Screen Sharing does not accept my password anymore

Sorry if this makes you feel stupid. I had the same problem with 4 macs in the house. The problem manifested after the latest set of Lion-related updates (all my macs are still on Snow Leopard). After stopping everything and running software update to get all the gear running the same version of everything, I still could not get screen sharing to work, getting the login error despite connecting ok via finder.

It was really a very simple fix, at least in my case. Many of us, especially i/t geeks, will set up our user account with a more unix-like user-id. For example "John Doe" will have the user-id "doej" or something of the sort. That user-id was the value I used when connecting via finder and screen sharing. Thinking back to some crazy Windows login problems, I tried using my "display name" on the account (instead of the actual user-id) in the user-id field of the authentication popup for screen sharing instead. The display name (most people just put their real name in when running setup) is what appears for your account in the initial login list on start up. It worked.

Thanks to another user in another thread I found a solution that works for me.

My solution (based on his/her tip) is here

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3226287?answerId=16053829022#16053829022

And a support tip about account names is here

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1428

The basic problem is that there are 2 different names in the OS for your account - a "Full Name" and an "Account Name". Changing your Account Name is a difficult and potentially dangerous thing to do and doesn't provide the solution for Screen Sharing. It turns out that Screen Sharing relies on the "Full Name" and if the computers you want to screen share between have the same Full Name a conflict arises that it might not be able to resolve. My solution was to simply append either 'MBP" or "MM" to my "Full Name" and log out and back in again on both computers - problem solved - and oh-by-the-way Screen Sharing logs in MUCH faster now. Full Name is changed easily in the Accounts system pref for a given account. In 10.6.8 it's actually called "Full Name".

If you still want to muck around with your Account Name unlock the Accounts preference pane, select the account in the left hand list and then control-click the account name. A menu titled "Advanced Options..." appears. If you open it you can change your Account Name but as the dialog there says - BEWARE, THIS CAN CAUSE BIG PROBLEMS.

Hi,

I have the very same issue with a MacBook Pro. I used to be able to screen share with the short username 'Admin' but since some time after 10.6.8 update and before the iTunes etc. updates it all stopped working. I have recently found that I CAN screen share if I use the full 'Administrator' username.

Phil

Still not working for me, either. None of the suggestions have fixed the behavior. It seems to be the server side, since I ran software updates on the client side and that didn't break anything, but as soon as I ran the updates on the server, it broke the connection. I tried kinit and kdestroy as suggested on one of the three threads about this breaking on 10.6.8, and that didn't help either. I am contemplating putting another VNC server on the computer.

Sadly, I have been slowly replacing the built in functionality of the Mac Server OS (on the regular OS I don't need these things as much) with third party apps for some time now because of these sorts of things. Every time an update comes something seems to break or doesn't work quite right out of the box. FTP, Java, MySQL/PHP, rsync to name a few, and now VNC.

Sorry if that didn't come out right. I should have taken the time to get the correct labels off of the user preferences dialogue and it would have made more sense.

When you create a new user, there are two fields: one for "Full Name" (typically the user's actual name) and another for "Account name" (this usually a more Unix-like user-id). On my system, typing "John Doe" into the Full Name box automatically populates "johndoe" into the Account Name box. I would guess the majority of Mac users will leave that default in there, type in a password and hint and complete creating the account.

Interestingly, you cannot view the Account name in the user preferences dialogue once the account is created. However, the Account name is used as the name of your Home folder.

In the past, I've used that Account name when connecting to shares in finder. I just verified that when you open finder and click "Connect As" and choose "Registered User," the authentication prompt in SL automatically has the Account name in the user field. Once connected in finder, all I had to do is click Screen Sharing and it would just open up. Presumably since I had already authenticated via finder. After the last updates, I started getting a password prompt only when attempting to start screen sharing. Finder still worked the same as before, and I was able to view all my folders. Using the Full Name instead of the Account name got me through the second password prompt and opened the screen sharing session.

I tried authenticating the finder with the Full Name instead, and still got the second authentication prompt when launching screen sharing. Clearly Apple has made a change to screen sharing that no longer passes through your finder authentication.

If you've somehow already been using the Full Name, and not the Account name, to authenticate in finder, this fix doesn't help you.

What I meant by "feeling stupid" is going to great lengths to step through a lot of troublesome reboots and whatnot, only to discover that the problem is an arcane, and apparently pointless change with which user name on the account authenticates for two apparently related features (you do go through finder to get to screen sharing!). I certainly didn't mean you were stupid. I wouldn't blame you for having to figure out something Apple changed up after years for no apparent reason. I wasn't real happy about it either after wasting an hour or so figuring it out. My poor choice of words was really meant in the spirit of that "d'oh!" moment when you find the trivial 5 second fix after spending that hour (or days) doing lots of potentially risky stuff to no avail.

Sweet Sassy Molassy! That was it! Thanks, th0mas_l. I wouldn't even have thought to enter my full name since the computer kept autofilling my account name. I was going deep into the bowels of kerberos nonsense to try to figure out what was going on. The confusing thing is that you can connect with your account name if you connect via the machine's IP address.

th0mas_l wrote:

I tried using my "display name" on the account (instead of the actual user-id)

Thanks so much. I was having this issue after upgrading Mac OS X Server 10.6.7 to 10.6.8, and using my full name instead of my account name was exactly the solution. I never would have thought of that.

th0mas_l wrote:

Interestingly, you cannot view the Account name in the user preferences dialogue once the account is created.

Actually you can but it's concealed. On Mac OS X Snow Leopard (client version), in the Accounts pane of System Preferences, click the lock to unlock it (if necessary), then Control-click (or right-click) the account name in the list, and select the menu item that appears: Advanced Options. Probably a good idea to heed the warning about not changing any values there unless you know exactly what will happen.

Hi Thomas - You seem to know know what your doing...Thanks for the fix, however does not work for meI still have the same issues! When I click on my mac mini icon in my macbook finder I am automatically connected to the shared files (connected as 'my mac mini account name'), i proceed to click on share screen which gives me the pop up to choose either asking permission or registered user, I click 'As a registered user' and proceed to type in my (macbook account name and/or user) as you suggested but still no luck..tried using the mac mini user name and account name as well with still no luck. This is getting really frustrating and dont mind coming off as 'feeling stupid' 🙂 !!! Any help or ideas would be greatly appreciated....

I've been trying various workarounds all day to make this work and after reading william's post about it auto connecting and earlier finder related stuff, for fun (and in desperation!) I clicked on disconnect in the finder window, then clicked share, used the full username, and BAM, in I went... to the headless mini !

This seemed to prove the earlier theory that finder might be connecting for file sharing one way, and screen sharing was broken in the 10.6.8 update (Thanks Apple!) and working another way, possibly presenting some kind of conflict in the SS connection/authentication process? Anyway now I am in. I should add that before I got in this way, the SS app was also crashing when I clicked on the sharing button in the finder and entered a name/pass combo.

Hope this helps others. Thanks for the ideas and workarounds.

Still not working for me, I have two different accounts with the same display name but different usernames on two systems. What are the chances of that? I thought (a few years ago) that the actual account name would take precedence, and also prevent a big security hole. Oh well.

th0mas_I, What if my Full Name and Account name are the same? When I set up my log in names on my Mac, I entered the full name with a capital for the first letter (i.e. Mary). The Account Name box was automatically populated with all lower case letters (i.e. mary). I manually changed the first letter to a capital letter so the Full Name and Account name are exactly the same.

So, due to this, your recommended fix (using the Account Name) is not working.

Note: I did confirm on a friend's Mac in which his Account Name had all lower case letters that your recommended fix did in fact work. However, this does not help me due to the situation I mentioned above.

I have been been using Screen Sharing for over 2 years with no problems until after I upgraded to 10.6.8.

If I go into System Preferences, then Accounts, then unlock the lock so I can make changes, then right click on my user name in the left side under "My Account", then click on "Advanced Options", then manually change my account name back to all lower case letters, then click OK, will this allow the Screen Sharing to work again? I have not tried this yet as there is a Warning in red font that says "Changing these settings might damage this account and prevent the user from logging in." Can you confirm whether this will fix my screen sharing situation without damaging my account login?

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated.

johnv6: To be honest, I don't know. The only thing that strikes me as a low-risk option to try is the one Jamy suggests, which was to disconnect as the registered user in the finder and try going directly to screen sharing.

I don't think the capitalization in the Account name is of any concern; however, spaces or non-alphanumeric characters may get special treatment (like escape characters used in html) on the system level that you cannot see in the usual OSX configuration dialogues.

I would strongly advise against changing the Account name without the guidance of an OSX system expert. I've never tried it myself and don't care to speculate on what sort of things get broken under the user-friendly cover of OSX when doing such a change. I know tinkering with a user account is generally a Bad Thing To Do in any unix environment, as it could impact file permissions and installed applications, among other things.

If it were me considering the same thing, I might try one of two options, in order of preference. Use at your own risk, your mileage may vary, professional driver on a closed course, and all that nonsense:

1. Clone the hard-drive on the mac I'm using as a console and boot up with it to verify it works ok. Once verified, shut down and disconnect the cloned drive. Now try changing the user account. If something blows up badly, simply restore the system drive from the clone and I'm back at square one.

2. Create a "throw-away" user account using the same syntax as my regular one. Then create or copy some files in various, sensible places for test purposes. Verify that the same login problem exists. Finally, do the change on the "throw away" account and see if it works, as well as runs applications ok. If you blow up that account or make the copied files unaccessible, nothing is lost. Just delete them along with the bogus account when you're done, and you're back to square one.

I chose the preference as option 1 restores me back to the exact configuration I started with, provided the drives don't fail or any bits get lost or damaged in transit. And I've done it often enough to know that I can do it reliably and everything on my mac that matters is backed up elsewhere and can be rebuilt if something goes really wrong. Option 2 doesn't depend on a backup, but creating, breaking, then deleting a user account might leave some remnants that could be unpredictable.

I don't think I know what I'm doing any more than the next person. I do have enough technical knowledge to get myself into deep trouble, and for that reason have gotten in the habit of preparing a backup plan B (usually cloning my entire system drive) any time I even think there's a risk of something breaking badly when trying something out. I thank the TSA for my acquiring the tools and skill at cloning drives as I went through about three hard drives a few years ago thanks to them slamming my equipment around at airport security.

th0mas_I,

Thank you for the reply. I was able to duplicate the issue on another 10.6.8 Mac computer in which the only thing different is the first letter of the Account Name is capital letter. The one with the lower case letter on the Account Name, screen sharing works. But, the one with the upper/capital letter does not.

Regarding the two options you recommended, I have a couple of questions:

1) Does a Time Machine backup qualify as meeting the minimum requirements of what you mentioned as "cloning the hard drive"? I do have a Time Machine backup that has backed up everything on the computer (operating system, applications, files, settings, etc).

2) What do you mean by "same syntax"?

Thanks for your help...