Q: mavericks messages not screen sharing

Hi,

I am also in this thread

Re: Unable to Screen share from with in Messages

I had an issue earlier in the week to my daughter using Yosemite but not at the OS  X 10.10.2 update.

However today I have tested from my Snow Leopard (iChat 5) MacBook Pro and tried to two accounts in Messages on my iMac (Yosemite) and it worked.

Other than restart the computer (and therefore the app as well) I have done nothing at my end to try and improve things.

Yesterday however I did use Repair Permissions on the Snow Leopard computer as it was not seeing some of my Screen Savers at Start up.

My personal view is it is something about the included Security Update in OS X 10.10.2

I am not quite sure what it is and therefore have no idea as of yet on how to deal with it.

8:30 pm      Saturday; February 21, 2015

Same issue here, I own retails stores in Ontario Canada and use messages to support them. Sharing  stopped working in January.

Following this post. Thanks for any advice.

Rick

I have been working on this Messages/iChat screen sharing issue with an awesome AppleCare advisor since Feb 7th.  We have performed tests between several different computers and operating systems and submitted the data to Apple software engineers.  Until today the engineers said they could not replicate the issue on their lab computers, but after a misunderstanding was clarified they are now able to recreate it and said that we could expect a solution in future Apple updates.  In the meantime upgrading your computer to Yosemite seems to resolve the issue, but I support family with computers too old to run Yosemite and there are screen resolution issues preventing some from upgrading hardware or software to Yosemite.  (e.g. My mother, who is legally blind and can't use andy of the screen resolutions of my new iMac)

The AppleCare advisor will email me when he receives notice of the fix being distributed.  I was so impressed with the people skills and knowledge of AppleCare staff, particularly this guy who was such an advocate.  He frequently would have an engineer on a chat as we worked on the issue.

Contrast this to my painful history of Microsoft Windows screen sharing.  Screen sharing rarely worked between all the various Windows operating systems and once, when it stopped working completely, I used a free Windows support option to try to get it fixed.  Over a period of over 2 weeks I wasted probably 24 hrs of my time talking to Microsoft tech support in a foreign country.  The phone connections were good, but the employees' accents were so strong I had to keep asking them to repeat what they said.  No one ever read over the previous troubleshooting that we had done, instead starting from scratch with their troubleshooting suggestions.  And their suggestions were so off base as to be obviously just something on a checklist.  Every 15 minutes they would stop and rattle off a canned feel-good line about their hoping their efforts were helping me.  I would hear the line many times in an evening, spending a couple of hours at a time on the phone.  (Not meant as a racial slur.  Microsoft is the villain,  hiring people without adequate command of the English language and not investing them with the resources needed for their task.)

I know we don't have a solution from Apple yet, but the process seems to be working as it should. 

Bob K

Hi Bob K,

Could you tell us the issue that needed clarifying with the Engineers ?

The Apple Support Communities have over the years been faster at solving some solutions and providing workarounds while we wait for updates.

The info might just be enough for use to make progress.

9:00 pm      Thursday; February 26, 2015

Sorry for the delay in responding.  I am not sure of what exactly the engineers got wrong, but after much texted dialogue between the AppleCare advisor and them I understand that they misunderstood where the problem lay.   I wasn't in communication with them directly, so I am not sure what they were thinking up to the point they "got it".   After two sessions of trying their suggestions, the AppleCare advisor was able to contact them via text or email in real time, but not by phone.  It was this immediate "chat" that got them on the right page and able to reproduce the problem.   If I understood correctly, the advisor said they need to fix the code to enable one computer to receive an acknowledgement from the other at one stage of the process.  I don't know any more than that.  I don't think there is not enough information to help you with a workaround.   I would bet that such a pursuit is a waste of time.  I would rather use my time pursuing other things while Apple fixes the problem they can now reproduce in their lab.  In the meantime, as I am not using screen sharing for business purposes I will use the free Team View app to screen share with the people I support.  It's big downfall is that the audio is terrible (unusable in my opinion), so people have to use the phone at the same time to communicate, not helpful if they are long distance or helping people so elderly (or clumsy) they can't type and hold the phone or mouse at the same time.

I would be interested in knowing if there are many/any users out there who have success screen sharing between the latest Mavericks or Yosemite and older OSX versions.  I was able to screen share between Lion and Leopard, but not between Lion and Mavericks.  Also, Mavericks worked for me with all OSX versions up until late January. 

Bob

Thanks.

7:01 pm      Monday; March 9, 2015

Screen sharing stopped working for me as well. I can connect and get audio, but the screen never comes up. This definitely happens between two Macs on Mavericks. I know mine is 10.9.5, but I'm not sure if the other computer has installed the latest updates from Apple. I also ran into the problem trying to connect with a professor: again I'm not sure what system he was using. I chalked it up at the time to a firewall issue. After reading this thread I'm thinking its something on Apple's side though. I've been able to screen share flawlessly in the past on this Mac.

I happened to stumble across this issue. I loaded a test machine with a Mavericks 10.9.0 installer, then selected upgrades to see what would break it. It is RDC Update 3.8.2 v1.1. After spending time with AppleCare, they told me I might see a fix in a week. Right. I need a fix right now.

So, I used my 15 years of Linux diagnostic skills, and came up with a quick fix, which I will test further. I downloaded Apple Remote Desktop 3.7 Client . If you try to install it now, it will say, "Can't, newer already installed." Fine. goto /Library/CoreServices/, archive RemoteManagement, then put RemoteManagement in the trash (as admin), and empty the trash. Now run the 3.7 installer. I now have screen sharing again, while I wait for Apple's fix.

I will test updates 3.7.1 and 3.7.2 if I can find them.

Hi,

"In a week" is incredibly quick for Apple and hints that they might be releasing the next update to Yosemite very soon.

There are normally months between updates so if there is going to be one it has been in play for some time already.

Interesting work around though.

9:48 pm      Tuesday; March 24, 2015

Similar problem here, I think.

I'm running Yosemite 10.10.2 on a 2009 Mac Pro 8-Core.

Can successfully view the screen of a friend's retina MacBook Pro running Yosemite.

The problem is with my parents' iMac running Mavericks. I can share my screen with them, but when they accept my request to share their screen, the gear icon in my request window just keeps spinning. I can hear audio, but screen sharing never starts.

I looked into keychain repair, but the keychain on their iMac was fine. Checked connection doctor and AIM account settings on both machines, and all seems fine.

I've previously been able to view their screen without problems, though I don't recall exactly when the last time was.

This is a major drag - like many others, I'm trying to provide tutoring to my parents in how to use their computers. It's very discouraging (especially to them) when we waste hours trying to troubleshot the very tool that's supposed to be helping.

I have the same problem on my 2012 MacBook Pro 15" Core i7, also running 10.10.2.

Sorry for typos in previous message. Too bad we can't edit existing posts after a few minutes - or am I missing something?

Hi,

After you click Post you have 15 minutes to edit what you posted.

For those people who are subscribed to get email alerts about new post they get to see the original.

8:34 pm      Wednesday; March 25, 2015

Hi,

I have checked with Little Snitch with an AIM based Screen Share to iChat 5 (OS X 10.6.x)

This shows the app uses two more ports that it used to and they are also Random (not in the published Port range of Messages or the Apple Remote Desktop App).

The Blue boxed ones are used by the app when  it starts up to check th Internet Speed.

The ones highlight in the App with the red comments are the one that are requested as it makes the VNC (Screen Share) connection.

The Port 5678 is the Invite port (the visible bit)

Port 443 is the iMessages login in this case.

These VNC ports are outside the published ports for iChat and Messages  and even th Apple Remote Desktop app that provides the engine for this.

I use UPnP in my router to open the ports (as the app request them basically)  that are needed.

Only my iMac will boot into Mountain Lion and Mavericks but then I can't be in Yosemite and I had no other computer capable of testing anything higher than OS X 10.6.x and it does seem the issue is OS X 10.7 (lion) and Above.

8:50 pm      Wednesday; March 25, 2015

UM-LinuxGuru:  I tried your fix and it worked. Thanks!

I had my parents trash the Remote Management folder and install Remote Desktop Client 3.7 on their iMac (running 10.9.5), and now I can share their screen with my Mac Pro running Yosemite 10.10.2.

One correction: the path to the Remote Management folder is: /System/Library/CoreServices/  (not /Library/CoreServices/)

My system:

MacPro 2009 8-Core 2.26 GHz ('Nehalem')

16GB RAM

Mac OS 10.10.2

Parent's system:

iMac 2010 (I think), 21"

Mac OS 10.9.5

Thank you Robert for pointing out the typo.

I am re-posting my previous post with the correction and some updated text.

------------------------------------

I happened to stumble across this issue. I loaded a test machine with a Mavericks 10.9.0 installer, then selected upgrades to see what would break it. It is RDC Update 3.8.2 v1.1. After spending time with AppleCare, they told me I might see a fix in a week (that was last week from the date of this new post). Well, I need a fix right now.

So, I used my 15 years of Linux diagnostic skills, and came up with a quick fix, which I will test further.

An additional note: Make sure the RDC or ARD programs are not running. A reboot may be needed, and temporarily turning off screen sharing in the services panel may need to be done (I haven't tested these situations, but it follows-to-reason that the fix may not work if the screen-sharing program is active in memory.)

I downloaded Apple Remote Desktop 3.7 Client . If you try to install it now, it will say, "Can't, newer already installed." Fine. In Finder, go-to folder /System/Library/CoreServices/, archive folder RemoteManagement, then put the folder RemoteManagement in the trash (as admin), and empty the trash. Now run the 3.7 installer. I now have screen sharing again, while I wait for Apple's fix.

I will test updates 3.7.1 and 3.7.2 if I can find them.