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Level 1

5 points

Problems using 'Back to my Mac' with Yosemite

At home I have two Macs, an iMac and a MacBook, both running Mavericks. At work I use a MacBook Pro, also running Mavericks, and when I'm out I use a MacBook Air that was running developer preview of Yosemite.

My home iMac has now been upgraded to Yosemite. However when at work using my Mavericks MacBook I can no longer use 'Back to my Mac' to screen share back to my iMac, I get "Connection failed to "Conor's iMac", but I can still connect to the MacBook at home running Mavericks. I've also tried connecting to both Macs at home using my Yosemite MacBook Air but I get the same error.

I can screen share between all Mac when they are on the local network, but as soon as I'm using iCloud to screen share the only connection I can make is between Macs running Mavericks. It's almost as if 'Back to my Mac' via iCloud is broken in Yosemite.

I've tried disabling and reenabling 'Back to my Mac', signing out of iCloud entirely and then logging in again, but nothing I've tried so far will allow me to use iCloud to screen share between two Yosemite Macs.

Has anyone else seen this issue, or have any suggestions?

Posted on Oct 21, 2014 12:54 PM

220 replies

Ellis Z

Level 2

263 points

May 1, 2015 10:27 AM in response to vegeta777

vegeta777 wrote:

Your trick worked to delete the keys, however BTMM is still not working on this one MBP.

I have the same issue with a fresh (from scratch) Yosemite install. No pre-existing keys.

May 1, 2015 1:15 PM in response to vegeta777

BTMM now working on both machines. Did it take time for new keys to sync? Fluke? We shall see how long this lasts.

Zachary

Level 4

2,061 points

May 1, 2015 1:25 PM in response to vegeta777

I just tried again and did get it to work as well. It took a very long time to connect and i had to re-enter my credentials (again!), but it seems to be working. For now...

May 1, 2015 7:56 PM in response to Zachary

now, not working on initial machine. This is still a royal ClusterF

May 8, 2015 6:16 AM in response to vegeta777

So, when BtMM fails to connect between two Macs running Yosemite and authentication fails then are you dead in the water. What is the alternative or comparable to BtMM? Yes, I know there is TeamViewer, VNC, etc... as the alternative software to use in place of BtMM. I am sure these are the alternatives to use in place of BtMM.

If you have Time Capsule, could you remotely connect to the TC then to the other Macs in the house? I am just thinking of the other possible ways to connect to the home network if you can't directly connect to the main computer.

May 23, 2015 3:57 AM in response to El Morche

Just updated to the latest beta 10.10.4 (14E17e).

Still can't access a sleeping Mac Mini via BTMM.

May 23, 2015 11:04 AM in response to El Morche

I have just been speaking with Apple Support and was told that Apple Engineering have now accepted that there is an issue and that it will be fixed in a future release. No commitment as to when this will happen however. But at least they are now working on it.

May 23, 2015 11:15 AM in response to El Morche

We may be waiting a long time. BTMM, Wake On Demand has not work reliably since Snow Leopard. It's a hit and miss after SL. With Yosemite, its a total disaster. It would be nice if they truly fix this.

May 25, 2015 12:20 PM in response to SuperSizeIt

What I'm doing in the meantime on advice from Apple Support is to set my Mac Mini to not go to sleep, scheduled it to restart overnight and changed my user to login automatically. Seems to have worked okay so far but it is early days.

I've also found out that if I can't see any remote devices in the Finder sidebar or can't establish a connection a restart of my MacBook seems to clear the problem. Previously I had tried toggling BTMM off and on but this didn't always work.

May 26, 2015 4:01 PM in response to Conor.P.M

Looks like Apple finally gave up their discoveryd service and is replacing it with the previous mDNSresponder. Something many folks believe is behind all the BTMM issues. Maybe these issues will finally be resolved.

FWIW, BTMM seems to be working for me now for nearly two weeks. Here's what I did on each machine:

1) Log in to your account on the machine

2) Ensure it's running Yosemite 10.10.3

3) Turn OFF screen sharing (or Remote Management if you're an ARD user)

4) Sign OUT of your iCloud account

5) Sign back IN to your iCloud account

5) Turn screen sharing (or Remote Management) back ON

Obviously this won't help you if you don't have physical access. Also, I'm still having issues connecting to sleeping machines but that's always been an issue for me, even before Yosemite. I still have machines that I don't have physical access to that I haven't tried this with yet. However, my wife's MacBook, my Mini server and my parent's MacBook and iMac have been steadily accessible now for a couple weeks or so. YMMV.

Problems using 'Back to my Mac' with Yosemite