Lion broke screen sharing, VNC?

Well, no, it's obviously an apple problem as every single vnc client broke. Apple released incorrect vnc code. This client simply supports that broken implementation.

The only thing that changed is I can see the users with a check on the currently logged in user but can't seem to get any farther than that.

There is every indication that Apple has no intention to fix this in the current OS so as to force everyone to upgrade their machine to run so-called 'Mountain Lion' as few will either want to or be able to regress their OS to 'Leopard', on which VNC works like a charm. Apple tech support personnel never even heard of VNC and are incompetent to address questions on it. But if you escalate the issue, they advise you to become an iPad developer.

I am sick of Apple ignoring feedback, and trying to protect me from myself, such as by concealing the LIbrary folder. Lion OS is the biggest fail in the history of Apple OS, not just for this reason. Apple only interested in new customers and screw the ones they already robbed.

In my situation, every time VNC drops, the iPad app controller can't communicate without a log out, reconnect and then log back in. That means waiting another 40-60 minutes to reload all the audio and video samples to restart the session, only to have it happen again. My clients shouldn't be expected to pay £100 an hour to watch stuff that already loaded loading all over again and I can't afford all the studio downtime just to run what has turned out to be expensive, not very useful toy.

Vine VNC proved even worse than useless. After spending hours re-entering all Cmd shortcuts as Ctrl to achieve compatibility, the Esc didn't work consistently, to say nothing of several other key combinations that kept changing their values. Even though Vine reconnects without a logout it's a Windows keyboard, and not compatible with Mac. I posted these errors on the Vine website, but no-one responds with anything useful.

So far as I am concerned, the 'New iPad' is now officially junk. I wasted my £538, but I won't waste time discouraging people from buying the product, nor the Custom Keypad app that I bought to run as VNC controller.

but are you able to disconnect and then reconnect without a logout?

I've been getting the black screens when using ScreenSharing.app from 10.7.4 to 10.6.7 and 10.6.8, but the other direction (10.6->10.7) works without issue.

On 10.7.4, I have had crashes both when exiting ScreenSharing.app and when switching to one display (10.6 boxes have 2 heads) when I am not logged in.

Today, I started tailing /var/log/secure.log on the 10.6 side to try to trouble-shoot and noticed that I was getting login failures. On a whim I typed in my password even though I couldn't see the login box, and got the wallpaper for the head where the login box doesn't show. The other "screen" stayed black, so obviously 10.7.4 doesn't like something about multi-headed displays. After I was logged in, I could switch to view screen one (where login box would normally be located), and ScreenSharing did not crash.

So, if you get the black screen and no login box, try typing your password anyway.

Very messy. If I hadn't already rebuilt this MBP twice since I got it (came with Lion), I'd seriously consider going back to Snow Leopard since it does support it.

Remoting in to my Mac mini server has been difficult lately. I've experienced similar things to what others are reporting (e.g. black box/lines on the screen = refresh issue?).

Anyway, today I disabled VNC on the server and have only the Remote Management enabled. This seems to have fixed the issue as the screen is much more responsive and no black splotches!

I hope this helps resolve your issues too! 🙂

Entering my password and pressing enter at the black screen worked for me from a lion macbook air to an older mac mini. Thank you.

It would be helpful here if everyone posted what they're connecting to and from.

What Os is the client? What Os is the host? What version of the client software are you using.

Just to be clear - for the most part - apple to apple screen sharing works.

It's Windows VNC client to Apple we're discussing here.

And, at the moment, no Windows version of Tightvnc (2.5.2 released june 28th), RealVNC (5.0.1) or UltraVNC (10962) can connect successfully and reliably to an OSX machine using the native VNC host - not 10.7.1, .2, .3 or .4.

Yes, there might be prolems with the odd users Ipad or iphone vnc client, but there is absolutley NO client for windows that can connect successfully and reliably - not something that could be said of 10.6.8 - those same windows clients will connect fine to 10.6.8.

And this despite all the methods laid out here - colour changes, settings in vnc clients, blind password entry, removing autologon on the OSx, deleting accounts, reinstalling os and doing them all again - none of it has worked with our range of test macs. We've meticulously followed them all.

Using a vine server on the osx machine to replace the VNC server gave us access, but it's a workaround and a fiddly one at that (you have to restart the vine server rather than close the window or it locks you out).

At the end of the day it's either immediate window closure or the 'logon screen' freezing that you'll get from a Windows VNC client.

VNC server in 10.7 has been and remains broken. Not screen sharing - VNC.

Server: Mountain Lion (OS X v10.8) on Mac Mini with new OS X Server

Mac Client: Mountain Lion on MacBook Pro 15"

Win Client: Windows 7 Home

Screen Sharing for Mac Client (viewing screen from Mac Mini on MacBook Pro) works fine.

Screen Sharing for Win Client with UltraVNC doesn't work reliable. Looks like the same issues as described above.

I looged out all users from Mac Mini. Then tried to login from Win Client. Works only ones, not second.

Has someone experiences with 10.8?

So it appears that Mountain Lion does not suffer from this defect. A $20 upgrade will fix the "broken" VNC issue as well as get some new feature. I guess Apple new it would be release 10.8 and didn't thin it was worth to fix this issue in Lion, and of course not fixing it encourages more user to upgrade to Mountain Lion/

Mountain Lion is no use to anyone with a machine older than 2008.

Also the requirement for logout to connect remains from Lion onwards turning my iPad into a beermat. I run an audio business and can't sit around while everything takes another hour to reload just because the iPad disconnected and I have to log out to reconnect.

Apple takes no notice of specialised customers and thinks only like the Wall Street types, where humans are pawns on a chessboard.

Since Lion they've broken everything they've touched. Last Friday, they broke Screen Sharing.

Horrible. Anger and disappointment fall on deaf ears. So called Tech Support never even heard of VNC and pass you all round the known universe till after a few weeks you realise you're back where you started.

Well, no, williamfromthestudio city, as jabo59's results show, lion is still broken.

The issue is, and always has been, that, from 10.7 onward, windows vnc clients which were perfectly able to connect to everything up to 10.6.8 suddenly couldn't connect reliably, either bringing up frozen login screens or simply not connecting.

Whilst multiple workarounds have been suggested on this thread, we've never had a reliably working solution.

And, whilst our tests here have yet to include lion, it seems that's still the case.

Apple to apple works, windows to apple does not, in lion and mountain lion.

Well I checked 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and the problems are still there. Now I tried TeamViewer which works fine for me in case to share the Mac screen. No problems. OK, it's only free for private use and you have to pay for commercial use. But my use case is private.

I'm a little bit disappointed that Apple isn't able to deliver a VNC server which works well with Windows VNC clients.

If Teamviewer was a VNC server I'd be happy.

Sadly you have to have the client at one end and the server installed at the other. For us, using that'd require a)buying a commercial license b)a massive rollout c) months of testing.

Which we could do, I suppose, if this wasn't something that was already supposed to work in OSX - something that worked for version after version of the OS and is still meant to!

When will Apple fix VNC for windows clients in OSX? Seriously, 10.7, 10.7.1, 10.7.2, 10.7.3, 10.7.4, 10.8 - two updates to the apple remote desktop client, VNC from all windows clients to OSx is still broken!

Since I use RealVNC 5.x I can always login from Win 7 to my Mac mini. It often requires 5-10 attempts but finally I get in.

I'm waiting for a memory upgrade since my Mac mini has only 2 GB and it seems to be too busy to respond reliably to the VNC connection. Will see if it makes any difference.