Screen Sharing Working Well, But A Few Quirks

D

deke

Registered
I have an iMac running Mavericks and a MacBook Pro running El Capitan on my home desk and have given up on using keyboard/mouse sharing apps such as Sharemouse and Teleport (too buggy and inconsistent in my years of trying them).

OSX Built in Screen Sharing is a nice alternative in simply giving me control of the MacBook from my iMac and letting me keep the MacBook closed, yet ready to run. It works great except... it has started to often "grey out" on me in that the the shared screen will go grey and return to the MacBook's login screen. In three seconds I can type the MacBook password and be back on, but it is starting to annoy me. I have no idea why this is happening. Is there some setting or something I am missing?

On the MacBook, sys prefs-Sharing I have selected: Screen sharing, File sharing and printer sharing along with "VNC viewers may control screen with password (and I set a password). On the iMac, Screen sharing has preferences of, Display - Scale to fit available space, Scroll the screen - When the cursor reaches an edge and Quality - Adapt quality to network conditions (faster). The two machines are connected to the router/network via ethernet.

P.S. Very weird. I changed the Privacy setting on the Macbook from requiring a password on screen saver to requiriung the password after 5 minutes. Now when the Macbook "greys out" via screen sharing I can "reactivate" it but NOT have to type the password. So, it seems to be related to my issue. Screen saver is set for 30 minutes and no hot corners. How in the world can a closed Macbook seem to activate the screen saver after ten seconds of being logged on... This greying out seems to occur almost any time I quit an app via Screen sharing. Weird and buggy.

I am cursed. Share Mouse, Teleport, Screen Sharing... My simple quest, to run one Mac from another, seems too much to ask.
 
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Okay, I am developing a habit of answering my own threads. I googled the heck out of this and found little that was related, though some reports of screen saver and screen sharing problems similar on headless mac minis, but not quite the same. A SMC and PRAM reset was suggested and on my MacBook seemed to solve the problem - no more "greying out" while screen sharing (at least so far).

However, so few sites CLEARLY step through a SMC reset and I had a wonderful fun time with the darn fan going full tilt jet engine roar on start up after mucking this up doe to poor instructions (who knows what I did). The proper detailed clearly explained SMC reset sequence is found here: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

Bold italic statement below is often left out or not clearly explained on other sites...

If the battery is nonremovable
Shut down the Mac.
Plug in the MagSafe or USB-C power adapter to a power source and to your Mac.
Using the built-in keyboard, press Shift-Control-Option on the left side of the keyboard, then press the power button at the same time.
Release all keys, then press the power button again to turn on your Mac
 
Well, why not log in and have a conversation with myself? :) I have the weirdest thing happening. I love screen sharing in OSX, but when controlling from my MacBook from my iMac, the "screen" of the Macbook, as projected in the iMac, continually dims. I have turned off every possible screen saver, energy saver and display setting you can imagine, but it keeps happening repeatedly with one particular action. Every time I quit Quicken 2016 on the Macbook. This is truly bizarre. I know Quicken is a poorly supported buggy mess for Mac users, but you have to be at a whole new level to cause something like this. I have tried many many other apps and when I quit, all is fine. Just Quicken.
 
You have found the culprit. Sometimes finding the reason behind a problem can only be done by trail and test. I have a game app on my desktop that stops my iMac’s screen from going to screen saver or sleep. I don’t leave it running anymore.
 
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