slow screen sharing for some users

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Level 2

179 points

slow screen sharing for some users

I am experiencing an odd situation where screen sharing is very slow for all of my users, except me. When l connect via the Screen Sharing app as myself (which is also an admin account), I experience acceptable screensharing speeds. However, if I connect as any other user, the screen response falls off quite noticeably. I was getting complaints from other users and thought it might be due to either a slow internet connection on their end, or perhaps an issue with an older version of OS X connecting to Mavericks Server. However, when I tested from my own laptop on a good internet connection, I noticed a big difference beween connecting as myself and the other users (all other things, preferences etc. being constant). I even tried giving one of the other users admin privilages, but that made no difference.

Any ideas for me to check?

Thanks in advance.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2)

Posted on Dec 4, 2013 1:41 PM

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Answer 1

krw Author

Level 2

179 points

Dec 6, 2013 7:55 AM in response to krw

I do not have a solution to fix this, but I have figured out how to reporduce the issue. The problem seems to be how graphics resources are allocated (prioritized) by the OS. For example, if user X is logged in, and user X's workspace is displayed on the remote machine, user X can work efficiently using Screen Sharing. However, if user Y's worspace is displayed on the remote machine, then user X's experience while working remotely with Screen Sharing is much degraded.

For some reason, the performance of Screen Sharing while working remotely is good only while the remote user's desktop is being displayed on the remote machine.

Does anyone have ideas as to how to fix this? Would running Apple Remote Desktop make any difference?

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Answer 2

Apr 30, 2016 7:03 PM in response to krw

This still on-going bug (three years later) in OSX is not likely to be fixed the two not great work arounds are:

1. Make a build a faked dongle to trick OSX to by pass this bug.
http://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/152354/screensharing-slow-even-over-gig abit-ethernet

2. Turn off OSX screen sharing and install your own VNC server

http://www.tightvnc.com/

https://www.realvnc.com/download/

I have also seen some people resolve this by buying OSX Server ( $20 ) from the app store.

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