Peter Gray's community posts

Ho Sergey.  That looke exactly like what happens when the host computer you are connecting to is also the viewer computer you are connecting from.  I've done that accidentally a number of times.  Only one connection is actually opened, but the host screen displayed is that of the viewer, which changes as a result, and that change propagates down the screen.

Hello Conrad

I have just run the script on one of these machines (while logged on remotely) and rebooted it after doing windows updates. The machine has rebooted (I can ping it) but the host has not restarted. I shall be there on site tomorrow, so can check if the service properties are still changed according to the script. It may be that the script should have been run while the host service was not running.

Hello Peter,

What is the operating system on those machines?

All my older machines are Windows 7, except one remaining working XP.  Not all of them have the startup issue.  The one I tested yesterday is W7

When I checked it this morning, the host service properties were still as modified bythe script, so running the script while the service was running was OK.

While looking at the host servicce properties I changes the Startup Type from Automatic to Automatic (Delayed Start), and then rebooted the machine.  This time the host service *did* start on re-boot.  So far I have only tried this once, on the one machine.  I plan to do the same change on the other slow machines.

I have not noticed the problem with host service stopping, but I have several old slow machines where the host service does not reliably start on switch on or on reboot.  With some of these, I dare not do a reboot unless I am on site, so able to restart the host manually.
I have just run the script on one of these machines (while logged on remotely) and rebooted it after doing windows updates.  The machine has rebooted (I can ping it) but the host has not restarted.  I shall be there on site tomorrow, so can check  if the service properties are still changed according to the script.  It may be that the script should have been run while the host service was not running.

Hello Pam and Pauline.
I have had this behaviour on at least two of my Windows7 machines since upgrading the host to 7.1.6.0.  Having had a similar problem with an earlier version (can't remember which) and found it was an anti-virus issue, I checked the quarantine, and found rfusclient.exe there.  AV is Avast.  I submitted false positives, then restored the file and set an exception.  After that I could start the host, and then the viewer could connect to it.
One of the hosts I shut down each day; on startup next day the same problem again, but reporting as a different virus.  I don't have physical access to that machine right now, so I can't check to see if it happens again until Friday.  The other hosts have not been shut down and I can still connect to them, but I dare not upgrade to 7.1.7.0 until I get back and have physical access.
Bottom line, look to see if your AV has quarantined the file.
Hope that helps.
Peter.

Hi Conrad.

v7.1.5.0 fixed the "Host files not found!" problem above, but I found that Avast had quarnteened parts of the viewer.  That was easy to fix.

Trying to update the host on my test machine consistently failed due to Avast false positives (which I have not yet worked out how to get around).  Fortunately that machine is in the same room with me, so I can see what's happening.  Trying remote install failed to update, but left host v7.1.2.0 running.  Trying simple update appears to have stopped the host, or maybe uninstalled it; I have not yet checked on that.

I'll maybe wait a few days before trying further host updates, in the hope that false positives will have stopped.

v7.1.4.0 Viewer seemed to install OK on one W7 machine: It can see hosts (all still at v7.1.2.0), and can control at least one of them.

However, on trying to do a remote install of the host to a test machine, with Remote Utilities security, I got a fail message:-
***** Start of log *****
Date: 16/07/2022 19:51:44
Action: install/upgrade.
Checking files of the Host.
Host files not found!
This happened both when trying to install v7.1.4.8 host, and also later when trying to install v7.1.2.0 host.

I also tried remote installs from a different viewr which is still at v7.1.2.0..
Remote install of host v7.1.2.0 succeeded as usual.
Remote install of host v7.1.4.0 reported success, but I wa sthen unable to connect to that host.  Further inspection showd that the host v7.1.2.0 had been uninstalled, bit v7.1.4.0 has NOT been installed in its place

Manual re-install of v7.1.2.0 using the .exe installer on that machine fortunately worked

I now see that v7.1.5.0 has just been released.  I'll download that and see if these problems are also fixed and report back

Hi Pauline

Could you please clarify if you've sent the files to [email protected]?

Hah, no, typo in address. Spelled support with only one p.
will resend at least some later this evening.
Peter

Hi Pauline.

In this case, could you please send us the contents of these events, so that I could forward it to our developers and ask for their input on the issue?

I have jussent you event logs from a total of seven different machines, all having at leas one of these events.
Peter

I found relevant events by searching for "Remote Utilities" (without the quotes!)  They turned up in pairs, not long after startup,

Hello John

I have occasional failures of the host tostart after reboot, see my post Host sometimes fails to start after boot-up  I see timeout errors in the windows event log.
Could it be that after a major update Windows has more to do on first reboot, and the host service times out?  Do you see the paired error messages I described?