DDM, not supported on Mac mini, why?

Question

Hi,

I have a U3821DW and a Mac Mini 2020 (M1). The FAQ here says that DDM (Dell Display Manager) is not supported on any Mini, but is supported on a range of laptops, including M1 laptops. So the M1 is not the issue and supporting Apple products in general is not the issue. So why is DDM not supported on Minis?

BTW - I have installed DDM anyway and it works, just make sure the monitor firmware is M2B103 - this is only installable from a Windows machine, so look at the Windows Drivers/Software page for the U3821DW to get the firmware update. There are currently two bugs I am aware of:

i) Switching the KVM back from my work laptop to the Mini, when the Mini has put the display to sleep, causes an error message to be displayed, but DDM still works fine. Get rid of the error message and everything would be fine!

ii) DDM does not save it's settings. When DDM is started or restarted, the settings are at the defaults.

I can't believe that these problems are significant - I don't know what language DDM is written in, but Dell should open source it and let me have a go at getting a working version.

BTW - I contacted Dell support about these bugs and they who told me that I should request a Dell programmer to fix the problems, and that would cost 60EUR. I will pay 10 EUR, so if there are five other people here that will also pay 10EUR to have a working DDM on the Mac Mini then let me know!

CYL

Mark

DELL-Chris M · Answer

We cannot know why DDM is not suported on Mac mini. All we can do is follow their instructions when they stated that it is not supported.

"I contacted Dell support about these bugs and they who told me that I should request a Dell programmer to fix the problems and that would cost 60EUR"
They are incorrect. Dell does not have a service where a customer could contact and pay a Dell programmer to make changes to Dell software.

MarkMkIV · Answer

Of course we could know why DDM is not supported on Mac Mini. Someone from the DDM development team could answer the question.

jamesknox_ca · Answer

This was working on an M1 Mac Mini until the latest update.  I am not sure why it stopped working.  It has always worked on an Intel Macbook

MarkMkIV · Answer

Hi James,

Maybe try to update the firmware on the monitor? I had to do this, but the firmware I needed was not in a MacOS package, only a Windows package. I have a work laptop which runs Windows so I was able to update the U3821DW firmware using that. Then the new version of DDM was working again on my Mac Mini (except for the two bugs I have mentioned).

MarkMkIV · Answer

Since there is no Mac Mini support on the DDM roadmap, then it would help this customer to have their request to have Mac Mini support be added to the roadmap put to the DDM development team.

TomLoki · Answer

Correct. the DDM was working on my Mac mini (M1) until version 1.50.0.0042. The issue came after updating to 1.59.0.0043 and 1.60.

Monitors

DDM, not supported on Mac mini, why?

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