Cannot open virtual desktops on free edition anymore

[LASR]

Hi!

I have a server running Debian 11 (freshly upgraded from Debian 10) that had previously ran GNOME over NoMachine free edition 8.4.2 with no issues. But after the upgrade and reinstallation of NoMachine 8.16.1, I am unable to open anything other than the physical desktop. I tried:

• Purging and reinstalling NoMachine 8.16.1
• Removing physical-desktop from AvailableSessionTypes in both /usr/NX/etc/node.cfg and /usr/NX/etc/server.cfg
• Updating my client and purging settings for this server (I’m running Ubuntu 24.04 with KDE)
• Reading the logs in debug mode
• Stopping and disabling gdm as suggested in https://kb.nomachine.com/AR03P00973

I have come to the conclusion that I’m in over my head and need guidance. I suspect this is related to https://forum.nomachine.com/topic/access-virtual-desktop-with-free-edition but the thread seems to be stale.

 

Here are the lines I edited to remove physical-desktop as an option:

$ grep ^AvailableSessionTypes /usr/NX/etc/node.cfg /usr/NX/etc/server.cfg /usr/NX/etc/node.cfg:AvailableSessionTypes unix-remote,unix-console,unix-default,unix-application,shadow,unix-xsession-default,unix-gnome,unix-xdm /usr/NX/etc/server.cfg:AvailableSessionTypes unix-remote,unix-console,unix-default,unix-application,shadow,unix-xsession-default,unix-gnome,unix-xdm

Please find attached:

• the server log
• my client’s logs

I will appreciate any help I can get, and I hope I didn’t miss any information. I will make sure to fix it ASAP if it is the case.

 

Cheers

Attachments:

1. nxserver.zip
2. R-localhost-41718-18F47208F377816FA4FF4AE1B5E36EC4-1.zip

[Britgirl]

Hi,

nothing has changed between NoMachine 8.4 and 8.16 in how NoMachine Free Edition works. If the server is not headless, you will connect directly to the physical desktop. On Linux, when connecting to the physical desktop which doesn’t have an X server running (e.g. it’s headless), NoMachine Free Edition is able to use its own display service (which is an embedded X server) to let a user connect seamlessly to a physical display running in the background on the remote machine. If you install it on a headless host, the following message appears:

“Cannot detect any display running, Do you want NoMachine to create a new display and proceed to connect to the desktop?”

Selecting OK will create a virtual display (NoMachine’s embedded X server). Is your Debian headless? Are you not seeing this message?

It’s worth pointing out that the free edition does not create virtual desktops like the terminal server products in the Enterprise suite. Virtual desktops are individual desktops, independent from each other that can run on the same server simultaneously and can be left running while you are disconnected. To be able to get multiple virtual desktops, you need a Workstation installed (or higher end product).

[LASR]

Hi and thank you for your reply!

That server is a VM on a cloud host provider but their manager interface can connect to it via VNC, which I suppose requires a physical display so it may be not technically headless.

ps aux|grep -v grep|grep "/usr/lib/Xorg"

returns nothing so I reckon I don’t have an X server running?

Which brings more questions then, especially given the wildly different behavior I’m experiencing:

I used to be able to open the session directly, and now I’m faced with the GDM login screen, which is redundant
I used to be able to resize the display to the size of the window, but now the display resolution is fixed and can only be stretched, selecting the 1:1 display option just shoves the display in the upper left corner or snaps the window back to its original size when resized

Is there a way to get the previous behavior back?

Thanks a lot!

[Britgirl]

If you have a vnc session running, killing it will then allow NoMachine to create the virtual xframebuffer session. After that restart the nxserver with nxserver --restart. Check what is configured in the DefaultDesktopCommand key in the node.cfg file. You could try using, for example, the same command you use on the vnc server.

If none of the above help, then we require the NoMachine logs with debug enabled from the server host. You should follow the instructions here https://kb.nomachine.com/DT07S00243, reproduce the problem, and then submit here or send to forum[at]nomachine[dot]com.

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