[User Resolved] - Login issue

[Ldee]

Hi Raf!
Congrats on a great product! I loved using it until recently when it stopped working. I hope you will have some ideas what may be happening.
When it worked, I was using it on my iPad, to access my Mac laptop running Leopard 10.5.8, with Screen Sharing enabled, on a wireless home network, using a Verizon dsl router. It was smooth and quick. Then something happened, and now "connection fails" all the time.
I have another Mac laptop, identical setup, and with this second machine Remoter works flawlessly!...
I checked the settings for the two connections, they are the same, except for the IP, of course, but Remoter cannot connect to the first machine, but can beautifully to the second.
Can you think of whats going on?
Thanks for any tips or ideas!
Dee

PS all my work that I need to access is on the first machine... Tough luck, I know ;-((

[raf]

Please make sure your Mac is set up to accept VNC connections via Screen Sharing like it's explained in the help document:
On the Mac:
-System Preferences
-Sharing
-Screen Sharing is checked
-Select "Computer Settings..."
-Make sure the first option (Anyone may request...) is not selected
-Make sure the second option (VNC viewers may control...) IS selected and your password is the same as the one you are using in Remoter.

Hope this helps!,

Raf.

[Ldee]

Thank you, Raf, very much for the quick reply!
However, your reply does NOT help...

As I wrote, I successfully used Remoter with both of my laptops before, and all my settings were of course just as you described!

I guess my question to you as the programmer, was:

what could have happened to Remoter that disables it to connect now?
or:
what could have gone haywire on one of my laptops that makes it impossible for Remoter to connect to it? (while it connects flawlessly to the other laptop!)

is there anything I can do to Remoter on the iPad to kind of "re-set" it? should I re-install it? could it have been a bug?
(I remember a notice about a bug not remembering login info correctly if the iPad was held in landscape mode; I did hold it that way most of the time! could this be the reason? if so, what's the solution?)

I restarted the computer several times, but to no avail. Any suggestions as to what could be wrong there?

Sorry for all these questions, but I really like your program and would like to use it!!!
TIA for any ideas,
Dee

[raf]

Sorry that didn't help..
The bug you mention caused portions of the session configuration to be lost if you accessed the session configuration while in landscape mode, and scrolled around in Advanced mode.

You can't 'reset' Remoter per-se. (But deleting it and re-syncing with iTunes, re-downloading it will reset all of it's data, as the whole installation directory is removed on deletion).
But you can go into the sessions, and add a new session for the computer that is giving you problems. Once you validate that the new connection works, you can go ahead and delete the bad session. This would prove that something got hosed up on Remoter's side.
But if the problem is on the computer side, then this won't help. But it will help us get closer to the cause of the problem.

Let me know how that goes!,

Raf.

[Ldee]

Thanks for the superfast answer!

I did delete several sessions with the problem computer, and tried to start from scratch but no luck... Every time I try to establish a new connection/session, it just doesn't work. What's maddening is that connecting to the other computer is a breeze!

I never synced remoter yet to any of my computers. Do you recommend just deleting it from the iPad and re-download it?

Could the problem be with the router? I believe it was set up with the other laptop the one which remoter has no trouble accessing. Could it be a port forwarding issue? I don't even know if that's involved here. Btw I tried to access the problem laptop when it was connected to the router with an Ethernet cable, but that didn't help either.

I just remembered. I played with the advanced settings as well, and the wakeonlan works fine with the no problem computer.

Another thing, the problem laptop is an older ppc machine (not an intel), but this should make no difference because it used to work with remoter!


Tia again!

[raf]

I think I understand now: You're connecting to computers from outside the LAN. From the internet, right?

Then you need to set up two different TCP ports on the router for port forwarding.

You can do something like this:

You already have one forward like this:
source port: 5900 to ip IPADDRESSOFCOMPUTER1 destination port: 5900

Add a new forwarding for the other computer like this
source port: 5901 to ip IPADDRESSOFCOMPUTER2 destination port: 5900 (yes, 5900 here not 5901)

Then in remoter's session set up for computer 2
Hostname: yournetwork.com:1 (replace yournetwork.com with what you have set up, but use :1 this will cause Remoter to attempt a connection on port 5901, which your router will forward to computer2 at the correct port 5900).

Hope this helps!,

Raf.

[Ldee]

Sorry I didn't make myself clear enough.

No, I am NOT attempting to connect from the Internet. It's all within a home network in my house, with two Mac laptops, and broadband coming into the house thru DSL (a Verizon Westell router). The router is set up to be wireless, so that I can use both computers (as well as the iPad) to get on the internet wirelessly (without any cables attached).

I want to use the iPad in the house to access the computers on the local network I set up. As I said, Remoter on my iPad connects flawlessly to computer1 (the Intel model, on which the router was set up - this could be significant?), but does not connect to computer2 (the older PowerPC model which has all my data and which is unfortunately the machine I need to connect to from the iPad).

And remember, it DID work with computer2 for weeks until something happened, and ever since it never works

Thanks for the details on port forwarding! I will try it if you tell me that this is what needs to be done EVEN IF I am not connecting to my computers from the Internet.

Thank again. Sorry to be so dense.

[raf]

No, you don't need to mess with port forwarding for connecting inside your LAN. I only said that because you mentioned you configured port forwarding on your router.
I'm not sure what's going on. We could try several things:
1- delete remoter, and redownload it from the app store (you won't get charged again)
2- take a screenshot of the sessions settings and post it so I can take a look (get into the session settings while in portrait mode, select "advanced", then hold the power button and tap the home button. This will take a screenshot, you can then get the picture.
3- could you go to the computer that we're having problems connecting, and open a terminal and type: "telnet localhost 5900", then copy the output and paste it here.

Thanks!,

Raf.

[Ldee]

RAF, I am back with the same issue and hoping you'll solve the mystery!

First, a question: am I correct in thinking that one should be able to access with Remoter VNC two different computers that are both on the same wireless home network LAN (without making any changes on the dsl router like portForwarding)?

I have no problem to access computer 1 from my iPad but I cannot access computer 2 from the same iPad. The setup is the same for both computers and inside Remoter as well. All three, the 2 computers and the iPad, are all on the same local network. All three work fine, all three can access the Internet wirelessly, independently from each other.

I tried with other VNC apps and it's the same story, no problem to go from the iPad to computer 1 but impossible to computer 2.

So I have the feeling that something went bad on my computer 2... You must know Macs and networking very well. Any idea what I could do on the bad Mac to fix this? What could have gotten corrupted? What to reset?

I tried to telnet but it says connection refused or unable to connect. Maybe I am not doing it right.

Any ideas?
Much appreciated!
Dee

[raf]

If telnet to localhost port 5900 ("telnet localhost 5900") is giving you a "Connection refused" error message it means the VNC server is not running on that computer.
Try disabling Screen Sharing, rebooting, then re-enable it (you can also follow the directions in Remoter help for re-enabling it).
Go into "System Preferences", "Sharing", Unlock if necessary, then uncheck the Screen Sharing checkbox. Then reboot the Mac.
Once, rebooted, go into "System Preferences" again, "Sharing", and this time enable "Screen Sharing". Be sure to click on "Computer Settings..." also, and select "VNC viewers may control screen with password:", and enter the password you want to use. Then Click "OK".
At this point you can close Sharing, and System Preferences.
Try telneting on that machine from the terminal like "telnet localhost 5900".
You should see a message like this:
"$ telnet localhost 5900
Trying ::1...
Connected to localhost.
Escape character is '^]'.
RFB 003.889
"

If instead you get an error message, it means there is something wrong with your Mac. You might need to re-install the OS.

Hope this helps!,

Raf.