Cortig
Level 1 (6 points)

Q: Can't launch  Apple Remote Desktop anymore

Hi All,

 

All the sudden, I can't launch ARD 3.8 (380A95) in El Capitan 11.11.4 anymore.

Every time I try to launch it on one of my Mac, I get a warning telling me that it failed to start "due to an unexpected error" (The Remote Desktop software may not be installed correctly or the computer may require a restart).


Screen Shot 2016-03-22 at 10.10.04 AM.png


It affects all user accounts (so it's not a corrupted user pref) and reinstalling the entire system through the full installer doesn't help.

I can use the Screen Sharing app though…

After reading an old thread with similar problem (Remote desktop administrator software failed to start) I tried deleting all preferences and support files following the instructions on the Apple kb page but it didn't help.

 

I also checked the Console, and it reports:

3/22/16 10:02:46.888 AM Remote Desktop[5905]: OpenConnectionToAgent - unable to connect 2

3/22/16 10:16:36.035 AM ARDAgent[6057]: libcoreservices: _dirhelper: 400: mkdir: path=/var/folders/zz/zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/C/ modes[2]=0700: Permission denied

3/22/16 10:16:36.035 AM ARDAgent[6057]: confstr on _CS_DARWIN_USER_CACHE_DIR returned an error.

 

Which could indicate a problem with sandboxing, but again, I see warning similar to this one with different apps on different computers without any consequences (I suspect sandboxing makes the logging fairly chatty nowadays). I checked the cache folder it was referring to and didn't notice anything out of place or missing (comparing to another computer where ARD is working).

 

If anyone has a suggestion… I'd be forever grateful

 

Corentin

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2012), OS X El Capitan (10.11.4)

Posted on Mar 22, 2016 7:21 AM

by Tobit,Solvedanswer
Tobit Tobit
Level 1 (25 points)
Servers Enterprise
A:

DISCLAIMER: my affected Mac is a crash test machine, I don't care to lose data on it

 

Finally I solved it by trashing the folder "/var/folders/zz/" indicated in console (as described by Cortig).

To delete (empty the trash) the content, you must first deactivate the System Integrity Protection.

 

Good luck,

CU


Posted on Mar 22, 2016 5:52 PM

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Cortig

Q: Can't launch  Apple Remote Desktop anymore

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  • by Cortig,

    Cortig Cortig Mar 22, 2016 7:32 AM in response to Cortig
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 7:32 AM in response to Cortig

    Of note… I had to replace the drive on this Mac recently and I'm wondering whether it could be some sort of hardware registration mismatch. Not sure where that would be stored though and the proper uninstallation of the app following the instructions in the kb should have taken care of that.

     

     

    Corentin

  • by Tobit,

    Tobit Tobit Mar 22, 2016 10:02 AM in response to Cortig
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Mar 22, 2016 10:02 AM in response to Cortig

    Hi,

     

    Same problem as you, Remote Desktop administrator refuses to start and displays the same message "The Remote Desktop administrator software failed to start due to an unexpected error.". Except this problem is only affecting computers which ran the developper beta. Everything is fine with my production Macs upgraded from 10.11.3 to 10.11.4 (classic channel).

     

    So far I tested / tried:

    - authorisations have been repaired

    - the problem is not session related

    - safe boot is not helping

    - deinstallation (following https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201766), reboot and reinstall from App Store

    - System reinstall from combo update 10.11.4

    - System reinstall from App Store installer

     

     

    If someone has better ideas.

     

    Tom.

  • by remotedesktop,

    remotedesktop remotedesktop Mar 22, 2016 10:10 AM in response to Tobit
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 10:10 AM in response to Tobit

    The "permission denied" error implies that ARDAgent may have lost its setuid bit.

    To find out if that's the problem, check in Terminal:

    "ls -l /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent"

    The permissions should be: "-r-sr-xr-x  1 root  wheel"

    If there's no 's', then run this command:

    "chmod 4555 /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAg ent"

    Note: ARDAgent is one word. The site is adding the unwanted space.

  • by Cortig,

    Cortig Cortig Mar 22, 2016 10:35 AM in response to remotedesktop
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 10:35 AM in response to remotedesktop

    I got:

    -rwsr-xr-x  1 root  wheel

     

    You can't really play with the permissions on the files in El Capitan though (unless you disable  SIP of course).

     

    Corentin

  • by Cortig,

    Cortig Cortig Mar 22, 2016 10:36 AM in response to Tobit
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 10:36 AM in response to Tobit

    In a way, I'm glad I'm not the only one… It makes it less likely it's a crazy corruption on my drive that I might never manage to identify…

    I also reinstalled from the full installer (which, I hoped, would have also cleared out any bad install or bad permission on the OS itself) without any better luck.

     

    Corentin

  • by remotedesktop,

    remotedesktop remotedesktop Mar 22, 2016 10:45 AM in response to Cortig
    Level 1 (34 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 10:45 AM in response to Cortig

    I forgot to mention SIP. For anyone who needs the instructions to disable/enable:

    1. Reboot the Mac and hold down Command + R to get the recovery partition
    2. Open Terminal
    3. csrutil disable; reboot

     

    You can try enabling debug logging for more information:

    1. sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteManagement ARDCollectLogs -bool YES
    2. sudo killall ARDAgent

    Logs are written to /tmp. Remember to turn it back off when done for security.

  • by Cortig,

    Cortig Cortig Mar 22, 2016 10:48 AM in response to remotedesktop
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 10:48 AM in response to remotedesktop

    Thanks for your help on this remotedeksop.

     

    I had logging enabled at some point and it didn't really provide anything more than what I already had in the Console:

    2016-03-22 10:54:52.5540 6372[      Main      ] Error     General        TransmitGlue.m:163:OpenConnectionToAgent: OpenConnectionToAgent - unable to connect 2

     

     

    Corentin

  • by Tobit,Solvedanswer

    Tobit Tobit Mar 22, 2016 5:52 PM in response to Cortig
    Level 1 (25 points)
    Servers Enterprise
    Mar 22, 2016 5:52 PM in response to Cortig

    DISCLAIMER: my affected Mac is a crash test machine, I don't care to lose data on it

     

    Finally I solved it by trashing the folder "/var/folders/zz/" indicated in console (as described by Cortig).

    To delete (empty the trash) the content, you must first deactivate the System Integrity Protection.

     

    Good luck,

    CU


  • by Cortig,

    Cortig Cortig Mar 22, 2016 11:19 AM in response to Tobit
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 11:19 AM in response to Tobit

    I'll try that as soon as I get in front of the machine (obviously, I can't do it remotely).

    Thanks a bunch for the suggestion. It sounds like a likely possibility, especially since a full system reinstall (which shouldn't touch that folder) didn't solve the issue.

     

     

    Corentin

  • by Cortig,

    Cortig Cortig Mar 22, 2016 5:53 PM in response to Tobit
    Level 1 (6 points)
    Mar 22, 2016 5:53 PM in response to Tobit

    I got back to the Mac and tested your idea. I rebooted in Recovery mode where I could do it through he Terminal (without even messing around with disabling SIP actually) and it worked like a charm!
    Thank you so much :-)

    ARD is now back up and running!

     

     

    Corentin

  • by Layne_Staley,

    Layne_Staley Layne_Staley May 19, 2016 6:06 AM in response to Tobit
    Level 1 (19 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 19, 2016 6:06 AM in response to Tobit

    My issue was ARD would freeze on launch.

    Tried on a backed up production machine and this solution fixed my problem as well.

  • by cccssw,

    cccssw cccssw Jul 3, 2016 9:52 PM in response to Cortig
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 3, 2016 9:52 PM in response to Cortig

    After disamble the apple remote app, finally I got the reason. The reason is that UI App can't establish a unix domain socket to the backend ARD agent application which is located in /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement

    So my soulution is copy the folder /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement from another mac and replace the files in it

    which works for me

  • by Andy Epprecht,

    Andy Epprecht Andy Epprecht Jul 28, 2016 11:39 PM in response to Cortig
    Level 1 (54 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Jul 28, 2016 11:39 PM in response to Cortig

    Same problem here after restoring from a Carbon Copy backup.

     

    Could you tell me if you trashed the whole /var/folders/zz/ folder or only the folder within there called something like /zyxvpxvq6csfxvn_n0000000000000/ ?

    I trashed the whole /zz folder in Recovery mode through the Terminal and afterwards couldn't reboot my Mac again.

     

    Thank you for clarifying on your exact steps on this.

     

    Andy

  • by Klajd,

    Klajd Klajd Jul 29, 2016 11:58 PM in response to Andy Epprecht
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Jul 29, 2016 11:58 PM in response to Andy Epprecht

    If I remove or rename /var/folders/zz than I fail to reboot.

    Could this issue be related to corrupted disk or some other hardware issue ?

    But DiskUtil tells me my disk is OK

     

    My ordeal started after I did a restore from Time Machine a few days ago.

    Now ARD fails to start.

    I also use Carbon Copy backup to clone my main volume once a day and has never seen this before.

     

    Does Apple ever read these forums ?

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