DNS names keep "flikkering" randomly in Apple Remote Desktop

I'm a similar issue except the IP addresses are flickering between two different IPs. Also, out of 30 computers in my lab, only 6-10 computers will show up at any given time. Worked fine before 3.7 update.

Thanks,

Mike

Same here even on fresh install and Mavericks and ARD 3.7.

Please report the problem to bugreport.apple.com if you have not done so already!!

This is GARBAGE. The exact same thing is happening to me. Everything was fine until I installed Mavericks on the computer. I can no longer use ARD in my computer lab.

I think they will get it fixed and I hope soon! I have 200 clients and use it daily.

It seems like ARD has problems refreshing and matching up the IP and DNS name or something along those lines. I double checked our DNS and its fine and matches up fine.

If I delete all the computers in "All Computers" and re-add them then things are fine and the IP's and DNS match up with the DNS servers. Its something with ARD!

If you have a small lab just delete them from "All Computers and readd them. I can't do that because I have 200 clients scattered throughout the building to do that. I will if I have too and have done so twice already, but ARD needs to and should work! Hopefully they get this correct this week as its driving me nuts and probably you guys as well!

Well, add my 50 computers to the list!

When I did the upgrade to ARD 3.7 on OS 10.8.5 all user names and passwords for those 50 computers were lost! Had to re-add them all one-by-one 😟

... and after closing ARD the passwords were gone again 😠 Then I did a Permission Repair and at least this problem was fixed and the passwords "re-appeared" (I'm not sure whether this problem occured because I use a standard user account for work).

Anyway, later, I swapped the IP's of two OS X servers and modified their DNS entries accordingly. nslookup is properly resolving the names but ARD goes berserk with those two servers and always keeps using the wrong, 'historic' host names and/or IPs.

It has been annoying for quite a long time and many ARD versions that you could not override this stupid ARD name caching behaviour (or whatever it is) by manually editing the ARD clients host name/IP (hey, Apple, did you ever hear about "nslookup" or "dig"?). In ARD 3.6.2 it finally seemed to be fixed and now they re-introduced this buggy behaviour again!!!

If they are not able to program a query for the correct and current data, they should at least allow me to edit this information manually and permanently. This information must not be overwritten by any bizarre automatic mechansim using data that are completely out of date.

Does anybody know where the host name/IP information of the clients is stored and if it might be edited brute force? Or at least if there is a cache that can be emptied?

Hope this will be fixed soon and finally forever!

You can look at this file here, but I had problems messing with it. Removing it and trying to let ARD rebuild it doesn't seem to work and just keeps asking for your password on launch of ARD Admin.

So careful editing it, create a backup file before messing with it:

pico ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.RemoteDesktop/Data/Library/Preferences/com.apple .RemoteDesktop.plist

Hi Daniel,

thank you for the information regarding the .plist-file (~/Library/Containers/com.apple.RemoteDesktop/Data/Library/Preferences/com.appl e.RemoteDesktop.plist). Instead of using pico I purchased PrefEdit (http://www.bresink.com/osx/PrefEdit.html) and used it to edit the plist file. In the section "ComputerDatabase" I deleted all ambiguous/historic values for the respective "hostnames" and "networkAddresses" property keys of the conflicting servers. That solved my problem with the two servers, now they keep their assigned IPs and host names.

Thanks again.

Same here with my 8 computers all mac flickering missing comps very bad and driving me crazy

Smelleke wrote:

Hi there guys,

I found a temporal fix..I changed from DHCP to fixed Ip adresses (I only had to change 20 stations.. so not an option for Daniel Ball).. and it works reasonable stable..

So for small groups a fixed ip could be a temporal solution.

for large groups.. APPLE pleeaasssee speed up the final fix! ;-)

I hope this can help a few of you.

We use static IP's and for anyone thinking of making the switch from DHCP to static, don't bother. The problem still persists.

Same here. very erratic behavior but only on one of my networks that is domain controlled by windows. the rest of my networks that are appliance managed have no problems. my guess is DNS or DHCP related

ARD 3.7.1 is out now........not sure if it fixes our issue! Just installed it!!

Wow....no difference here! Unless the Lists need recreated because they are already corrupt or clients need updated to 3.7.1 as well!

Have all my clients and Admin updated to 3.7.1......along with updated lists. I deleted the computers from All Computers and re-added them all.

Have my fingers crossed the problem is fixed, but have little confidence that it is!!

Same for me. This is just started happening. Every compter here is running 10.8. We have 3 labs the version of ARD on client and Admin makes no difference. It's not every machine but sort of random. Two of the three labs have no issue at all. I can't figure out what the difference is or what might be making this happen. Flushed DNS, repaired permissions, and I tried to edit the plist file, but I'm not seeing "ComputerDatabases". Werewolv, could you please exaplain how you edited the plist file in more detail. I would love to resolve this issue. Thanks!

Updated my admin computer and clients to v3.7.1, recreated my lists, and all seems to be good now. No more dynamic IP flickering and all the DNS names are fixed.