Computer is set to :“do nothing” when the lid is closed. Still, the screen turns off and TightVNC displays the screen “as is,” i.e., as blank and dark.
Never got TV to bypass their servers and hold a permanent PWD on my network.
Anyway, I have found TightVNC to be an improvement over TV on my systems. Not going back, regardless of what they do, or, more likely, don’t do. After I contacted them, asking to be unblocked, they wanted a signed document sent to them testifying I was not a commercial user to unblock me. Their licensing is decidedly NOT geared to users such as I. Fifty USDs a month? Utterly absurd! I think, opinion only, this is a calculated move on their part to gather a few more licensed users and shed a whole bunch of “freeloaders,” such as AP-ers. Their choice. They should be upfront about it though.
I think you hit the nail on the head. I’m surprised that they gave you the option of a monthly billing cycle. I was afforded no such option. $670.00 or there about up front no questions.
The whole experience was bad. I requested to be contacted by management the following Monday and they finally contacted me a week later. The guy was actually pretty nice but after the conversation it was obvious that they were not interested in my retaining my logon.
It was such a convoluted conversation that at the end of it I still cannot explain what their policy is.
I’m putting the word out. They really are underestimating just how many people use the software for AP. It will be interesting to see how all this shakes out.
Good Ridance.
Sean
Thanks for the info. Team Viewer works fine for me, but I don’t like their attitude, so am switching over to Google remote desktop…$680 is quite ridiculous.
DV
Ditto on that score for me as well.
While I do have a pro license (via work) you can setup TeamViewer to connect directly from one computer on your next to another without going thru the internet. I would need to remember how that is setup, but it works when you do not have a internet connect and hence they could not “block” you. Of course this would cover only those on the same network between the imaging computer and your “viewer”.
That requires a paid license now. The home license does not allow that functionality.
Not surprised about TV’s direction. They’ve been getting more aggressive on their commercial license terms and cost over the past 3-4 yeas (use paid license at my work).
Personally I’ve always preferred MS RDP over the TV interface anyway, although I recognize others feel differently about RDP.
I use the free DNS-O-MATIC dynamic DNS service. My network router has a dynamic DNS service option with the DNS-O-MATIC details preprogrammed, but there are local client options as well (ie. run app/service on your SGP PC to update the dynamically assigned IP# mapped to a static url). This enables me to RDP directly from anywhere on the internet.
YMMV
DaveNL
I have a portable travel router, a NUC, and Windows pro on my laptop and the NUC.
It’s very finicky to work with for a road warrior.
I wound up purchasing a small portable USB monitor, wireless mouse and keyboard as a backup way to connect to the NUC. Anyway you slice it, once it is ‘stabilized’; that is, the NUC has connected to the router’s network with no error messages (when the router can’t connect to it’s wireless Internet network), it’s solid as a rock. The perfect solution is to run a mobile network device connected to the portable router, and you can have the portable router assign hard IPs to both the laptop and NUC. I connect using the machine name and allow it to assign an IP to the devices.
FWIW, I’ve been using NoMachine successfully from a variety of platforms - also free and works well.
Hey that’s great. Thank you. Yall have given me plenty of options
Sean Molony
It happened to me a year ago. I went to splashtop.com it’s way cheaper than Team Viewer and it works just as well. Up to 10 computers at a time.
I’m using it right now with my remote observatory…It never fails.
I did some digging and found out why I got flagged. Apparently a few months ago I used TV to log into a friends computer in Florida to help him with some PHD problems and when I did that they caught it.
I had been using Microsoft’s Remote Desktop for 20+ years but recently converted to the remote desktop add-in for Google Chrome. An excellent remote desktop client that is completely free to use. For more info, go to:
Charlie
I’ve been using Splashtop for a couple of years now without any issues. I use the subscription at $16.99/year and I can run my observatory from anyplace. My observatory has internet connection. Like @pablotwa said, it has never failed. Just need to be aware when they do maintenance, which is about twice a year and it is usually on a Saturday night/Sunday morning you’ll lose the connection during their maintenance period but they give you enough warning usually weeks in advance.
That’s why I use VNC… So far, anyway, I have had no issues with multiple computers, etc. A bit of lag, and not perfect, but I can definitely control my remote astrophotography computer. And with some technical acumen (thanx to my son), I can even monitor and manage remotely…
I’ve been using a ZeroTier VPN and remote desktop to connect to my remote observatory machine. It is not as reliable as TeamViewer but it seems generally faster than TeamViewer.
I’ve heard of quite a few astrophotographers getting kicked off of TeamViewer. I’m glad/lucky I haven’t been yet.
Jared
It would have been one thing if they had at least given me notice so I could plan, but no they kicked me off the minute I logged in during an imaging session.
I’m still able to use Teamviewer no problem, but it’s for this reason that I went ahead and setup AnyDesk on all my computers over the weekend. I do think AnyDesk is about the best alternative to TV, but I still like TV’s interface better. I also have Chrome Remote Desktop setup, but I have found that to be a little unreliable (probably due to some weird security setting in Windows firewall that I can’t figure out) and ChromeRD does not have an offline option. With TV and AnyDesk I can always log in with just the local IP address over the local network, which is essential to me when out in the field.
All this trouble with TV has caused me to implement the following policies:
- I shall not upgrade TV anymore!
- I shall only use TV on my LAN!
- I shall not seek, nor shall I accept any TV connections over the internet (borrowing from LBJ here)!
- I shall implement an alternative such as AnyDesk immediately as backup and eventual replacement!
This is all too bad, but frankly also understandable. TV does have the right to change their policies on home use of their product, however I think it would be in their best interests to not be so draconian about it. Implementing a 30-day warning or something like that would be much more appropriate.
Ben
Exactly!
They even said that they have not really paid attention to the free version until lately. They noticed an uptick in the amount of people signing up for it (probably us) and decided to make some changes. The problem is that they have done nothing to implement those changes other than to randomly yank your account if you get flagged.