Q: Problems using 'Back to my Mac' with Yosemite

Ellis Z wrote:

 

What the Apple tech told me is that B2MM is no longer supported over the Internet.  It's only for use on a LAN now.

Thank you for the report. I shall inform Apple so they can update their relevant Support documents accordingly.

OS X Yosemite: Use Back to My Mac: "If you have an iCloud account, you can use Back to My Mac to connect to your other Mac computers over the Internet. You can share files and use Screen Sharing to control the remote computer from anywhere you are connected to the Internet."

Set up and use Back to My Mac - Apple Support: "With Back to My Mac, you can connect to your other Macs securely over the Internet."

Resolve Back to My Mac status messages in iCloud preferences - Apple Support: "Determine whether your Internet Service Provider (ISP) is experiencing a service outage."

Obviously, those statements are no longer correct. Oh and by the way, after the latest OS X update, BTMM no longer works for me with iMacs even sharing the same LAN. I'll be sure to point that out as well.

Don't shoot the messenger.  I'm just passing along what their crack support team told me.  Would LOVE to get this fixed, but obviously Apple themselves isn't going to be much help.

Ellis Z wrote:

 

Don't shoot the messenger.

I'm not implicating you. I have no doubt you were told what you were told.

It's a feature, not a bug.

Ellis Z wrote:

 

I asked that question, and he said "It's like Windows Remote Desktop". 

Reading that nearly made my physically ill.

Back to MY Mac quit work well after updating to Yosemite, after each updated to the OS I could get to work by restarting the computer, turning BTMM on off and on. etc. but always failed the next time I try to connect. Strange you only read about this on this thread, something as important as BTMM. My guess is Apple can make it work and the rep is talking about online support. Apple will either fix or kill it official later.

I switch to Crome Remote Desk Top. It is missing a few features like dragging files but connects 100% of the time. BTMM has never connected as well as Crome Remote Desk Top.

Ellis Z wrote:

 

I asked that question, and he said "It's like Windows Remote Desktop". 

My recent experiences with the Genius Bar are about as bad.

Here's what I think happened.  In Yosemite they replaced mdnsresponder with discoveryd--completely new software.  They have revised it with every release, nearly every beta release, and nearly every developer release.  Its a complete rewrite (who knows why) and they don't have the benefit of heavily tested open source.

I'm concerned they have just given up, and pulled programmer resources.

I'd pound the bug report on their website...this is an important feature for those of us who have a "all mac everywhere" setup.

And for what its worth, I combo updated all my macs but one and they all now work--just lucky I guess (and I have a static ip btw).  The one still on 10.10.2 does not show up.

For each, however, I DID have to turn off and back on sharing/btmm.

One last comment.

Whenever I can see shared devices, but cannot connect, I go to iCloud and under BTMM it invariably says "no network connection".  This usually happens when my Air has slept and I have had to reconnect to network.

Check it whenever you cannot connect...that would ultimately be more related to the persistent wifi issues than btmm itself.  Let me know.

For what it's worth, since updating to 10.10.3 about a week and a half back on both my iMac at home and my MacBookPro here with me, I have had no problems at all other than not being able reliably to wake the iMac. I can file and screen share with both the iMac and the USB HDD on my AirPort with (so far 100% reliability). Occasionally I need to reboot the MacBookPro to get things to show up in the Finder Sidebar after it's slept, but I can live with that.

Previous to the 10.10.3 update, I could talk to the disk on the AirPort disk reliably but the iMac would work for about 8-10 hours and then have to be rebooted to work again - not good as I couldn't get into it to do that unless I was at home in which case I didn't need BTMM as it was accessible over the LAN anyway.

So as long as the iMac does not sleep, it seems robust for me. It's all been working great since updating to 10.10.3 on both machines, just as it used to under Mavericks. Currently in Montreal, Canada, and working with files on my iMac in York, UK.

Ellis Z wrote:

 

OK, I'm really confused now.

...

 

What the Apple tech told me is that B2MM is no longer supported over the Internet.  It's only for use on a LAN now. ....

 

So is this the case?

Don't think so.  I set up B2MM for our three Macs yesterday.   My MBP connected to the home iMac from a different network across town.  No problems.  It woke up the system several times.  Then I tried with a second MBP, it never connected.  Today, none of the three are able to connect yet they all appear under "shared" in the Finder sidebar.  Something wacky.....if it were as you were told, I could not connect yesterday....I even sent a file as a test yesterday.

Just update to 10.10.4 beta on a secondary partition on my Mac Mini.

BTMM still does not wake it once it has been sleeping for a couple of hours.

Sorry if I'm repeating anyone but I couldn't see this being mentioned here before. I have had the same problem with BTMM since Yosemite and today I accidentally stumbled on an Apple Support article giving directions on how to delete the BTMM keys in the Keychain. I did this on the computer I share and it worked for me, at least today, even though I did a restart on my connecting computer. Read the section about "Update your Back to My Mac keys (former MobileMe accounts)".

If you have issues using Back to My Mac - Apple Support

I don't know though if it's sustainable or if it will help others.

Btw, I discovered that if I checked off and then on Screen Sharing on the sharing computer I could connect to it from a remote location. Until I found the above article I went by with BTMM by creating an Automator script that opened System Preferences / Sharing and checked off and then checked on Screen Sharing. I put a reminder in the calendar so that the script was run once every second hour. With this script running I could reach my mac within maybe 10 minutes from the checkbox being checked. However, even though I got it to work and it meant I didn't have to restart the computer it wasn't very convenient since the script could run in the middle of a movie I was watching with that computer. Anyway, I just thought it might have some value to mention it.

aapple feedback now has the option under iCloud to select back to my Mac in the tool I never found this option until today everyone should just keep hammering them with feedback

I tried this method and it worked after the second time.  We shall see if it lasts.

An item of note:  on another MBP, the method did not work as Keychain Access would crash when trying to delete the BTMM keys.  Therefore, BTMM currently works great on one MBP (15" late 2013) and not on the other (13" mid 2013). SMH.

I had the issue with keychain access crashing as well.  I got around this by logging out, logging in as guest, then deleting the BTMM keys from that account (entering my usual user credentials as an administrator).  However, while this allowed me to delete the old keys and generate new ones, BTMM is still not working for me at all when the machines are on different networks (i.e. when I travel and would actually need it).