OS X 10.8.2: Hot corners not so hot with dual monitor setup

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Macintosh
October 26th, 2012 • 8:46 am

Among other glitches that I have noticed with the latest version of Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8.2), there is the fact that the “Hot Corners” feature accessible via the Screen Saver preference pane in System Preferences no longer works reliably.

I use hot corners to put my displays to sleep. I have two 30″ monitors in a dual monitor setup, i.e. with an extended desktop that spans both screens, and the menu bar on the screen on the right-hand side.

Prior to my upgrade to Mountain Lion, I was able to configure OS X to allow me to put my monitors to sleep by simply dragging my mouse to the top-left corner of either monitor. This worked fine.

Now, I find that, when I drag my mouse to the top-left corner of my main monitor (the one with the menu bar), which is on the right, most of the time, nothing happens. If I want to put my displays to sleep, I have to drag my mouse all the way to the top-left corner of my secondary monitor, which is the farthest corner on the left. In other words, it looks as if OS X treats my dual-monitor setup as one giant screen with only one top-left corner, the one in the top-left corner of my secondary monitor on the left.

This is simply not right. The “Hot Corners” feature should work on both monitors, like it did in previous versions of OS X.

I call this a glitch and not a bug because there are times when it actually works the way it used to be. Because of the (unrelated, except for the dual-monitor part) kernel panic problem with OS X 10.8.2, I have had to restart my computer quite a lot lately — much more than I used to. And so I have noticed that, sometimes, after a restart, the “Hot Corners” feature works normally again, with the top-left corner of my main monitor on the right working properly as a corner that can be used to put my displays to sleep.

But then the next kernel panic happens, and after the restart the top-left corner of my main monitor on the right no longer works as a hot corner.

It’s rather frustrating. I’ve now added the top-right corner as another hot corner to put displays to sleep, but of course, the more corners I add, the more likely I am to accidentally put my displays to sleep when I don’t mean to. So it’s not a perfect solution.

Still, it’s only a glitch. But sometimes one gets the impression that there are very few people in Apple’s labs who actually test OS X with dual monitor setups. I know we are a minority, but we are also people with enough disposable income to purchase multiple monitors, so maybe Apple should pay a bit more attention to our needs.


One Response to “OS X 10.8.2: Hot corners not so hot with dual monitor setup”

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