Screen sharing broken in Sonoma

To follow up ... I did an experiment and turned Remote Management ON on the target mini running Sonoma 14.2.1 , the machine I need to be able to share its screen. I then tried to share the mini's screen from my iMac and when I gave my user name and password it still claimed it was wrong, even though I am the only administrator account on the mini.

When I shut Remote management back off and turned on Screen Sharing everything worked perfectly again.

So it is Remote Management that is broken! Turn off Remote Management and turn on Screen Sharing and you are good to go.

I am also experiencing the same issue since upgrading to macOS 14 (Sonoma)

My Use Case:

Sender using Mac 2019 Intel

Recipient Using Mac Mini M1

From Messages, choose "Conversation" from the menu tab and then select "Ask to share screen"

After a short wait, the following dialog is shown.

The only way to get this to work is to ask the recipient to select "Invite To Share My Screen"

This was working 100% prior to upgrading from Ventura.

Had the same issue. If you click on General:Sharing:Remote Management info icon and then press "Options" you can turn on all the access. Off by default. It used to auto-present these options. Not anymore. Hope this helps.

I recently ordered four new MacBook Pros, where screen sharing would only work when allowing access to all users. It would not work when I granted access to the local admin account. I would add the local admin account and click "Done." However, when I clicked on the circled "i," the local admin account was still listed but I could not connect. If I closed System Preferences and checked again, the local admin account was no longer listed as an allowed user for remote management.

I've experienced this issue multiple times when sending a laptop in for repair. The only solution was to erase the hard drive and reinstall Sonoma from a USB installer that I created. Simply reinstalling the OS did not resolve the problem; erasing the hard drive and reinstalling Sonoma from my USB installer was the only way I could get it to work without allowing access to all users. Now, this issue is occurring with brand new MacBook Pros.

I have concluded that Apple's default image is flawed, or Apple sent me four refurbished laptops with the same image that is loaded when laptops are sent in for repair and the data is wiped before reloading the OS image. I hope this information helps others and that Apple addresses this issue promptly.

New laptops were loaded with Sonoma 14.4

See attached screenshot of the message I receive the first time that i connect using screen sharing after erasing the harddrive and reinstalling from a USB installer:

I am running Sonoma 14.2.1 on a M2 Mac Mini and when I went to System Settings/General/Sharing and tried to turn on Screen Sharing (which was ghosted out) I got the message "Screen Sharing is being controlled by Remote Management. So I went to Remote management (on that same screen) and turned OFF Remote Management. This unghosted Screen Sharing so I turned ON Screen Sharing. And now my iMac is able to screen share the mini's screen and control the Mac Mini !!! Hooray!!!

So what the **** is Remote Management and WHY is it defaulted to being ON?

I have three headless mini Mac’s. After upgrading two of the to Sonoma, remote access became problematic. What I have done.

1) granted screen sharing to specific user even though administrators were granted access.

2)turned off FileVault.

3)turned off screenlock

4)put hdmi ghost plugs in hdmi slot

Without the ghost plugs fixing, the client screen would be fuzzy and slow to respond.

With FileVault turned on, a reboot of a headless configuration would result in the inability to establish an ip. On a subsequent reboot, I was presented with a recovery screen. After FileVault was turned off, the machine would establish a valid ip and boot properly.

screen lock is just in the mix somehow as it has the ability to turn off your monitor. I just disabled it to get it out of the mix.

I now have two accessible Mac minis, somewhat less secure, but accessible.

I was able to get it to work by going to: Sys prefs>General>Sharing>Advanced

Enable the three options, 'Remote Mgmt', 'Remote Login', 'Remote App Scripting'

Select the round "I" for each choice and specifically add the user account you want to connect.

Don't know if enabling the last option, 'Remote App Scripting' was necessary, but this use to be called:

'Remote Apple Events' so I enabled it anyway.

Hope this helps someone

Just found this thread now after completing a fresh standard build of Sonoma 14.4 and couldn't believe I couldn't figure out how to get Remote Management to work in the standard way for a nominated admin user account like I have always done for use with ARD for over 20 years.

Tried most of the things presented in this community thread without success. Having set the account for access, whenever I came back to the settings for RM the user account I had defined would be gone. Disappeared!

Apple Remote Desktop access would just be refused as if the account I used had no rights to access!

Then I thought, what the heck, I'd try setting the Remote Management to be allowed for All Users!!!

Now it all works like it always used to.

If this hadn't worked I was contemplating turning off all the Remote Management, Remote Login, and Remote Application Scripting settings to return them to default, and testing out if remote access worked by turning on just the Screen Sharing access. Is Apple trying to force us to use Screen Sharing?

Thanks Luis, yes it has to do with an external display. I tried screen sharing from my LG external screen with several Laptop users (Macbook Air, Macbook Pro). No success, no matter who invited whom.

Then I tried screen sharing from my Macbook Air screen to the other Laptop users who were also using their laptop screens. Each connection attempt was sucessful!

This might explain why some of you report success (connections via native screens) and other don't (external screen at least by one user).

After reading your post, I attached a display to the Mac mini and screen sharing started to work more reliably. Normally, this is a headless Mac mini. When the mini is in the headless state, and you do get a screen sharing session, the screen responses are slow and fuzzy. Attached to a monitor, the viewer receives crisp and responsive feedback. Logging out the remote user on the mini does not result in a locked mini with a black screen. The mini is behaving much better with a screen attached. This leaves me to believe Apple has some issues with virtual screen management. As if the screen buffer is not created, managed in session , nor destroyed properly at the end of the session. We use headless minis for various reasons and attaching monitors to them is a terrible option to get things working well.

This has completely been destroyed now that Apple has apparently been dedicating resources to the "Screen Sharing.app"

I finally had to succumb to a couple of counter measures to get things back to a "working order..."

The first thing I realized, or should I say the last? was about 50 times every time I had a problem the machine I wanted to access had "Copying Clipboard" from such-n-such machine. And I like a dummy refused to turn off iCloud Handoff, because I use this very very frequently. But I just could handle this any more. So I turned off Handoff. This fixed problems with older machines that would stop sharing/managment. But in the end the only fix was:

If I go in and I can't get a machine going with remote managment, I have to ssh into the machine, and run this command 1st:

`sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -deactivate -stop`

then this command 2nd:

`sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -activate -configure -allowAccessFor -allUsers -restart -agent`

After that I can control the screen with remote management.

But man having to ssh into a machine so I can "VNC" is a pain!

Especially, when I do this to start some music from the Music.app on one of my servers (in the house) with 96/192 lossless audio files stored. So I don't have to stream them from phone or internet while working!!!

Pain in the rear for over a year!!

Laters... 2¢

I had this same problem, then I turned off VPN on macbook and iPad, now works senselessly.

Red-Ryder wrote:

I was able to get it to work by going to: Sys prefs>General>Sharing>Advanced

Enable the three options, 'Remote Mgmt', 'Remote Login', 'Remote App Scripting'

Select the round "I" for each choice and specifically add the user account you want to connect.

Don't know if enabling the last option, 'Remote App Scripting' was necessary, but this use to be called:

'Remote Apple Events' so I enabled it anyway.

Hope this helps someone

Thanks for sharing, and I do hope it helps others. I am connected to a remote Mac Studio using Screen Sharing, and I do NOT have either Remote Management or Remote Application Scripting turned on. I usually do have Remote Login, but I also tried turning it off, and Screen Sharing still works...

FWIW, I am connecting from my local Intel MBP to a remote Mac Studio, both running Sonoma 14.1.1.

Have had the same issue with Sonoma.

Have tested one workaround several times that seems to be working:

In Finder open Locations and if network machine is showing there through File Sharing, open a folder then open Screen Sharing. Seems that the File Sharing connection re-establishes Screen Sharing.

I found out that it wasn't working because my Mac Mini forgot the "VNC viewers may control screen with password" setting on update.