayFusion uniquely identifying monitors with something other than the monitor ID?