MacOS Mojave remote access login screen stuck on infinite loading spinner

macosmojaveremote desktopscreen-sharing

My company has a Mac Mini that we use for iOS builds. Occasionally, one of us needs to log in to it via remote access (from a Windows PC) to update the build tools.

However, ever since updating the OS to the latest MacOS Mojave, most of the time we cannot log in remotely. On any VNC client (I use VNC Viewer but have tested this with UltraVNC as well). As soon as one of us establishes a connection to the Mac, it just shows the login screen with the username and account picture, no password prompt or buttons of any kind, and a loading spinner that just spins forever:

remote access screen is stuck with this loading spinner

I've found that I can "fix" this by physically accessing the machine and logging out of the account, but of course this is painful and impractical.

Is this just a mojave bug? Are there any ways to break out of this loop? I should mention that this didn't seem to be an issue before the mojave update.

Best Answer

Remote login should be allowed (System Preferences -> Sharing -> Remote login).

  1. Connect via ssh: ssh user@host
  2. Run sudo pkill loginwindow
  3. Connect using VNC as usual
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