Lion broke screen sharing, VNC?

I'm not too sure if this will be helpful, but perhaps it's better than nothing.

I, too, had problems with TightVNC on Windows 7 accessing one of my Macs running Lion. Exactly the symptoms previously discussed here: Nothing appeared when I entered the password, everything seems to hang, etc.

I had to do the following several times; each time I believe that I did exactly the same thing, so the communication between the two machines must have been in different states when it worked or didn't work:

I entered my password. I only have one ID on the Mac, so TightVNC automatically selected it. I hit enter after entering the password. Then I did the same thing without a screen refresh or anything else; ie, I simply typed the password, hit enter, typed the password, hit enter, etc.

While doing this there was a brief delay, but I noticed that the screen started to change when I too quickly entered the password again. So I did the loop of password and enter and waited about 10 seconds between entries. Eventually it logged me on the Mac.

Now TightVNC works normally every time; it's like whatever was misconfigured or broken is now fixed.

D

as sysadmin im frequently running in to Lion`s that i cant connect with vnc / apple remote desktop / login window corruption . . .

LogMeIn is the only stable thing to use at the moment.

Here's what I got working:

I have a Mac mini with Lion 10.7.3 which I use as my server. I connect from Windows 7 through UltraVNC client.

First I had the same trouble described here but that was when I was already logged into the Mac mini before connecting through VNC. Then I logged out from the directly connected keyboard.

Now I can connect through VNC (client on Windows PC) and login without any problems. The directly attached monitor shows the same screen and I can use the directly attached keyboard and mouse the same way than the remote keyboard through the VNC client. Everything is the same in the VNC remote screen and the real screen.

I can close the VNC viewer and my user remains logged into the Mac. I can continue to work on the Mac with the direct keyboard, mouse and screen. I can restart the VNC client on my Windows PC and can connect without problem. On the VNC client it will first show the login screen again (this is not seen on the direct monitor) where I need to enter my username and password and then I'm back again connected to the Mac screen.

So, the issue is: Don't be logged into the Mac before you connect through VNC!

Now we go to the next level:

We close the VNC client. User A still remains logged into the Mac, you can see his screen on the monitor attached to the Mac.

We restart the VNC client on the Windows PC, we get the login screen of the Mac but this time we type in a different user name (user B). Guess what? We're now logged in as User B on the remote screen while User A is still logged in at the same time! The VNC client now displays a completely different screen than what the monitor attached to the Mac shows. The remote keyboard and mouse through VNC now work independent from the local keyboard/mouse of the Mac mini.

Two persons can work on the same Mac without interfering with each other.

Now we go to level 3:

On the Mac mini through the local keyboard we log out user A.

Now we get the login screen at the local monitor but still see desktop of user B in the VNC client window.

User A can relogin on the local keyboard and again we have two different users working on the same Mac.

Of course when two different users are connected this is by nature not a screen sharing anymore.

Now here's the gotcha:

During the last step we logged into the Mac directly from its local keyboard with user A. Which user doesn't matter but the fact that we did login locally leads to the issue. As long as our VNC client is still connected it runs fine. But once we close the VNC client then the next time we try to connect through VNC while there's still someone logged into the Mac locally, then we have the same issue that everybody experienced and described in this threat.

The solution is:

Log the local user off for a moment, connect through VNC and then you're free to login locally again.

I found a solution to the hang when logging into Lion from Windows using TightVNC. It appears that the default bluetooth-keyboard daemon searches for a keyboard and breaks the vnc login.

Since my system is headless (just power and network cable), I went into the system settings and turned off all the options under Bluetooth->Advanced. Now my login prompt no longer gets stuck like it used to.

Hope this helps you.

Yes, I had always disabled Bluetooth and search for a keyboard in system settings. That was the same with Snow Leopard. When you run your Lion server headless you have never an issue cause you're never logged in locally. Only when you login locally then you have an issue with the screen sharing like described.

Since I use encryption with Lion I can switch keyboard/mouse/monitor to connect directly to the Mac in order to enter the password after reboot. Make sure to logoff from it locally afterwards and then you can enjoy your VNC connections. But don't stay logged in locally.

"Apple today released OS X 10.7.4, the fourth maintenance update to OS X Lion. The update is currently available via Software Update and should appear on Apple's download pages soon.

The 10.7.4 update is recommended for all OS X Lion users and includes general operating system fixes that improve the stability, compatibility, and security of your Mac including fixes that:

- Resolve an issue where the “Reopen windows when logging back in” setting is always enabled
- Improve compatibility with certain British third-party USB keyboards
- Address an issue that may prevent files from being saved to a server
- Improve the reliability of copying files to an SMB server

Detailed information is available in the full release notes. Notably, the update also includes a fix for the password security hole detailed earlier this week.

An issue existed in the handling of network account logins. The login process recorded sensitive information in the system log, where other users of the system could read it. The sensitive information may persist in saved logs after installation of this update. See http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4272 for more information about how to securely remove any remaining records. This issue only affects systems running OS X Lion v10.7.3 with users of Legacy File Vault and/or networked home directories.

Available versions include:

- OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Client) (692.68 MB)

- OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Client Combo) (1.4 GB)

- OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Server) Client (738.71 MB)

- OS X Lion Update 10.7.4 (Server) Combo (1.49 GB)

- Server Admin Tools 10.7.4 (212.4 MB)

Finally, Apple has also released Apple Remote Desktop 3.5.3 Client (3.80 MB) to address general compatibility issues. "

Annoyingly, this fixes my issues, yet nowhere in that announcement, nor in the release notes for 3.5.3 does it mention addressing the issues that have kept my companies Mac's off Lion due to their breaking VNC from Windows to OSX.

I hate Apple's policy of acting as if there aren't issues when there are. 10 months that's taken to fix and not a single line about it.

Anyway, as of 10.7.4 being installed, my tight vnc viewer 1.5.4 can connect to our test mac on 10.7.4 and log in through the screen - 10 tests, no failures so far.

Install and test, people.

Spoke too soon, it broke soon after.

It appears it works ok now after a reboot, assumedly when the service has restarted, then breaks about an hour in.

To be fair, it does seem to work intermittently after that too, which is an improvement, but no - this isn't stable from a windows xp client to a 10.7.4 host over VNC. At least not on Tight VNC.

And yes, I tried the usual 'repeat your password' etc 'fixes'.

and I can't just 'log the user off locally' these macs are meant to be accessed daily multiple times from remote locations from a variety of windows machines - something that works fine connecting to snow leopard.

Hey there,

faced the issue of login'in then being kicked back to the login screen through remote desktop on my keyboard-free Mac mini.

Could login through ssh just fine.

Had it work again with a simple :

diskutil repairPermissions /

(note to self: script it as a scheduled task)

then did (on lion) :

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

then I crossed every fingers I could and gave the "share screen" another try again and went in just fine this time.😁

happyhappy joyjoyjoy

Hope It'll helps

Cheers.

Fabrice.

I take it, recklessfa, that this isn't VNC from Windows to OSX from the reference to 'screen share'.

It's not OSX to OSX that's being discussed here, it's windows.

If it is windows that you're addressing;

which windows client are you using?

Which osx version are you connecting to?

Currently, I can't connect over VNC to OSX Lion (any version) using Tightvnc or Realvnc. To Snow Leopard I have no problem.

Glad its working for you but 10.7.4 blew my VCN to ****.

I upgraded from 10.6.x to 10.7.4 a few days ago, and my VCN just doesn't work consistently. I get to the account login screen, and sometimes if I am lucky the cursor will be focused on the input box and I can type the account password in and I get in, however MOST of the time the password box is NOT in focus when the screen comes up and NOTHING I do on the PC side helps. Just sits there mocking me, asking for a password without being in focus or accepting inputs.. so basically useless.

I have tried changing protocols, and various other things, but nothing.

THis was the first OS upgrade I have ever paid for in my life, I generally just buy new hardware and upgrade the OS when the hardware needs refreshed, and I was generally pleased that the upgrade cost was reasonable and that it went rather well.. then I realized, the single biggest thing I use on the MAC (VCN) to use it, now doesn't work right, and apparently hasn't worked right for months and is not fixed.

This is disappointing and unacceptable.

yup. also having the same problems. grey linen scren no way to log in. I have a bluetooth keyboard and a keyboard plugged in. never was an issue before Lion...it is super inconvinient.

I have USB keyboard and mouse. I verified Bluetooth is turned off. Same problem. I have completely given up hope. (Again this is starting VNC client from Windows to login to Mac OS Lion. Not going from Mac to Mac, which works but it's not what I need).

RealVNC has a trial version of their client and server for Mac OS Lion. It works. So it can be done. But it doesn't support multiple users logging in, so I didn't purchase it. So my hope of using Mac Mini Server as a ... well, server to allow users to login is hopeless.

Can someone try this with Mountain Lion please?

Which port should I use on VNC to connect? (using VNC over SSH) Also how can I tell the ARD server is running ok?

The reason I ask is that:

* have followed http://technosense.blogspot.com.au/2009/03/start-vnc-from-command-line-and-conne ct.html

* doesn't work when trying to connect via VNC

* I note that sudo lsof -i -P | grep -i "listen" does not show anything listening on 5900?

* An "lsof" has a number of ARDAgent lines, but none with LISTEN in them?

I have been trying to access Lion (10.7.4) Screen Sharing via VNC from a Windows computer and have run into the same problem. I was occassionally able to connect using RealVNC Viewer 4.1.3 by just typing in my password before the linen screen came up. I just upgraded to RealVNC Viewer 5.0.0 and it appears to support Lion. I was able to select the password field and type in my password, even already logged in on the Lion machine. No workarounds needed!

http://www.realvnc.com/download/viewer/

This seems to be true. I'm using Vine Server on Lion. Now typing this through the new Real VNC 5.0 Viewer.

So it's not an Apple problem all along?