Should not export clipboard to Mac OS X's built-in VNC server to avoid freezing the connection

[Henri Sivonen]

Binary package hint: vinagre

Reproducible: Always.

Steps to reproduce:
1) Have a computer running Karmic and another running Snow Leopard (I used 10.6.2) on the same LAN.
2) Enable screen sharing on the Mac.
3) Open Remote Desktop Viewer on Karmic.
4) Connect to the Mac.
5) Leave the VNC idle on the background for 10 minutes or so.
6) Come back to the VNC window and try to interact with the Mac GUI using the mouse.

Actual results:
The VNC state has frozen. The VNC screen doesn't update and the remote machine doesn't get keyboard or mouse events. However, there's no dialog about VNC disconnecting (as would be the case if you shut down the Mac).

Expected results:
Expected the VNC connection to stay operational indefinitely unless explicitly closed.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Tue Mar 9 15:37:17 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/vinagre
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release amd64 (20091027)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: vinagre 2.28.1-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-20.57-generic
SourcePackage: vinagre
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-20-generic x86_64

[Kevin R Keane (krkeane)]

I have observed the same problem (repeatedly) from VNC E4.5.3 running on a Windows XP; I'm inclined to think it might be a problem on the Mac OS 10.6 side.

[Henri Sivonen (hsivonen)]

Still a problem with Lucid. Even if this is actually a bug in Apple's VNC server, it would still be worthwhile to provide a workaround, if this can be worked around e.g. by sending extra activity to the server.

[Rex Tsai (chihchun)]

It's an known issue of OSX clipboard sharing. VNC session will be frozen once you copy some text in your X.

Temporarily workaround is to disable clipboard, but there is no options in vinagre.

[Henri Sivonen (hsivonen)]

> It's an known issue of OSX clipboard sharing. VNC session will be frozen once you copy some text in your X.

Great to know what the reason is. Thank you!

> Temporarily workaround is to disable clipboard, but there is no options in vinagre.

Any chance of detecting if the VNC server is a the OSX built-in server and disabling clipboard sharing in that case?

[Henri Sivonen (hsivonen)]

Confirming that not exporting the clipboard from the client to the server seems to fix the problem. Attaching a patch that disables clipboard export unconditionally, because I couldn't figure out how to tell that server is Apple's so that clipboard export could be disabled conditionally.

[Hari (haridara)]

I came here trying to understand why my VNC session to Mac kept getting frozen at odd times, thanks to Rex for helping to understand the underlying issue, it was very puzzling. I hope this bug will be fixed soon.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Thanks for the report, it has been some time without any response or feedback in this bug report and we are wondering if this is still an issue for you with the latest release of Ubuntu the Natty Narwhal, May you please test with that version and comment back if you're still having or not the issue? Please have a look at http://www.ubuntu.com/download to know how to install that version. Thanks in advance and sorry for the late response.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem, as described in the previous comments. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!