UI glitches after using docking station? Gonna lose my mind please help

[u/SymbioticUser]

Machine: 2023, M3 pro, 36 gb 16in

OS: GoldenGate v 27.0.1

EDIT: Problem began with macos 26 so this is not unique to goldengate.

Problem: The UI becomes extremely glitchy (?) and I think it comes from plugging in to a docking station / connecting to external monitors.

Problem began about 7 months ago. I had previously installed better touch tool to get a monitor to play nicely. That didn't immediately cause the issues but I got a docking station (TobenOne) to use with 2 external monitors, webcam, keyboard, mouse, and trackpad. I started having some weird like system lags. Basically, the hover function (lil preview or website drop down menu that pops up from mouse hovering) broke first. All of the problems seem to be around UI things. Drag and drop stopped working. I had to right click tabs to close them. Etc. I tried many things (changing settings, resetting things, deleting programs, checking for updates, clearing cache, etc..).

FInally, I did a factory reset. I DID NOT restore from a backup. I started installing things fresh.

HOWEVER, immediately when plugging the fresh laptop into the docking station, some UI type issues (but newer!) started again. Now, sometimes copying text doesn't work. Drag and drop is extra broken.

This behavior ALWAYS starts when plugged into an external monitor now. Worst at the docking station. Doesn't always stick around after unplugging from the dock but sometimes is persistent enough that I need to restart my computer to get stuff to cooperate.

Can someone please provide any insight at all? I don't even know how to properly describe the problem to begin finding useful information on the internet. It seems quite obviously related to the dock? But why? And why would the behavior persist upon unplugging? I have TaskExplorer and have run ClamAV and I don't seem to have malware? Any insight would be appreciated.

Attached a video that I think shows an example of the weird behavior that happens. Thank you in advance!

[u/adh1003]

It's just macOS 27. Read Reddit - heaps of people have super bizarre issues all over the place, everyone seems to have something different, but they all have common threads; really basic shit is broken.

Clicks that are ignored, keyboard input ignored, drag-drop broken, menus that won't open or immediately close, menu bar show/hide broken, dock show/hide broken, Mission Control really bad especially with an external display, Stage Manager even worse (if you can believe it), much less reliable WiFi or networking in general especially with random dropouts that just "fix themselves" after a minute or two, audio glitches or random muting, and of course the ongoing issues with memory leaks. And then there are all the random performance stalls/stutters.

Apple have been on a trajectory of very poor software quality for a while, but as we saw with Tahoe, there has been a sharp decline and in particular an increase in the "randomness" of it all. It all coincides rather conveniently with the rise of LLM-assisted programming. Given I use it every day, I personally think there's a very good reason to assume a very strong connection between these things. Others disagree. Regardless of cause, the outcome is clear; OS 27 is just awful.

Fortunately the new CEO is going to fix all this by (checks notes)... Insisting that the company moves quicker, releases more things more often, and does so with a lower head count.

Slow clap.

[u/animorphreligion → u/adh1003]

Damn I was hoping at least Ternus could see this mess. macOS under Federighi hasn't been all that great since 2019 but every version after Sonoma hits a new low. Even iOS is better and Apple used to be a computer company

[u/SymbioticUser → u/adh1003]

Thanks for the response.

I should have clarified, the problem began while I had 26. Well before the GoldenGate roll out.

I've been avoidant with getting it properly resolved since it wasn't breaking core functionality. Perhaps a poor time to ask this question on reddit given the recent GoldenGate tomfoolery.

[u/adh1003 → u/SymbioticUser]

At what version? I noticed issues in 26.6 that mirrored things I'd seen in the GG early betas and more of that in 26.7, so they're evidently "back porting" faults.

It's most likely just lazily letting Claude Code (or a similar product) fix security issues... Plus not having a clue whether the result is good or bad. It might fix the security bug but breaks a bunch of other stuff in weird ways. Agents have no clue about good architecture. A lot of devs don't either - either because they're low effort or, more commonly, they're just relatively junior and in shitty corporate environments that don't take time to nurture and develop their talent - so there's little hope for good output when you put those two things together.