Can’t control Mac from Windows

[bondtrails]

Hi all,

I’ve been using NoMachine for a few years where I connect from my Windows PC to my Mac desktop. I’ve had no issues until recently when i updated the NoMachine software on my Mac. Here are the specifics:

Windows PC: Windows 11 Home, v22H2 (NoMachine v7.12.1)

Mac: MacOS Catalina. v10.15.7 (NoMachine v8.9.1)

Here’s the problem: When I connect from my Windows PC to my Mac, I am presented with my Mac desktop so I am able to connect, but I can only see the Mac desktop and nothing else. No dock, no “Macintosh HD” icon, no desktop files. Also, while my mouse does move around on the desktop, clicking on anything doesn’t do anything. On the Mac screen I do see the menu bar, but it only shows the Apple icon, and the NoMachine menu. Clicking on it doesn’t do anything. This started happening after I updated NoMachine on my Mac.

I am including screenshots of my actual Mac desktop viewed directly on my monitor, and my Mac desktop when viewed as a NoMachine client from my Windows PC.

Would really appreciate help on this!!

–Bondtrails

Attachments:

1. 

   Screenshot_Mac.jpeg
   

2. 

   Screenshot_RemoteMac.jpg
   

[Britgirl]

Try resetting Permissions for Accessibilty and Screen Recording. Remove NoMachine from both lists (click the ‘-‘ button) and then restart NoMachine (you can do it from terminal with sudo /etc/NX/nxserver --restart) and follow the prompts that should direct you to enabling permissions again.

[bondtrails]

Many thanks Britgirl, resetting permissions did the trick. However, while I am now able to connect to my Mac while its already on with me logged in, I typically run it as a headless server (i.e. no keyboard, mouse or display monitor) and this presents a new problem which i have not had before under the old version of NoMachine.

When I try to connect from my PC, i am now presented with a message “Waiting for the desktop user to authorize your connection.” Authorization will of course never happens because the Mac is headless. Is there a workaround for this?

Thanks again for your excellent help!

[Britgirl]

Can I ask what version of NoMachine you were running before you updated it? You need to configure the server settings of the machine you want to connect to accept connection requests – without asking for desktop owner’s authorization. This was also configurable in v7 and it’s likely that you set it to not ask the owner, but there was a change in the name of the key. You should check that in your server.cfg there is the key “PhysicalDesktopAccessNoAcceptance”. Can you tell what its values are or attach the cfg file here?

Another thing you should can is the user name which you are logging in with. As the owner, the popup doesn’t show, but if you connect as a user which is not the owner, i.e another system user, the popup will show.

To disable requesting for the owner’s authorization before connecting to the desktop do the following on the server side:

– Open the NoMachine User Interface from Programs menu or Applications.
– Access the Server settings
– Open the Security panel.
– Go to User Acceptance and make sure that the box “Don’t require acceptance if the user logged in as a system user” is enabled.

Does this help? 🙂

[Author]

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