Lion broke screen sharing, VNC?

In my case I am trying to connect from my MBP retina (running the very last OS) to my MacMini (from late 2011, running Lion). The MacMini is always on the grey login screen for security reasons. When I connect with "vnc://ip_macmini" it works the first time. I can log in and work. But when I log out (by choosing "Login window...") I am not able to log in again and the screen is frozen (the clock displays the same time again and again).

The only trick to wake the screen is to physically press the volume button on the MacMini keyboard (using the bluetooth one from Apple). Good when at work, so I do not need to restart the server anymore (yeah, forgot to mention it is a MacMini server), but not good when at home... my arm is too short to reach the keyboard located several kilometers away...

I know it doesn't help Windows users, but: you are not alone having troubles with vnc and screen sharing...

The worst here is that Apple does not care at all about our issues. The typical Steve Jobs response in that case would be: upgrade to the latest OS (even though the Moutain Lion Server is said to be crap) or buy another more recent hardware... My answer to that is if they are not capable of updating a previous version of the same OS (OS X) to correct a problem to thousands of users, they should program for Windows instead.

My problem is similar to those described in this thread. Only thing is that I only recently started having problems connecting to my Mac from my Windows XP laptop at work. The problem for me started after upgrading to Mountain Lion. When I would log in to VNC I would get the login screen, select a user, enter a password and then it would hang. If I chose a user who was not already logged on, it would work properly.

My solution is to use a new VNC client by Nulana called Remotix. This VNC client for windows supports Apple's VNC authentication (and supports SSH tunneling as well although that's been giving me problems so I use a separate SSH client to setup the SSH tunnel.)

Remotix is beta but seems pretty nice. Suggest trying it out: http://www.nulana.com/remotix-windows

After dealing with having to try 10 times to login to Lion from Windows every **** time, I decided to give Vine server a shot on the Mac. RealVNC connects much faster now (connection times Windows -> Mac had become really awful after the Snow Leopard to Lion upgrade), but now I can't get past the grey login screen *at all*. I can't type my password, ever.

Once I am logged in, though, it works fine; it doesn't seem to have the dropped connection problems of Lion screen sharing. The login screen not accepting keystrokes over VNC is weird, though, and since it's a problem with Vine as well as with the built-in screen sharing, I wonder if the bug isn't with the login screen itself.

(Using OS X Lion and Windows XP fully updated, RealVNC viewer free edition 4.1.2, Vine server 4.0. The Mac is a Macmini2,1 so upgrading to Mountain Lion is not an option.)

I also have this issue. It appears to be resolved in Mountain Lion. Although now there is a pesky SMB bug, although I think it was present in Lion as well.

I am using JollyFast VNC from a mac (10.68) to (10.82) and now I got it to connect. On the JollyFast VNC it states

Lion users: If you are connecting to a Lion machine, make sure to use Mac Authentication (hold down the alt/option key when clicking connect to reselect the authentication scheme).

Lion has a bug with normal VNC authentication.

G-Berg, that helped! That program works just fine for me. Thank you.

It's still disappointing that no one can even explain what's going wrong with Lion and VNC.

Remotix worked for me too!

Also, if you need to vnc from android. Pocket Cloud works.

For all the recent posters;

This thread was about vnc not working from windows vnc clients to lion.

There were apps that worked for iOS

There were apps that worked for android

Osx could use screen sharing

But windows clients such as tightvnc, real vnc etc could not connect to the out of the box vnc client.

All of which worked for 10.6

The windows client makers reported that the implementation of vnc in lion was not standard.

Some people reported 'blind' password entering worked, but it wasn't repeatable.

Apple, to date haven't fixed this for lion.

I'm unsubscribe big from this thread now, a the battle has moved to 10.8.

And why you can't edit your posts on this forum from iOS on safari is a battle for another day!

Boomhaueruk,

I think the recent posts are all on-topic. Remotix is a VNC Client for Windows which works quite well connecting to the built-in VNC Services on Mac OS X 10.7 and 10.8.

Greg

I second Greg.

Remotix is different than other general purpose VNC clients in that it is developed in particular to access Macs!

I tried their Windows client and it connects immediately and smoothly to my Lion Mac mini. None of the login hassles previouly experienced with all the common VNC clients. Thank you, Nulana, for creating this Remotix client!

Be aware that the Windows client is still in Beta development though.

They also provide Remotix for Mac, iOS and Android.

Hello all.

I haD the same issue for a long time and, in my case (and I believe it is everybody's case), the problem was not in the VNC Server, or ARD or ScreenSharing; the problem IS with SecurityAgent.

1) The Sintoms:

When you connect to the MAC Server using a VNC Client for Windows or Linux:

- The screen freezes in the login screen;

- or it freezes after typing some letters;

- or it freezes after some time connected.

2) Getting There

After check system.log, I realize that there was no error message from VNC Server, but from SecurityAgent.

3) SOLUTION:

Considering that, like me, you are trying to connect using VNC, so this solution does not require graphic interface.

You can use SSH to connect to your server (you must allow SSH Server for this).

After login with SSH, you must type the following 2 commands:

• sudo launchctl unload /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.SecurityAgent.plist
• sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.SecurityAgent.plist

After that you can connect again using VNC Client.

There is a bug after the first login, the VNC will close, you can just connect again.

IF, during the regular use, the VNC freezes again, you may have to execute again the commands above.

I think Apple can solve the issue with this. Probably it is a non treated exception.

Cheers.

I wonder if setting vnc encoding to hextile would help?

http://blandname.com/2006/11/03/how-to-connect-to-a-mac-remote-desktop-using-vnc

Looks like you're onto a winner. That is a brilliant first post mate I must say. (Also its fixed in latest ML but this works for Lion - use TIGHTVNC not REALVNC)

Thanks Roger!

Well I was still having the problem of a freeze when logging in to an 'already logged on' user with VNC. My earlier post reccomended a VNC client that had better support for Mac OSX Authentication. However, that client is no longer free.

I found a fix that seems to work reliably as long as you are content with logging on to the user who is already logged on to the console:

http://krypted.com/tag/vnc/

In short, from the command line you issue the following command:

sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteManagement VNCAlwaysStartOnConsole -bool true

Enter your admin password and the next time you log in with VNC it will skip the login window (and associated freeze).

Hope this helps some others who are still facing this bug.

Greg