x11vnc Not Starting / Running in Ubuntu 17.10

[Russell Morris]

Hi,

x11vnc is running fine on my other machines (running earlier versions of Ubuntu). But in Artful Aardvark (17.10), I have checked the service ... it's active (running), and shows this pid/ command line,
1816 /usr/bin/x11vnc -auth guess -forever -loop -noxdamage -repeat -rfbauth /home/rmorris/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5900 -shared -o /var/log/x11vnc.log

But when I check netstat, the port doesn't seem to be set up as a service (and I can't connect to vnc),
netstat -tl --numeric | grep 5900 => nothing!

I tried restarting the service, and nothing eventful in syslog - just this,
Aug 20 15:03:20 atticServer systemd[1]: Stopping Start x11vnc at startup....
Aug 20 15:03:20 atticServer systemd[1]: Stopped Start x11vnc at startup..
Aug 20 15:03:20 atticServer systemd[1]: Started Start x11vnc at startup..

Thoughts?

To the list of info requests - this is x11vnc v0.9.13-2.

Thanks!

[phorcys02 (phorcys02)]

x11vnc not working under 17.10 artful

Ubuntu Artful Aardvark (development branch) (GNU/Linux 4.12.0-12-generic x86_64)

$ x11vnc -display :0

03/09/2017 15:17:28 x11vnc version: 0.9.13 lastmod: 2011-08-10 pid: 14552
03/09/2017 15:17:28 Using X display :0
03/09/2017 15:17:28 rootwin: 0x270 reswin: 0x1e00001 dpy: 0x1ae391a0
...
03/09/2017 15:17:28 Default visual ID: 0x24
X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request: 73 (X_GetImage)
  Serial number of failed request: 41
  Current serial number in output stream: 41

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Russell Morris (6-u3untu-h)]

Hi,

Interestingly enough, I just upgraded a machine from 17.04 to 17.10 -> VNC works fine. But the machine that was on the alpha / beta builds still isn't working.

Hmmm ... is there a way to "clean reset" x11vnc on the machine that was running older builds? Seems this should be able to work.

Thanks!

[Russell Morris (6-u3untu-h)]

Arrgh ... OK, was having issues getting the new desktop working. Uninstalled / reinstalled the display manager, moving it from lightdm to gdm3 (the default, right?) => now VNC is broken on the second machine as well ... :-(.

[Rian Katoen (riankatoen)]

What fixed the issue for me was reverting to "Ubuntu on Xorg".

The noob that I am can not explain why, but somehow this worked.

[Russell Morris (6-u3untu-h)]

Hmmm ... you mean you logged in with that Window Manager? I can't even connect to the machine any more - and checking it locally, the same issue here ... it's not even listening on the port any more.

Thanks though!

[Emil Chudzik (chudzik-emil)]

I have the same problem:

> x11vnc -usepw
...
03/09/2017 15:17:28 Default visual ID: 0x24
X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)
  Major opcode of failed request: 73 (X_GetImage)
  Serial number of failed request: 41
  Current serial number in output stream: 41

Yesterday before upgrading from 17.04 to 17.10 it works well.

[phorcys02 (phorcys02)]

It seems that Wayland is not supported by x11vnc（ which user libvncserver）
because Wayland doesn't have a screen capture api for x11vnc to use？

[Mark B. Sigler (datazen)]

disabled vino and installed x11vnc on artful, and can only login using macos screen sharing app when i already have a xorg session active. if i logout on the console, then can't start a remote session. pwd is set and systemd service is running...

/usr/bin/x11vnc -auth guess -forever -loop -noxdamage -repeat -rfbauth /home/USERNAME/.vnc/passwd -rfbport 5900 -shared -avahi

vino worked with wayland, but i still have to have an active session on the console to access remote

[Mark B. Sigler (datazen)]

UPDATE: I resolved my console only issue by changing /etc/X11/Xwrapper.config from default

  allowed_users = console

  allowed_users = anybody

http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/artful/man1/Xorg.wrap.1.html

[Russell Morris (6-u3untu-h)]

Sorry, not understanding your "fix" here. I tried the change you note, and restarted x11vnc (server) ... it's still not listening on the defined ports.

Or is this not to fix x11vnc?

Thanks!

[huckle up (huckleup)]

I was able to start up x11vnc by disabling Wayland in the /etc/gdm3/custom.conf file and rebooting as per this post: https://askubuntu.com/questions/981313/x11vnc-on-ubuntu-17-10-not-running-on-startup. I'm not sure what I lose by changing the DM, but for now it seems to be OK.