ARD has blocked VNC?

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Level 1

47 points

ARD has blocked VNC?

Yesterday, I installed ARD 3.7.2 on both my MacBook Pro (late 2013, retina) as well as my Mac mini (early 2009) which I run as a server. Since rebooting after the installation I can no longer access the machine over VNC locally or remotely, via the ARD client, OS X, or third party VNC clients such as Screens. Both machines have 10.10.1 installed, with the mini running OS X Server 4.

All other local and remote connections still work including SMB, AFP, SSH, FTP, VPN, Server Administration, etc. It's just VNC that will not go through.

As a server, VNC is my primary method of connection with the Mac mini, and ARD itself was installed via VNC. After installation, everything worked fine and I could still connect. After rebooting, however, the connection simply will not open; any client will stop at the "Connecting..." portion of the process.

Is there some known conflict that ARD has that can cause a VNC connection to be blocked? The mini is set up to act as Task Server, and also has Screens Connect installed, with it configured to the public port 5900 (as expected). The firewall is also allowing connections over VNC.

I've tried disabling the firewall, disabling Screens Connect and ARD Task Server (incase these were 'hogging' port 5900, if that's a thing...) to no avail. I haven't yet tried uninstalling ARD in hopes that there may be a quick fix and I don't have to start unpicking what I've set up.

Has anyone experienced this before?

Mac mini, OS X Server, OS X Yosemite (10.10) DP5

Posted on Nov 24, 2014 12:57 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 26, 2014 7:21 AM in response to jamie.shaw

I am going through this at the moment as well. I am running ARD 3.7.2 (372A19) on OS X 10.10.1.

I did get it working for me again, but I cannot tell you how. Yes I blew away my computer and started fresh. I had packaged up 3.7.2 from the App store, and installed it to a fresh 10.10.1. I selected Remote Management (no matter how it was configured), but alas, it didn't work.

This morning, I came it, toggled the Remote Management off/on, and it works fine.

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Answer 2

jamie.shaw Author

Level 1

47 points

Nov 29, 2014 12:04 AM in response to Tim Winningham

Just out of curiousity, do you also use "Screens Connect"?

I've tried uninstalling ARD, rebooting, toggling both Remote Management and Screen Sharing – none of these have worked, I'm still without access to VNC.

I wonder if it's a known issue that might get fixed in 3.8?

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Answer 3

Nov 30, 2014 7:02 PM in response to jamie.shaw

I too have this problem: OS X 10.10.1 Yosemite Server installed on brand new Mac Mini. I install ARD 3.7.2 Server (non-Apple Store), but now I cannot connect to it from any other Mac - ARD or VNC. I believe it is running 3.7.2 Admin with 3.8 Client - but no way I can access remotely!

Any help would be really appreciated, as this is a headless server (supposedly!) and we need to access via ARD and/or VNC!

Thanks

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Answer 4

jamie.shaw Author

Level 1

47 points

Dec 3, 2014 3:08 AM in response to DaleMinter

Hi everyone,

I'm none the wiser here. I've tried several things including disabling firewall, completely uninstalling ARD, etc. to no avail. I still cannot access either my Mac mini or MBP over VNC irregardless of client (I've tried the OS X VNC, ARD and Screens) and connection (local and remote both fail).

Interestingly though, Screens is able to connect via vnc://localhost. OS X and ARD just pop-up some error about controlling your own screen.

Additionally, I managed to control my MacBook Pro from my iPhone when using my iPhone as a tether. I'm pretty sure it was failing on my home network though – I'll check again tonight and report back.

As for my headless Mac mini, it's still AWOL. I can connect via every other method, except VNC, which kinda *****.

I'll see if I can vnc://localhost, and connect when tethered tonight. I can't imagine it'll be networking issues as it was working fine until ARD was installed.

Can everyone confirm they're using the non-App store version? I wonder if it's a bug outside the App Store version.

Regards,

Jamie

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Answer 5

jamie.shaw Author

Level 1

47 points

Dec 5, 2014 11:49 PM in response to jamie.shaw

Right, I've cracked it. I believe the root of the issue is setting ARD Admin as a "Task Server", and this then hogs port 5900.

Here's a run down of all the steps I took to fix the issue:

Uninstall ARD Admin from the command line. This will also remove the ARD client from the machine, unfortunately. Paste the following into terminal, and enter password when asked.
```
sudo /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Resources/kickstart -uninstall -files
```
Download the latest ARD Client update (3.7.1, not 3.8, unfortunately). Install it. This will re-enable "Remote Management" in Sharing:
http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1710
Reboot the machine. If headless, SSH in and paste the following:
```
sudo reboot
```
On reboot, everything should be back to normal.

UPDATE: Without testing, it may be as simple as disabling Remote connections to the task server, and then rebooting the machine.

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Answer 6

BenjiSTL

Level 1

0 points

May 5, 2015 12:39 PM in response to jamie.shaw

this worked. I'd like to have the "latest and greatest" update (3.8) but if it doesn't work the way I want it to (as it has in the past) then I'll just keep using the "out-of-date" version.

Also, when I rebooted, the "Tap to click" stopped working. It was checked in the trackpad preferences, but I had to uncheck and then re-check it for it to start working again. Strange....

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Answer 7

HWgeek

Level 1

4 points

Dec 29, 2015 2:49 PM in response to BenjiSTL

This also worked for me, 3.8 also seems to fix the problem of port 5900 being blocked. With 3.7.1 I tried various options with the task server in preferences and nothing worked. Still can't believe Apple didn't test ARD 3.7.1 and find this bug.

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