10.6.8, ARD admin 3.5 and ARD 3.5.1 REPORTING BROKEN

Had the same/similar issue, ARD hung at the login screen, none of the tips worked for me. It finally seems to work after changing the system prefs -> user & groups & Login options to: automatic login off and Display login window as "List of users". Maybe this help somebody else.

NT

I am running 10.6.8 Server with a variety of clients (PowerMac G4, PowerBook G4, Intel and PPC Mac Mini's), and I am having a hard time with this latest update.

I ran software updates on five machines and three come back up as "ARD not active", while the other two work fine. I can see and control the computers that have "ARD not active", but I cannot send commands, push packages, or update the machines. I have SSH'd into these computers that show "ARD not active" and reloaded the ARD client app through kickstart and it makes no difference. Just by rebooting the machine I lost all control over the client with no apparent reason why...

ARD is completely broken in the latest version and it really needs to be fixed asap. Trying to maintain 700 computers with a version of ARD that is almost non-functional is rediculous.

Hi rcmgk,

You can fix it by downgrading to 3.4 Admin (and 3.4 client) on the admin machine. I completly agree with you, however, and I don't really understand why an update was pushed out to begin with (especially since 3.4 admin can control 3.5 clients just fine).

I've been meaning to do this for a while, but has anyone tried calling apple and requesting a copy of 3.4? I bought my ARD Admin from the app store (it was 3.4 or lower at the time) and it didn't come with/have a serial number. I can only get 3.5 from the app store now...

Best,

Allen

If I have the 3.4 installer or the disc, can I leave everything intact and just install from that? If I have to nuke everything out, do you know how to preserve the list of computers/saved unix commands/saved copy commands/saved install tasks so that I dont have to re-do all of that?

Thanks!

A little more information, maybe helpful to somebody!

I migrated 4 G4 mac minis to core2 duo minis a few weeks ago.

First machine, when it came up with updates it offered the ARD 3.5.1 Client so I downloaded the dmg for that and installed it. While I was at it, I (stupidly!) downloaded the 3.5 admin dmg and installed it on my machine. This new mini then entered a weird state on my ARD -- still shows as a G4 processor, and still shows 10.5.8 as the OS. The only thing that I can do with this machines is Control and Observe it. But it's shown as "Offline" so I cannot push software, copy files, run reports, etc.

Next I did the other 3 machines. I left them at Client 3.4 (came over with Setup Assistant) in hopes that they wouldn't cause me problems. On my 3.5 Admin, they behave exactly as the first one -- the Admin is sure that the computers aren't there, but if I Observe/Control them they come right up.

My boss (heeding my warning) left his Admin at 3.4. These four machines did the same thing for him, but he was able to fix it by deleting them and then re-adding them by IP address. I tried that, and they reappeared in the same broken state as before for me at 3.5 Admin...

I noticed yesterday that my one machine that is at 10.6.8 has entered the same unreachable-only-to-me state.

Ugliest effect... I have this workflow where I periodically run a report on every machine which shows up on my scanner. A few machines will fail for various and sundry reasons, but if I would let it run for awhile and then hit the "stop" button it would bring up the report and I could export it to a spreadsheet and there would be blank lines on the few machines that didn't answer. Now, however, when I "stop" the report it just aborts and gives me NOTHING!!!! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

I have the same question as rcmgk -- how do I delete the software so that it will let me re-install 3.4? (I have the ARD 3 box with install disks, and the 3.4 Admin dmg.) Is there any way to save my entire setup of lists and categorization that I have painstakenly built up over use?

I suppose this is just one more step of Apple walking away from the enterprise. We are already shopping for linux rack-mount servers to replace our aging Xserves.

Update -- Reporting is still broken for me, but I have solved the problem of ARD remembering the old computer, and pretty simple... Change the IP address of the client. (Write down what you are changing it to -- the second you hit apply it goes away in ARD, of course.) Do an add-by-address with the new address. Connect to it, and change the IP back (in my case, I changed it back to DHCP.) Then go look on your scanner, and drag and drop it in to the group it belongs to. The display should be updated, and show the right hardware, OS, etc., and you should be able to copy to it and install to it.

Not the simplest thing to do since the IP address is "saved" in the ARD list and if a newsystem receives the same IP it is kicked out. Once a system "drops out" of ARD you can not get back into it to change the IP address to manual. It is not practicle to go through ARD every day or two to "flush out" bad computers and change their address twice to get them back into ARD, especially if you have two or three hundred such systems in your ARD control.

The icing on the cake for this? Remote Desktop will no longer load for me. Each time I restart the application it loads my last used list and then starts a pinwheel. I have restarted the machine twice, and it doesnt fire off any logs about a crash for ARD yet.

As soon as I figure out how to uninstall while maintaining saved items i will be putting 3.4 back on until Apple fixes this.

Joe Pyrdek wrote:

Not the simplest thing to do since the IP address is "saved" in the ARD list and if a newsystem receives the same IP it is kicked out. Once a system "drops out" of ARD you can not get back into it to change the IP address to manual. It is not practicle to go through ARD every day or two to "flush out" bad computers and change their address twice to get them back into ARD, especially if you have two or three hundred such systems in your ARD control.

Well my situation was kind of a special case in that I schnookered ARD into holding on to the old info. I used SetupAssistant to migrate G4 mac minis to core2duo mac minis, so the new machines with the new serial numbers and the new operating systems came up with the same names and DHCP gave them the same IP addresses as the old hardware. Given the whole rigamarole of swapping hardware out and running the setup, the added step of swapping IPs twice and nudging ARD to notice is no big deal.

But bottom line is that the reporting is important to me, and like rcmgk I am trying to figure out if I can downgrade without losing my setup. I think I'm just going to have to dive in and do it, and then I'll report back. I don't have a huge setup to lose, so I'm a logical guinea pig!

I was able to get 3.5 running by reinstalling 3.5 from the 3.5 installer. Not the ideal solution, but at least I can use it again...

Ugh. I used the command line to rename Remote Desktop.app to Remote Desktop3.5.app, and then I installed ARD3 from the install disk and ran the 3.4 update on it. When I try to launch it, an alert panel comes up telling me that my client is at a later version than the Admin, and I must update the Admin. My only two choices out of the panel are "Cancel" and "Check for updates".

There is this http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2577?viewlocale=en_US old article, which suggests that once the client upgrade has been done the only way to back down to 3.4 is to reinstall the operating system and apply all of the updates and only take client up to 3.4.

C'mon, apple, this is ABSURD. You put out an "update" that is simply BROKEN in some sort of half-assed attempt to add management of Lion clients. But Lion won't run in the enterprise because of everything else they screwed up, so nobody actually NEEDS Lion client support!!!

Aha! Success! Here's what I did:

On the command line,

If you are NOT an Administrator,

su {an account with Administrator privleges} {it will ask you for that account's password}

If you are an Administrator, just skip the su step

• cd /Applications
• sudo mv Remote\ Desktop.app Remote\ Desktop3.5.app/

In Finder

• install RemoteDesktop 3 from the disks
• use the RemoteDesktopAdmin34.dmg to upgrade the Admin to 3.4 (to get the dmg, go to http://support.apple.com/downloads and put "remote desktop 3.4 Admin" in the search box)

Back on the command line,

• cd /System/Library/CoreServices
• sudo mv RemoteManagement RemoteManagement3.5.1

On a machine that still has a 3.4 client install, zip up that machine's /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement directory (right-click on the file and choose "Compress"). Put the zip file on a jump drive, and go back to your computer you are trying to fix and plug in the jump drive. Return to that terminal session where you are cd'd into /System/Library/CoreServices and unzip the file. Easiest way to do this is to type in the terminal window

sudo unzip

and then a space

and then go to the Finder with your flash drive open and drag-and-drop the RemoteManagement.zip file into the terminal window. It will put the complete file path on the command line. When it looks right, hit return and you should see a bunch of file names go by in the Terminal window.

Look in /Applications -- there should be a Remote Desktop and Remote Desktop3.5 applications

Look in /System/Library/CoreServices -- there should be RemoteManagement RemoteManagement3.5.1 folders

Reboot.

I got everything back -- groupings, history, etc. And now I can run reports!

Hi all,

Since the update I have Apple Remote Desktop 3.5.1 connection problems between two minis. Indeed it

does not work.

Can not connect with my user + password on the Mac. I have the following message: Authentication

failed with "my mac" ... please check that you have entered the name and password correct.

It goes without saying that everything is correct but it does not ...

I am forced to remove the password management and to "all users" to share for this to work!

Also the mac on which I have to connect a wonder every start if I want to accept that:

AppleVNCserver.bundle accepts incoming connections.

While it is always on my list. I'm saying yes every time you start a ... remember nothing!

I talked to Apple enterprise support, and the Tier 1 guy did (and will for you) deny the problem exists. Just ask to speak to a manager or supervisor. Be sure to say you have filed a bug report and that it has been confirmed, and marked as a duplicate. Be prepared to give the bug ID.

By the way, the support supervisors at Apple are awesome. First tier, not so much. The Supervisor issued me a serial number for the app nearly right away (once I showed him proof that I bought in the App store), but he didn't have a delivery method for 3.4, and of course I can't use it since I don't have a copy of the CD. I'm contacting our Apple rep to find out if I can get a copy of the ARD cd to use.

The Support supervisor also mentioned that an update is coming that will fix this problem, and that it should be released in the "near term." Your guess is as good as mine on when that will be and what it means.

My ARD 3.5 went completely corrupt on me and I contacted support. The first time the tier 1 agent insisted that I had to completely uninstall, and that I could at least get back to 3.4 by using the 3.4 udpater. I repeatedly voiced my apprehension about this, because if she was wrong I was completely hosed because I could not locate the CD any longer (Box, serial, CD sleeve.....no CD). 10 minutes later with no ARD and a couple of curse words I called back and got another tech who verified my serial and sent me a replacement CD so that I can start back at the beginning.

I also tried to see if I could get a credit on the iTunes account so that I could obtain ARD through the App Store to use temporarily while I waited on the CD to be created/shipped. Unforunately, that fell flat as I had purchased the CD, not the App, but it was worth a try since I have no ARD for a couple more days.