Control PC Remotely

[Bankesy]

Hello

 

This is a long shot but I have struggled with this and thought I might ask:

 

Here we have a PC in the ceiling connected to a TV and it runs Xibo digital signage software. The software running on the PC now has an error message that requires clearing.

 

I thought it would be possible to remote onto the PC (being that it's in the ceiling) from mine and clear the message. However this does not actually provide control over the PC and I cannot see what's actually running on it because all I get is my particular remote session.

 

Am I being really silly or is there an actual answer to this?

 

Any help greatly appreciated, thank you

[BKGarry]

The way we did this was to install VNC onto the machines, you can do this through an RDP session or use some VNC management software that allows you to deploy it, you can then change a setting in the management console which allows you to make the displays a link and connect to it through the web browser (as long as you know the password)

[cooka]

install realVNC on the client PC. Job done?

[caffrey]

Are you Remote desking as the logged on user on that machine ??

[fairm010]

We have RealVNC on each of our digital signage PC's. Works a treat.

[Oaktech]

We run lanview 4 on our network, every PC has a tightvnc client installed. Easy life!

[Grey-gear]

I have used Logmein in the past and it has been fine for me

[NewFormz]

I use VNC or team viewer to do this. Team viewer is good as it is web based so I can access it from anywhere not just the machine in my office.

[mikkydoos]

TightVNC for me

[JackCPickup]

When you remote in and get the wrong session, try Ctrl + Alt + F1 and the other F keys to see if you can swap session that way. I THINK it's Ctrl + Alt + Fx or Ctrl + Fx...

 

Jack

[penfold]

Another one for VNC but in addition to that I have also set a Xibo user to auto login and then set the Xibo client to auto start with a 1 min delay. For some reason the client sometimes started sooner than the PC had finished logging in and it caused a pop up to show over the client.

 

I changed the desktop to have no icons & hide the taskbar. I set the background image so it has a default xibo picture which will show until the client starts. That way even if someone can't contact me they can just run the reboot script (named to match the display) sitting on our shared area which reboots the client PC. A couple of minutes later and the PC has been rebooted and the display is back.

[Bankesy]

Hello Penfold

 

This is very helpful and perhaps you could enlighten me further, see actually Xibo has stopped working altogether for me but for easy posting purposes I explained as above.

 

I have no experience with Xibo and when I started here a short while ago it worked as you described, the PC would auto login and then Xibo would start.

 

However now it doesn't start at all, do you know if I'm right in thinking that it's the Xibo Client Options>Server URL and Server Key that control this?

 

If it is then I've found the server key on the admin web interface for Xibo but no idea what the URL could be. I have asked on the Xibo forum so don't worry if you don't know.

 

On a separate note I did manage to install both Team Viewer and VNC on the PC and get iPlayer working, the only problem is with VNC when I cut the connection the iPlayer stops working. Does anybody know how to stop VNC doing this? With TeamViewer there was an option to not lock the PC on session end but I only have a trial.

 

Thank you

[penfold]

Can you log into the Xibo server and see if when the client last contacted the server? If you can get into the web console go to Management >Displays. It should show all displays that have contacted the server and the last time they did. It should also allow you to see if the client has been authorised.

 

To be honest if the client doesn't start even if you manually run it, it may be a case of uninstalling and re-installing the client as even if it can't contact your server the client should still start but won't pull down any of your content. If you don't want to play with a "live" xibo client you could always install it on your PC and test that it is working. Once you install the client you will need to authorise the new display from the admin console. Just follow the information here how to install the Xibo client

 

Edit: Any of the display content is stored on the server so you can remove/re-install the client on any machine and it will just re-download the content when it contacts the server again.

Edited May 7, 2014 by penfold

[Bankesy]

Hello

 

Thank you very much for your response penfold, you really pointed me in the right direction with this and now its all up and running again plus I can access the PC through VNC and it doesn't stop whatever is playing.

 

In case you were wondering, it was only a case of the Xibo Client Options URL and Server Key being correct.