Back to My Mac / Screen Sharing

I am trying to (and have had sporadic success with) controlling my desktop computer (at home, iMac, OS X 10.10) with my laptop (via Internet, Macbook Pro, OS X 10.10.1) through connecting through Screen Sharing from the Finder window's "Shared" computers. It's really hit or miss whether the iMac shows up in the Finder window, and I can't figure out why.
I've been all over websites and forum posts for information, and have learned a lot of things, but many of them are outdated. Here are some things I've done/learned about:
I can always log into my iMac through Chrome Remote Desktop, but I want the functionality of Screen Sharing.
I cannot simply start the Screen Sharing app and type in my icloud id, because that only allows viewing and not controlling the screen.
SSH through the terminal is hit or miss; it works more often than Screen Sharing does, but still not 100% of the time. I use it to copy files, but most of the time I need to be using the GUI.
A couple times the iMac showed up in Shared computers right after I did something, i.e. trace route to icloud.com or initiate a Screen Sharing session from the iMac, via Chrome Remote Desktop. Other times I've tried to jumpstart it like that and it doesn't work.
I've tried a variety of networks (home networks, workplace, mobile tethering) and I get different results every time, on every network. I might see my iMac in the Finder at work one day, and the next day it doesn't show up now matter what I do. So it must not be blocked ports in every case.
I've been taking notes almost every time I successfully connect, and I have documented cases where I can get it to work by (once again) going into my iMac via Chrome, disabling Back to My Mac and/or Screen Sharing, then re-enabling them. But of course, this hasn't worked consistently.
Any help or insight is appreciated. Again, this is all purely done over the internet, as accessing my home computer over a local network is of no use to me; I'm physically separated from it most of the time. (Most articles and walkthroughs teach people how to do it with their 192.168.x.x addresses, and they assume that your computers are always in your Shared section in Finder. This is not the case for me.)

That means that the Remote Management is turned on.
All you have to do is turn the Remote Management off if its not in use.
You may want to investigate how the Remote Management is being used to make sure you are not turning something off that needs to be on.

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Back to my mac screen sharing no longer works since Mountain Lion release, even on Lion

I've used screen sharing via iCloud and back to my mac between a 2007 macbook and a 2010 imac. Both computers are still on Lion but screen sharing stopped working when Mountain Lion was released. I've read a number of comments on this forum that people were having trouble since upgrading to Mountain Lion, but I don't think that's the problem b/c I haven't upgraded either machine. I think the problem is something Apple did in preparation for the Mountain Lion release date and it seems to have damaged screen sharing functionality. Anybody else experiencing this or have a fix for it.
As for the specifics, I can still see my "other" machine under shared and can click "share screen," it usually searches for a couple minutes, then pops up the password dialogue box, but then searches for a while and eventually the password box closes, "screen sharing" stays open, but there are no windows associated with it.

I have the same problem, just today (although I'm still running 10.6.8). Every morning I turn on my main Logic mac then fire up my 2 slave macs, connect to them, activate Screen Sharing, and get going.
This morning I tried it, connected to the other macs as usual (I can see/access/alter their hard drives from my main mac) but when I click "Share Screen" I just get the "connecting" dialog box & it just keeps going.
The weird thing is, when I put my laptop into the network via wifi, I can screenshare my main mac's screen (all 3 of them, actually!) but not my 2 slave macs that are ethernet'd to the main mac.
I've tried every solution I could find via google, and nothing is working.
Kirby

Back to my Mac screen sharing not visible in Finder

I have a MacMini at home which I leave turned on for various reasons. One of them is so that I can access it from work with screen sharing. But I cannot see my MacMini from my Macbook Pro at work.
All of my computers have iCloud Back to my Mac enabled as well as screen sharing. Locally (on the same network) I can see all of my computers but but I don't see it over the internet when I am at work.
Anybody have any ideas?
All computers running OS X 10.10 or 10.10.1.

It's possible that your work network is blocking some of the ports necessary for B2MM to work.
Have you ever tried accessing the Mac mini from a different network outside of your home? If this works, then it's probably specific to your firewall/network settings at work.

Back to My Mac - Screen Sharing Mac OS X 10.10 problem

Sense Mac OS X 10.9 great feature Screen Sharing & Back to My Mac does not works any more.
Mac OS X 10.10.1
Russian interface:
We can see remote computers, but can not connect. We get a error.
English interface:
We can not even see remote macs.
If I start up main computer from Mac OS X 10.8 Screen Sharing works fine. Remote macs has Mac OS X 10.8 and 10.9

I have the same problem, just today (although I'm still running 10.6.8). Every morning I turn on my main Logic mac then fire up my 2 slave macs, connect to them, activate Screen Sharing, and get going.
This morning I tried it, connected to the other macs as usual (I can see/access/alter their hard drives from my main mac) but when I click "Share Screen" I just get the "connecting" dialog box & it just keeps going.
The weird thing is, when I put my laptop into the network via wifi, I can screenshare my main mac's screen (all 3 of them, actually!) but not my 2 slave macs that are ethernet'd to the main mac.
I've tried every solution I could find via google, and nothing is working.
Kirby

JavaFX Stage Paint issues when Mac Screen Sharing

When using Mac's screen sharing application you have to force a stage resize in order to see the Scene content. I don't have this issue when running native Mac apps while screen sharing, only JavaFX applications.

PS, also running Netbeans 7.1.2 gives the same results. I'll post a thread on the Open JDK forum for the mac as well.

How to avoid "share screen request" in "back to my mac"

I tried to use back to my mac screen sharing and it waits for a response to a "share screen request" on the target mac. Is there a way to avoid this? I can't see the value of trying to remotely operate the target mac if someone needs to be there to respond to the "share screen request".

I see that. The problem is that the log in choice only lets me share the screen of my admin account. I want to share the screen of a standard account which is where I do all my work. So I connect to the standard account and then when I go to share the screen I get the "share screen request"
I just tried to log out of the admin account and into the standard remotely and that worked. Strange way to do it but as long as it works I'm fine with it.
Thanks for the response, it did solve my question because it helped me figure out how to do it.

How can I troubleshoot a Lion MacBook in Japan that I can't "Back to My Mac" to?

Our family lives in the United States. My wife's parents live in Japan. We gave them a MacBook and have been remoting connecting to it via screen sharing. At first, I was just connecting to it directly via its IP. I was using the deafult host feature on an AirPort Extreme Base Station for this, but the base station would occasionaly crash and would have to be power cycled to get it working again. So last year, I decided to connect to it via "Back to My Mac" so I could just use DHCP and didn't have to use the default host feature. This worked well for a while, but over the past couple of months the performance has been poor and now I can't connect at all -- even though the machine appears in the sidebars of my other Macs.
FWIW, I'm using Mountain Lion on all my other Macs and their MacBook is running Lion. I've noticed that Back to My Mac creates a VPN connection to your other Macs and I assume that this is what was causing the performance problems I noticed a couple of months ago.
Also, my wife's parents are elderly and not computer savy at all so it's hard to get them to do things over the phone. If anyone has any insights on troubleshooting "Back to My Mac" screen sharing issues, please let me know. Ports to ping, diagnotics to run, etc.
Thanks fo the help!

Hi Mike,
No sign of your photoshopped image, so I'm guessing about what you want here.
Does this resemble what you're looking for?
Column B contains the initial entries (made from the keyboard). I wasn't expecting to see the trailing zeroes retained in these.
All cells in columns C and D contain the formula shown above the table, =B, a simple cell reference to the column B cell on the same row as the formula.
Column C's format is left as the default "Automatic". As can be seen, all trailing zeroes are removed.
Cells in column D have had their format set as shown in the Inspector pane to the right of the table.
The value in these cells is still the same as the value in column B, and that is the value that would be used in any calculations referencing these cells. Formatting affects only the display of the cell contents. What is displayed is the value in the cell, rounded to two decimal places.
Regards,
Barry

Any way to use Screen Sharing in Full Screen mode?

"Back to my Mac" screen sharing works great for me, but my remote screen is small enough as it is for a windowed VNC session... is there any way to switch to Full Screen in the Screen Sharing application?
thanks!

Did you go to the "Screen Sharing" menu and select "Preferences?" I don't see full screen, but there are some view options.

Back to my mac -- connect as guest is default

I have a couple of computers using 'back to my mac' screen sharing and file sharing with no problems (powerbooks, ibooks, mac mini(intel), and old G4). I just got a macbook pro and configured it with the same mobile me login info, etc, sync all mail/bookmarks/etc with no problems. However, when trying to connect to all other computers using screen sharing in the finder, it defaults to connect as guest. My mobile me credetials don't get used -- I have to specifically use an existing username/password from the maching i'm trying to connect to.
When I enable back to my mac, I do get an error saying teh router isn't configured for upnp, but it is -- four other machines are using it no problem this way with no problems.
Its only this laptop that has an issue. Firewall is off for all of this.
Any suggestions?

I can't turn File Sharing off. I still want to file share. But I just don't want to connect to this "share" using the information that the Finder is defaulting to, and autoconnecting with. There doesn't seem to be a way to do this. I went through my entire KeyChain and I couldn't find anything that would account for this. It's as if the Finder thinks that because I connected to this share using my appleID once, it now defaults to this every time, and I have to actually disconnect and then reconnect with the login info that provides me the level of access that I require. Not sure if this makes sense.
I do appreciate the help. Thanks.

I can see my mac in "Back to my mac" but I can't connect to share the screen

Here is my set up:
At home:
Modem ---ethernet---> Airport Extreme ---ethernet---> Macbook (10.7.3)
Back to my mac turned on in iCloud
NAT port mapping turned on in Airport Utility for the Airport Extreme
Macbook is plugged in and set to NEVER go to sleep
Wake for network access is turned on
Screen sharing is turned on and set up for one user with a password
I've tested screen sharing on the local network with my wifes MacBookPro and it works
At work:
iMac also running 10.7.3 and connected to same icloud account
Finder set to show "Back to my mac" in "shared"
I can see my macbook in the shared section of finder on the imac and it shows "share screen" as an option, and not "connect." I don't have anything other than "screen sharing" turned on in "sharing" settings on the macbook, so this is how it should look. This looks exactly the same as when I tested it on the local network with the MBP.
However, when I click "share screen" I get connecting to "Jimbob's Mac" and rather than the usual prompt for a password, I get:
Connection failed to "Jimbob's Mac"
Please make sure that Screen Sharing (in the Sharing section of System Preferences) is enabled on the computer to which you are attempting to connect. Also make sure your network connection is working properly.
Any help or tips on what I need to reconfigure would be appreciated.
and for the record, my name is not actually Jimbob

iPod not recognized in 'My Computer' and in iTunes for Windows

Screen sharing with remote Mac

hi,
my mom got herself a used MacBook but she is new to computing. she keeps on calling me about troubleshooting issues. helping her over the phone is cumbersome.
how would i go about using screen sharing to take control of her Mac from home ? what needs to be installed on my Mac and hers ? what information is required on my Mac to access hers over the WWW ? is there a step-by-step instruction/manual out there ? do i need VNC or ARD ?
sorry if this sounds dumb - new to this part of networking ...

Please do not hijack someone else's thread, especially one that has been answered. You can not give points to helpful contributes unless you start your own thread.
Am I wrong in searching help and seeing you have to have Back to My Mac subscribed to to make this happen OUTSIDE of iChat,
No, it is possible to make connections without iChat and without a MobileMe subscription. It is just harder.
as in by pulling an alias out of CoreServices folder in the primary System folder and putting it in the dock?
You do not need to create a Screen Sharing alias, you can use Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server -> vnc://address.of.vnc.server. You can create Safari bookmarks with vnc://adddress.of.vnc.server and use them. You can drag those Safari URLs to a folder, and create double-clickable files that will also launch the Screen Sharing utility.
Otherwise, outside of using iChat it seems 10.5.8 and up have lots of built in ability to use the built in version of VNC such as ScreenSharing .app and whatnot, but seems to me most all of the remote or sharing key items require a .Mac account or be used BEHIND a LAN, not through a WAN...
Am I wrong in this?
Well, you can use TeamViewer.com, LogMeIn.com, GoToMyPC.com, and maybe a few other services. These would be easy. They all have the same thing in common with iChat and MobileMe. There is a server that both systems talk to, that handles exchanging IP addresses, and since both system make the out-bound connection, this solves the "How do I get though the home router firewall protections" question.
If you want to roll your own, then you get to figure out how to have your home router port forward the Screen Sharing port 5900 from the internet side to your Mac, and the file sharing port 548 (if you want file sharing over the internet).
Now you need to get the IP address assigned to your router, and give that to the person attempting to make a Screen Sharing connection. WhatIsMyIP.com is one such service. Or you can get a free dynamic DNS name from a serivce such as No-IP.com or DynDNS.org, and then download one of their dynamic DNS name updating utilities, which you install on your Mac and run in the background so your dynamic DNS names stays updated whenever your ISP changes your router's IP address.
Now from the Mac making the connection, you use Finder -> Go -> Connect to Server -> vnc://address.of.your.router, or for file sharing afp://address.of.your.router.
NOTE: Doing this exposes known ports to malicious "Bots" that will attempt to break into your Mac, so make sure you use a very secure password. Yet another feature for the above services, as you do not open in-bound ports.
Also NOTE: These roll your own connections may not be encrypted. I think there is an option in Screen Sharing that will make the Mac to Mac Screen Sharing connections encrypted, but that does not apply if you are talking to a Windows or Unix/Linux VNC server. I do not think the file sharing connections are encrypted. The above services do provide end-to-end encryption for screen sharing and file transfers.
If you want end-to-end encryption in a roll your own environment, you can use ssh tunnels, however, that is another layer of complexity. If you enjoy that sort of thing (and some of use do), that is another avenue you can pursue.
If you have any further questions about screen or file sharing please start a new thread where you can assign points for Helpful answers and Solutions. It isn't much, but the people that give you good answers deserve something for their efforts.

Back to my mac no longer working with iCloud

Now that I have converted my mobileme to iCloud, back to my mac is no longer functioning properly. As far as I can tell, my AEBS doesn't like my back to my mac login credentials, even though they are correct. I can log in via settings on each computer with those credentials, but if I try to enter them in the AEBS it won't accept them as valid.
I am able to use back to my mac/screen share on local computers. I am NOT able to use it on a remote computer. Before iCloud this was working fine.
I initially didn't think I had a problem until I brought up the Airport Utility on an iPhone and found that there were issues. I have made sure the firmwares were up to date and that has had no effect so far.
I can only screen share on the remote computer using a third party solution on an ipad (via iTeleport) but that's not an ideal solution.
Symptoms are identical on Lion and Snow Leopard machines (local) to the remote, which is running Snow Leopard.
I do have screen sharing enabled in iCloud.

OK, so further investigation has addressed the BTMM issue on a remote machine.
With all machines running lion, I was having issues trying to log in to a standard user headless machine already running. In Snow Leopard, I had no issues with this since you can log in via screen sharing using an admin login that's running a standard login. Lion allows multiple accounts to be signed in which is handy since you can now run virtual sessions. This means you can admin the remote computer without bothering the remote user.
The problem was that now logging in using admin login brings up the admin account (which makes sense) instead of the desktop to the standard login. I applied a similar solution to a problem that was related to screen sharing I found on this board. What I believe to be the fix is to add the standard user to the screen sharing user list. Then screen share to the remote account using the standard user credentials.
So on the remote computer, in System Settings->Sharing->Screen Sharing, add the standard user to be allowed access. Previously I only had admins. This may not be an ideal solution for what I'm trying to do since the remote computers primary login is the standard user to be used as a common computer, but it now works so I am happy with it.
Now my only "problem" is my AEBS complaining about my MobileMe credentials, but it doesn't appear to have an impact on BTMM performance so I'll quietly wait for a fix down the road.

Back to my mac and cable modem

I can't find a definitive answer to this question. Is there a cable modem that is compatible with Comcast that supports Back to My Mac?
Right now we have Comcast for business with fixed IPs, so I have just been using afp:// and vnc:// to access my home mac while on the road. But in the interest of saving $$$, I want to switch to Comcast for home, which doesn't offer fixed IPs.
The last time I tried (with Mavericks), I could not connect to any computer at home through Back to my Mac because the Comcast-supplied modem didn't support Upnp (Universal Plug and Play). A brief search could not find any cable modems that do support Upnp. Am I missing something, or should I give up on the idea?

Is there anyone out there who uses Back to My Mac (for sharing files and screens) and a cable modem? If so, how well does it work? Did you get a special modem or just the cheapest one that you could find?

Can't make "Back to my mac" work for me.

Hello world
I tried everything! Set routers on UPnP. Updated Firmware. Enabeld sharing. Logged out an in .Mac on all my Computers (same .Mac-account). Nothing! B2MM just won't work. Home mac doesn't show up on office mac and the other way round. I'll be thankfull for any suggestions.
Reto

Hi
I did some experimenting with the router settings. I could enable IP-Forward (or so. Difficulty is, my system-language and the one of the router are german - and still: some of the things listed in the menu sound rather chinese to me). For a short moment I could "see" and access my home-mac from the office-mac, but home-mac couldn't "see" office-mac. While the office-mac was connected to the home-mac (screen-sharing!), speed was extremly low. Then - as I was setting the office-router the same way as the home-router was - connection broke down and no further connection was possible, although office-mac still listed the home-mac in the finder. All further changes in the router-settings had no positiv effect. So i'm still trying to get this work for me. At least I had a little success. Still waiting for the netopia support to answer. But, if the speed i had, is what i will get, once this thing works the way it is suposted to, this service would not be very useful.
Reto (alias dode)

Problems using iPhoto via Screen Sharing

To deal with our family's ever-growing photo library, I bought a new Mac Mini with a jumbo hard drive. For now, I want to run this as a headless server so that whoever wants to can work with the photo library from whichever of our other Macs is handy, so I've set it up with Screen Sharing.
So far so good, I've copied the iPhoto library there and things seem to work well except for one important detail: When I try to see/edit the detail of any photo, I just get a black screen! Or rather, the iPhoto window contains a big black rectangle where the photo should be. If I touch the zoom control, the navigation mini-view shows up correctly, but I still can't see the picture itself. Oddly enough, if I look at the detail of a video, I can see the first frame (but no more than that, the "play" button doesn't do anything).
I'm running Mac OS X 10.6.7 on both machines, iPhoto '11 (9.1.3) on the server.
I realize that I can access the photo library directly from iPhoto on the "client" using iPhoto's built-in sharing mechanism, but that won't give me full control of the remote photo library.
Has anyone else experienced this?

Do you see the same if you're working directly on the Mini? Do you see anything in the middle of the black screen? Maybe something like this:
Click to view full size
If so then that's an indication that the file path to the original file has been broken.
So make a temporary, duplicate copy of the library and apply the two fixes below in order as needed:
Fix #1
Launch iPhoto with the Command+Option keys held down and rebuild the library.
Select the options identified in the screenshot.
Fix #2
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
Download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.
Click on the Add Library button, navigate to your Home/Pictures folder and select your iPhoto Library folder.
Now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the File ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
In the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed.
Click on the Create button.
Note: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments but not books, calendars or slideshows. The original library will be left untouched for further attempts at fixing the problem or in case the rebuilt library is not satisfactory.
NOTE: You do know that you can connect an external HD to the Mini and let the other computer log into it and access the library on the EHD for full access to the photos, right? However, doing so wirelessly is dangerous due to dropouts that can occur and if they do while the library's database file is being written to the database can be damaged. So if you're wirelessly connected between the two Macs screen sharing would be the safest way to go. If you're wired then the other method would be optimal.
OT

Back to My Mac / Screen Sharing

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