VNC issues with macOS 15 Sequoia
I’m still testing this to confirm it is the cause but since upgrading to macOS 15 Sequoia I’ve had a lot of instability with RealVNC and constantly getting kicks off / unable to connect.
The error logs show error message "Attempting to Reconnect...Transport error: send (IP address of remote): Broken Pipe."
I’ve tried to identify the cause and it seems when I try to connect without a physical monitor present, the problem becomes unbearable but connecting a HDMI dongle to add a dummy display solves it.
There is still some instability but it seems to make it better - not sure if anyone else has been having this problem or if anyone can confirm the headless cause of this?
Either way, a $10 HDMI dongle seems to help and so if you are having these issues since upgrading and are running headless, I’d give it a try.
Comments
craig This is a RealVNC decision and not a macOS decision. RealVNC decided that only enterprise licenses can use direct connection. It's a real bummer for those of us using this in residential environments. I really wish they would develop a residential plan that would allow like 2-3 connections over 10-15 devices.
It would cost me nearly $1500 to get an enterprise license to get direct connectivity. Not worth it. I'm actually looking for an alternative and likely won't be renewing my RealVNC license next year. Sad. I've been a RealVNC customer since 2016.
I was about to upgrade to macOS 15, but came here to see if it would break RealVNC.
I'm particularly concerned about the macOS 15's requirement to reauthorize screen sharing every 30 days. The last thing I want is to try to remote into my Mac Studio only to find that I need to physically be present at the computer to reauthorize screen sharing. Supposedly, this is not an issue if apps adopt a newer standard, but I've found few details on this "newer standard" on the web.
Honestly, if it was me, I would probably wait, and I wish I could roll back however, Mac makes this very difficult.
For it not to work without a monitor plugged in makes it difficult, and if I didn't have physical access to it, it would be too much of a risk.
The only alternative I could suggest as a backup perhaps would be to enable the built-in VNC and remote sharing feature of Mac, and then run real VNC on port 5901 or some other port so it doesn't conflict.
From the sounds of things, there are quite a few other things that are having issues with the new OS, including antivirus software. Whilst there are some nice new features, I don't think it's really worth it given all the problems.
The lack of monitor issue shouldn't affect me (all of my Macs have monitors). The monthly need to reauthorize screen sharing definitely will be a major issue.
I think I saw somewhere on here or maybe another forum that the RealVNC developers were working on a way around this.
Wonder if one of them could comment on it.
They have sadly now nerfed direct connectivity as well
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