Cannot Observe or Control

I checked, Admin (Controlling) Mac's resolution is higher than both Client (Controlled) Mac's. This is ok, as per what you stated, right?

So, you're saying, hook up a VGA cable to the Mac I want to control, but leave the other end unhooked from any monitor?

Why is it then the xServe doesnt experience these issues, and no VGA cable is hooked to it?

Thanx, Eric.

Your first statement is right (monitors).
some older machines need to have this vga hooked. I had it in some older desktops.

Also, important, check teh energy saver settings, make sure that you have it set to high, no sleeping monitor option! leave all settings "live".

I have an Xserve running Panther Server 10.3.9 with no firewall. The Xserve is on a KVM switch - sometimes with monitor, sometimes without. With no firewall, ports should be open, so I hope it's the energy saver thing...but confidence is low. Any other suggestions?

Steve,

The energy saver is sometimes a problem. make sure your processor speed is set to the highest, and all possibilities are eliminated when it comes to it.
Another thing that I have noticed in the past is, that screen saver will be a killer. maker sure that screen saver is disabled, so you can test.

John, how did you fix it ??

Cheers,

Justin

Yea, screen saver is off as is energy saver and I'm still getting the same phenomenon. I tried ssh and killing the process, but sometimes when I TOP ARDAgent doesn't even show up. I've now resorted to kickstarting ARD via ssh whenever I lose control. I do it so often that I now have the script run trhough an AppleScript that sits in my dock. At least once or twice a day.

Yes, that did the trick.

We're also having very strange issues. We have an Xserve with ARD 2.2 running 10.3.9. We've had to remove the VGA card since we needed the second PCI slot for an ATTO UltraSCSI card for our RAID 5. The other PCI slot is taken up by our ATTO FiberChannel card for our video editing array.

So we have to run it as a headless machine. This means we cannot try the VGA cable trick. Its on the same LAN as our controlling machines and software firewalls are switched off on controlling machines and the xServe. Screensaver and energysave are both off.

The problem is that we lose control after running Retrospect to make nightly backups to an LTO 2 tape drive. When we come in in the morning we can reconnect via ARD to the xServe, move the cursor, and see the desktop but cannot take control or (seeminglyt) even click on anything. However, if we move the cursor to the HD icon (or any menu item or folder or application icon) double click then nothing seems to happens. But if we close the xServe ARD control window and then open it up again we can see that the Finder HAS opened the HD (or opened the folder or launched the application). In this way we can navigate to where we want to go by constantly closing and reopeining the ARD control window to the xServe after every single click. The only other option is to reboot the whole machine which p1sses off our 20+ users who rely on it for file storage and access.

So it would appear to be a simple redraw/refresh problem but I'm not sure if this is caused by some bug in ARD or in Quartz or Retrospect or what.

The previous poster mentioned that he can SSH into his xServe and 'reset' the ARD software. I've never used SSH so not sure how hard this would be, but could really do with some help!

Anyone have any ideas...this has become really embarrassing trying to explain to my company why I have to reboot the xServe daily. I am the biggest pro-mac person in the company and this issue is severely damaging my credibility and ego!

1. How about performing the regular utilities actions on teh server, such as repair permissions, check the file system on single user mode boot?

2. Are you having the same problems when you have a VGA card installed? or did you start having the problem only after you went headless?

3. is this happening only when you run retrospect? does this happen when you are simply in the finder?

3. make sure that both ports for ARD are open (3283, 5900). if not, create them.

this information will help analyze your problem.

Steve,

You wrote:

"I've now resorted to kickstarting ARD via ssh whenever I lose control. I do it so often that I now have the script run trhough an AppleScript that sits in my dock"

How is this done via SSH (what is the command)? Care to share your AppleScript?

Thanx in advance,
Eric

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/k ickstart -h

will give you lots of info on how to restart things the way you like. ARDAgent may be elsewhere in Tiger - this is the path on a panther client/server

If your Remote Desktop client stops responding you can run the kickstart remotely using SSH.

Just open a terminal window and type:

ssh (admin name)@(IP of server)

This will ask for the admin password and connect you to the servers terminal. Then you need to run the kickstart command.

sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/k ickstart -restart -agent

This will stop and start the client ARD, after that you should be able to connect without problems.

I'm having a similar issue... I'm running ARD Admin 2.2 on my PowerMac G4 running 10.4.2. I've never had another version of ARD installed before. I installed ARD Client 2.2 on a series of G4 eMacs in a lab, all running 10.4.2. None of them had a previous install of ARD Client. I am able to perform every single function in ARD except Observe or Control client. it times out every time stating that "Connection Failed" - what gives? I have all the proper ports enabled. Thanks for any help... -Dave

I'm encounter the same problem/bug on my system. The Console.log gives the following error code:

Remote Desktop[247] error connecting -200

Anyone have a clue what error -200 is?