Matthew Cooper's community posts

Thanks Conrad, I cannot say if my other software has this auto adjustment system as I simply do not know, and while that might explain the inability for me to use Menus through RU on occasion, the bigger issue for me is the loss of screen during the logon / logoff & startup/showdown processes as described.

I have also tested using Legacy Capture mode but that does not change any behaviour that I can see.

Essentially, I would like the remote screen to show me exactly what is happening at all times, is this not possible with RU?

Matthew

Thanks Conrad.

On the basis that my understanding of the mechanics of a remote access system are quite limited, which they are, is there any way to achieve a more accurate view of the remote screen?

For example, there are times when working remotely, I click on the Start Menu of the machine, it appears to respond to my mouse click, however, no menu appears.
Initially I thought this was an issue on the remote computer, however, I have since learned that if I connect using my alternate product, I can see the start menu, even though RU is not able to display it.

This particular issue is not common, it happens only randomly, but coupled with the loosing of display during logon/logoff etc. is what makes me ask the question.

Overall, I feel that the remote screen display has room for improvement, if video hook drivers are not the answer, is there a better way?

Matthew

Does RU make use of a video hook driver? in addition to RU, I use an alternate product that is able to maintain a remote screen display through the Startup, Shutdown, Logoff, Switch User processes.

For example, the alternate product is able to display the remote screen "Preparing Windows" and similar screens on booting PCs [before the login screen has shown].
Likewise with shutdown, I can see see all the way to "Windows is Shutting Down".

With RU, I loose the remote screen the second I click shutdown. When logging off or switching users, the display freezes in place for 5-15 seconds before showing the logon screen.

When the PC is booting, even though RU will start to connect, I only see the splash image until the login screen is ready.

Along with the more reliable display, the video speed is both faster and produces better image quality.

Is there anything on the horizon in this area?

Matthew

It seems I might have to eat my words on this one.

I have re-installed the Server version 3.2.0.0 and rebooted the machine, after this, I am now able to connect to machines via Internet IDs.

I will test and report back any further issues.

Hi Support

Like many other people have reported, once I have updated my Self Hosted server and Viewer to the latest versions:
Server - 3.2.0.0
Viewer - 7.1.1.0

I am no longer to access any remote machines via their Internet IDs. I am able to access remote machines when I use direct connections.

The hosts appear online in the viewer display, however, once they are clicked on, they go offline and the connections attempts fail. A minute or two later, the host will show online again, but the same issue repeats.

I do not understand it, this software has great potential, it is such a shame that the reliability is so low. Will it ever improve?

Matthew

Can I start by saying, I really love the idea of this software. It's design accommodates for the vast majority of things I am looking for in a remote access system. We are an MSP and use this software to support in excess of 350 endpoints on a regular basis.
This is why I am holding out hope that the potential is there for this to be a great tool.

Having said that, I am getting to the point where I am wondering if I am being naive, or maybe I am just doing it wrong.

I have constant issues across a range of areas, that are thinning my hair out day by day.

I run a self hosted server on a dedicated Windows Server 2012 R2 VM in our data center.
All software is running on the latest available versions [Server, Viewer, and Host]
My host machines are a mix of Windows 7,8.1,10,Server 2008,Server 2012 R2,Server 2016,Server 2019


File Transfer:
-Sometimes, the viewer will connect, and will show a blank window for the remote end, sometimes with a message similar to "cannot get folder", If I close this window and re-open will often resolve, but not always.
-Sometimes, it will connect and show all folders, and while navigating through the folder structure, this error will occur. Sometimes, going up a level will resolve, other times, I need to disconnect and reconnect. Example screenshot attached]

-When file transfers do not complete, no status is shown to indicate this. The failure to complete could be a connection drop, or interruption fr om the remote end, but still no error to show the transfer has failed. There are times I will transfer a large installation archive to a remote client - such as the installer for Adobe Photoshop, I would start this and move on to other work, but never know if it completed or if it was interrupted along the way. I know a successful completion will auto close the transfer window, but should a non-successful completion keep it open?

-At times, the file transfer window will get stuck open, and I cannot close it. Only a forced terminate of the viewer via task manager will close the window. This does not always stop file transfers being possible, often I can still open a new transfer to a different host in a new tab when this occurs.


Viewer Window:
-I have all hosts set to Auto Logon, however, some hosts show as Orange - Online, some as Green - Logged On and others show offline. Often the ones showing offline, are actually online, and will allow me to connect, however, it takes 1-3 connection attempts before the connection comes up. - This issue floats around, it is not a case of some hosts, have the problem. Most of the hosts will experience this at some point in time.

-I have some hosts that get stuck in a grey state with an hourglass icon, and never move. Only a restart of the viewer will  clear this. Even a Sign Out / Sign In will not fix this. [example screenshot attached]

-I also have many cases wh ere a host shows as Orange - Online, then when I double click it, I get the hourglass, and it will turn grey and fail to connect 5 times. Once it fails for the last time, it will go back to Orange. Sometimes, another double click will work, other times, nothing will work, not even a restart of the viewer. However, I will come back to it an hour later and connect without issues.

-When machines are logging on or off, even though the machine is shown as Online or Logged on, a view of the remote screen is not possible. Particularly when switching users at the remote end. There is no display between the pressing of the Log Off / Sign Out button at the remote end, and the screen where you can choose / enter a different user. It seems that the video hook driver is not integrated deep enough. I have used other Remote Access software that is able to show these screens without issue.

-When a full control connection drops off, the viewer window does not close, it goes grey and shows a reconnecting message in the top left. This eventually stops trying to reconnect, but remains open in a frozen-like state. If you double click the host fr om the main viewer window again, the frozen window is brought back into focus, but does not try to connect. I need to manually close this window, which itself takes 5-10 seconds, then double click the host again to try and connect.


Remote Control:
-I find the clipboard get and set options very temperamental. Particularly the Set Clipboard does not always take the first time, it routinely takes 2-3 times before it commits, and there is almost always a delay of 3-5 seconds after clicking set before it will apply the change. I am only ever set a line of text, never pictures or any large data. This problem comes and goes randomly on random hosts.

General Use:
-The software is slow, just generally speaking. Right clicking a host and clicking properties is a full second before it appears. I know this is possibly a machine based issue, however, it is consistent across all my machines, which range from a 7yr laptop to a 1yr old Core i7 workstation.

-Connecting to a remote host is slow, the fastest I ever get is about 6-7 seconds for Logged On hosts, but 15-30 seconds is typical for Online hosts. My experience with direct connections rather than via the server is only marginally faster, not enough to warrant the extra work required to setup and maintain them.
If I ask the viewer to Log On a host that is orange, it is commonly about 10-15 seconds before it turns green.

Hosts:
-Some hosts do not come back online if they have been off for an extended period. I recently had an issue with the firewall to my Server, which denied connections from certain IP ranges. Once this was fixed, some hosts stayed grey and showed as offline until the machines were rebooted. Even restarting the Remote Host service did not bring them online.
I have had a small number of issues wh ere hosts show as offline until the machine was rebooted prior to the firewalling issue, but have been unable to do further troubleshooting due to the nature of being cut off from the machines.

Are my issues like the above simply what we all see when using the software, or have I somehow created a unique set of problems that no one else is suffering from?

Matthew

We tested the beta 2 version on a small number of machines, but did not roll it out via group policy so I cannot shed add any insights here. We had issues with excessive dropouts when using the beta2 viewer and 6.10 hosts. However, we have updated our self hosted server to beta2 and that has helped enormously. So currently, our overall configuration is Self Hosted Server 2.9B2, Viewer 6.10.10, Hosts 6.10.10.

With regard to the group policy, although I cannot rule out some sort of specific GP config creating the issue, if this is cause, then it is something we are replicating as we have faced this issue across about 10 different client sites, all with completely independent GP and AD implementations.

Ondrej, can you confirm that after the initial installation, the remote access works, but fails later after the workstation is rebooted [not necessarily after the first reboot, but rather just at a future time after a reboot].
This is our issue.

Matthew

For us, I can confirm that we have never seen this issue when installing the software manually, it is only a very small number of cases when installed via group policy software installation. We have never used the remote install tool so I cannot comment on that. This makes sense though as a manual install never re-runs the installer. GP is re-running the installer each time the machine reboots, and this issue only shows up after a reboot.

My feeling is that it is something to do with the installer MSI itself, however, I am not an expert on the specifics of MSI files. We use GP software installation on dozens of sites for many peices of software and have been doing so for about 15 years now, the only one I can ever recall having issues is this one.

We have learnt to live with this problem for the moment, as long as it does not get any worse.

Matthew

Hi Ondrej

We have not been successful in eradicating this problem, it still crops up from time to time. We run dual remote access systems so if RU won't connect, we switch over and investigate.

Matthew

Hi Polina

I have resent the information through to you.

I can confirm that when I install the software from the MSI on machines that are not domain joined, I have not experienced this issue.

I can also confirm that if I install the software using the MSI via group policy on a domain joined machine that does NOT run any antivirus, I have still experienced this issue.

I have found that when the issue occurs and I perform a complete reinstall of the software, it does work. I am unsure if the problem has occurred a second time on the same machine currently.
After raising this ticket, I have created an allow rule in the webroot console that marks the remote utilities software as excluded, however, this has not solved the issue, and it has happened on another 2 systems since then. Additionally, webroot has not logged any mention of the remote utilities software that I can find, which would seem to indicate that it is not the cause of the issue.

Matthew