If Your Screen Sharing Stops Working, Read This

[pkiula]

I just started having this problem today. I use a VPN then VNC to my work computer. I have been connecting like this without problem for years.

Screen Sharing opens and appear like its trying to connect, but just sits like that. Normally, when it can't connect I get a message saying so. Nothing.
I did try all the fixes above, rebooting, checking the activity monitor for NetAuthAgent - not there.

I can AFP and SSH no problem. But, I have a ton of work to do and really need to see my screen.

Go to System Preferences. Then "iCloud".

Do you see your Apple ID in there, without the password?

Delete the Apple ID, and then close that System Preferences window.

Now try screen sharing again..

 

[laregledujeu]

Solved by pkiula (thank you!)

Wow, I'd started having exactly the same problem round about a month or two ago. To be specific, I could connect to my server:

Mac mini 2GHz Core 2 Duo running 10.6.8 with "screen sharing" turned on in the sharing control panel.

From my laptop:

MBP2.3GHz Core i7 running 10.7.4

Painless connections for years until recently.

I deleted the iCloud account on the MBP and now I can connect again (yes!!!).

So, possible conclusion for Apple debuggers, there's a clash between configs in iCloud sharing and Screen sharing. Fingers crossed they can fix it at some point.

All the best,
Dug

 

[marclnx]

do a kill -1 on the screensharing daemon

I just started having this problem today. I use a VPN then VNC to my work computer. I have been connecting like this without problem for years.

Screen Sharing opens and appear like its trying to connect, but just sits like that. Normally, when it can't connect I get a message saying so. Nothing.
I did try all the fixes above, rebooting, checking the activity monitor for NetAuthAgent - not there.

I can AFP and SSH no problem. But, I have a ton of work to do and really need to see my screen.

--
on the remote mac, us ssh to login

#ps -ef screensh

server:~ root# psf screensh
0 27570 1 0 3:44pm ?? 0:32.01 /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/screensharingd.bundle/Contents/MacOS/screensharingd
0 27655 27653 0 4:09pm ttys001 0:00.00 grep screensh

use kill -1 on the running PID in this case

#kill -1 27570

 

[clayj]

Grrrrr...

Annoyingly, Mountain Lion is now popping up a "Connect to Shared Computer" box each time I click one of my VNC links in Safari -- it used to just connect without any prompts.

Anyone else seen this? Anyone have any ideas of how to suppress this prompt?

 

[swingerofbirch]

Sorry, OP, I don't have that issue or know about it. But I thought rather than starting a new thread, I would post my issue here. Screen sharing for me worked fine up through Snow Leopard but has been very buggy in Lion and Mountain Lion, in addition to using more CPU.

My current issue is that if one of my Macs wanders from my Airport Extreme Base Station to an Airport Express that is extending the network, the two Macs can no longer screen share if the other is still connected through the Airport Extreme Base Station. The only solution I have found is to temporarily unplug the Airport Express to force the Mac to connect to the Airport Extreme Base Station. I have two Airport Expresses both set to extend the network, and one Airport Extreme Base Station. All three are up to date.

Has anyone else had this experience?

 

[tyke65]

I find that using Force Quit-Relaunch Finder solves the problem, but not permanently.