Screen Sharing does not accept my password anymore

th0mas_I,

What I thought duplicated the issue on one Mac (per my last post) and then had the same setup on another Mac, it did not act the same. My household has 6 Macs in various forms (Minis, iMacs, Macbook Pros, etc). This issue is not consistent and I am not able to reproduce consistently across all Macs. I am able to screen share with 2 Macs, but 4 lost screen sharing capability. All have the same Full Name and Account Name (Account Name with a capital letter manually created for the first letter when user login was created). All the Macs have the same user name allowed for screen sharing. All are setup with "Back to My Mac" under MobileMe preferences.

I deleted the user (including home folder), rebooted, then created the same user name from scratch, then re-setup screen sharing and Mobile Me "Back to My Mac" in System Preferences. Did not work. Same issue as before I blew out the account and started over.

I have not yet tried creating a brand new user with a different user name and setting up screen sharing under that name. I will try tomorrow as I have now run out of time today.

Note: I have not had any previous trouble with screen sharing on ANY of our household's Macs until the last week or so (until after installing 10.6.8 update) when screen sharing became broken on most of our Macs.

Still looking for a fix. I hope Apple figures out what the problem is and issues a fix soon (if I cannot find a workaround).

johnv6: I have no experience using Time Machine. I scanned the feature page and decided it would be a bit awkward to set up with my systems and configurations, and was not clear enough for me to bet my system on it. It probably would get the job done on a single system backup, but I am not the person to validate if it would work or not.

For disc cloning on Macs, I've done it a couple times on my early 2008 MBP using SuperDuper. It's not free, but it was pretty inexpensive and easy to use. Also worked every time. I also use an earlier version (Dec 2010 maybe?) of Clonezilla, an open source program that you can load via a bootable usb stick. I haven't tested it out on the Macs, but it has handled numerous Windows laptops without a hitch. No reason it shouldn't also get-r-done on an Intel Mac, but I haven't tried that out since SuperDuper works fine as-is. FYI the later version of Clonezilla I downloaded in late May this year would not complete successfully on my wife's Toshiba laptop (64-bit Vista); however the Dec. 2010 version I still had worked fine.

Keep in mind that Clonezilla is a small linux kernel with some disk copying scripts included. It works on the system level and is A> Not user friendly and B> Certainly risky as any open-source software is, especially so since it works system-level commands in the background to copy a drive (or sector) bit-by-bit. So definitely don't just download it and run it if you're not comfortable with less (or zero) support than the built-in stuff like Time Machine.

That said, SuperDuper is an app designed for Macs and automates a number of cryptic background command-line activities driven by your careful choices in the application interface. Creating a reliable disc copy is risky no matter how you do it, but SuperDuper is definitely a bit more user friendly and less complicated than some other options out there.

Same syntax == characters in the same fashion. For example, if your Account name is Smith_J, create the expendable user account as something similar like Jones_C. Basically include the same variation from an all lower-case, no spaces or special characters Account name. That way you ought to be throwing the same challenge at the problem, only with an account that can be broken with no consequence.

andifor: I have to add that some of the attemps posted to work around this issue have been pretty clever. I think the only way I would have stumbled on your test with random caps would have been a typo after hours of trying other crap and getting delerious enough to start making mistakes LOL. It's clearly either a bug, or an oversight - something that enables a Lion feature while coincidentally breaking Screen Sharing in SL. I'm not one to desperately hang on tight to old tech, but I do plan to watch Lion age through it's first update or two before taking the leap.

andifor wrote:

And I wonder, who likes to spend the time cloning a disk, creating a new account / change an existing account if there are two valid solutions available:

Excellent point. The answer would be me LOL. I have the spare drive laying around and I go do something else while the clone is running. I get that not everyone has other systems to use or the hardware lying around to do that. Or the comfort level of such an operation for that matter.

I think the bothersome thing about this issue is that the successful workaround differs depending on each individual configuration. But I do agree on one point: try the easy stuff first before pulling out the spare hard drive and tinkering with user accounts. Maybe they'll fix it in 10.6.9 or with a patch if one ever comes out. I hear you on the compatibility stuff. I have a kick-butt all-in-one laser printer that absolutely gets broken if I let System Update put newer HP drivers on the systems that I use the scanner with :-(

Since that all-in-one is older than last week (new in August 2007), Microsoft even left it behind with Windows 7 (no network scanning).

andifor, what you recommended worked... 🙂 I changed a random character in user name on screen sharing dialog box to capital letter (i.e. Instead of Mary or mary, used mAry) and screen sharing was successful. I also tried capital first letter and capital second letter (i.e. MAry) and it also worked. I don't know "why" it worked... 😕

Yesterday, I was trying capital and lower case first letters (i.e. Mary and mary), but those did not work. So, it seems the key is making one of the other letters a capital... It has got to be a bug in 10.6.8 that hopefully Apple will fix soon...

Note: The fix for 10.6.8 that Apple released a few days ago through Software Update to fix something in the original 10.6.8 update did not fix the screen sharing problem. I have this fix/update now on all our Macs and was having the same problem until I followed your recommendation this morning...

Another word of thanks for this solution...I've been having more or less the same problem using my MacBookPro to connect to my MacMini. Both are running 10.6.8. In my case, Screen Sharing IS accepting my password and username (as Samira, which is what it is supposed to be per the settings on the MacMini) and takes me to the "Connecting" screen but then unexpectedly quits, with the sign-in screen trying to connect. The only way to get out of the sign-in screen is to log out entirely. Force quitting Screen Sharing does not work, restarting the MacMini and the MacBookPro did not solve the problem. After reading this thread, I tried entering sAmira instead of Samira and this time it worked. Glad to have a workaround but this is an especially frustrating bug.

Has someone reported this bug to Apple? I could not find it on OpenRadar - I really hope we do not have to wait for the rumoured 10.6.9 before this bug is fixed - I have so many headless displays and not being able to screen share is horrible. I have found the capital letter sometimes works, sometime does not. It is really strange, because AFP authenticates fine, while VNC does not using the same allowed credentials. Please Apple fix this ASAP!

It just works.... NOT

A big heartfelt thankyou to Apple for wasting another 2 hours of my life sorting this "upgrade" today.

I just used Command K, vnc//192.168.2.24 and it connected. My full name and Account name are NOT the same, but I have added my account name as a "sharing only" account on the Mac Mini.

Apple, why make a great little server if you can't connect to it? Thats 100% MS BS. I am really starting to get annoyed with Apple, things are getting very flaky, only mention SMB to me if you want me to explode. The Apple attitude seems to be, "Buy Apple products only, or else".

Laughable really. I won't (or allow others to) upgrade again straight away.

Oh sweet jeebus. Add me to the list of unix nerds digging around all this LDAP and Kerberos stuff to find it's just an undocumented change plus a lovely bug. Thankfully this thread comes up pretty close to the top when googling for the error message in system.log.

I have 3 boxes running 10.6.8. All have the same full name and short name. One has the problem, one is fine, and one alternates between a really, really slow login and a really slow login and then a screen sharing session that appears to be connected, has the window listed in the "Window" menu, but the session just does not appear (not hidden in another Space, not behind a window, just... missing).

A subtle push towards Lion, which my poor old MBP cannot run.

Is there a RADAR issue open on this one?

I have been plugging away at this all day.

When I try changing the case value for one of the letters in the admin account name, screen sharing just crashes. Which is indescribably helpful.

None of the solutions work. The screen share application just hangs, and I have to kill NetAuthAgent so i can try again.

I have tried every workaround I can find, and I am starting to feel like I died and went to ****, and my personal **** is a mac mini that won't accept a remote session. What really ****** me off is that I can connect and browse the files, but sharing the screen is a no no. I can run the server admin utility, but screen sharing just mocks me.

I am starting to wish I hadn't purchased this mac mini. The biggest insult, it worked perfectly last week...

Have you tried to connect using command K?

In the Finder "Go" menu click on "Connect to server"

You should see a small dialogue box, type in;

vnc://192.168.2.34 (where the four numbers are the local IP address of the Mac mini)

After connecting, you can open this dialogue again and click on the + to save the connection details. I actually find this much faster at connecting than the old "Share screen" method through finder.

Are you using DHCP? If so, you should try to use DHCP with manual address ans set a fixed IP address for the Mac Mini.

I have two Mac Mini's, one under the TV, one as a server, both are technically "headless" (no monitor attached). Screen sharing does not work, using connect to server does. It used to work, but suddenly decided to stop one day, of course with no explaination.

Gotta love Apple, every update brings more joy to us all...

Well in my frustration and in 'press all the ****** buttons and see what happens' moment I discovered this little work around which may work for some.

Open the share screen box. click on share screen and then IMMEDIATELY press on disconnect (while the swirly tripy bar comes up).

Let me know if that makes sense and if works, you may have to mess around and press on disconnect and then on share screen....

I have been dealing with this screen sharing bug for some time and am now having success using 2 workarounds depending on the mac I am trying to screen share with. For the theatre's mini, I just click on the share screen button and it works from one of my other machines. From the other, I open Screen Sharing's app icon (or go to recent Items in the Apple Menu and select Screen Sharing) and upon opening it aks me for an address which I provide (ie 10.0.1.48) then in the dialogue I input the name of the machine with the second letter of the short user name in caps and the password for that user and I am in. In the theatre mini's case that would be tHeatre.

In the webserver mini, I can click on the share screen button and using the short username with that second letter capitalized lets me in. If I don't follow the process by mistake, and Screen sharing crashes, the only way I can get rid of that orphaned security dialogue is to go into Activity monitor, find the process in the list for the NetAuthAgent and click on it once and then quit it by clicking the "Quit Process" button, a force quit doesn't seem to be necessary... then I can try the correct workaround again. I can get to the third imac from the Share Screen button on the webserver mini no problem but have to use the workaround for it from the theatre's machine lol.

I haven't used the vnc address method in the Connect to Server command so can't comment on that, but at least I know I can get to the macs now, noting that the way I access each machine is different depending where I am originating the request ... at least until Apple figures this out.

Hope this helps!

J

The crash occurs sometimes if you switch some of the case of the username, I have replicated that many times. The two options you have for screen sharing successfully are:

1. Either change your "long name" so it does not match your short name and then use your "long name" when screen sharing.

2. If the "long name" and "short name" are the same, when you screen share use ALL CAPITALS for your username in the screen sharing credentials.

3. Bonus if you don't like always typing the name in all capitals, save the credentials to the keychain, and it will remember.

Hope that helps.