I having trouble figuring out why I am getting a blank grey screen with an X cursor when I connect to a freshly installed vnc server. I have done some googling and cannot seem to find an answer to this issue. All of the forums that I have come across are old and the files they reference are not used in this setup or don't pertain to the window manager and operating system I am using.
Here is the setup:
server machine: Xubuntu 11.04 with XFCE 4.8.0 running tightvncserver (wrapper for Xtightvnc)
client machine: Windows 7 with TightVNC viewer (same results with UltraVNC viewer)
The command I use to start the server is:
tightvncserver :1 -name HADES -geometry 1024x768 -alwaysshared
The view is set to connect:
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:1
Xstartup looks like this:
#!/bin/sh
xrdb $HOME/.Xresources
xsetroot -solid grey
#x-terminal-emulator -geometry 80x24+10+10 -ls -title "$VNCDESKTOP Desktop" &
#x-window-manager &
# Fix to make GNOME work
export XKL_XMODMAP_DISABLE=1
/etc/X11/Xsession
The connection log looks like this:
22/08/11 15:20:08 Got connection from client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
22/08/11 15:20:08 Using protocol version 3.8
22/08/11 15:20:15 Full-control authentication passed by xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
22/08/11 15:20:15 Pixel format for client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:
22/08/11 15:20:15 32 bpp, depth 24, little endian
22/08/11 15:20:15 true colour: max r 255 g 255 b 255, shift r 16 g 8 b 0
22/08/11 15:20:15 no translation needed
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding 16
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding 17
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding 10
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding 9
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding 8
22/08/11 15:20:15 Using tight encoding for client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
22/08/11 15:20:15 Using compression level 6 for client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
22/08/11 15:20:15 Enabling X-style cursor updates for client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
22/08/11 15:20:15 Enabling cursor position updates for client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
22/08/11 15:20:15 Using image quality level 6 for client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding -65530
22/08/11 15:20:15 Enabling LastRect protocol extension for client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding -223
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding -65535
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding -32768
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding -32767
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding -32766
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding -32765
22/08/11 15:20:15 rfbProcessClientNormalMessage: ignoring unknown encoding -1063131698
22/08/11 15:20:20 Client xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx gone
22/08/11 15:20:20 Statistics:
22/08/11 15:20:20 key events received 0, pointer events 268
22/08/11 15:20:20 framebuffer updates 1, rectangles 4, bytes 122
22/08/11 15:20:20 LastRect markers 1, bytes 12
22/08/11 15:20:20 cursor shape updates 1, bytes 82
22/08/11 15:20:20 cursor position updates 1, bytes 12
22/08/11 15:20:20 tight rectangles 1, bytes 16
22/08/11 15:20:20 raw bytes equivalent 3145740, compression ratio 196608.750000
The screen I get looks like this:
Best Answer
As we discussed in the comments. I think you have incorrect expectations about how some VNC servers work on *nix.
VNC servers on *nix is different then on Windows. By default, VNC will act like a terminal server. Meaning each VNC server you start will create a separate X11 session. This would allow many users to VNC into your *nix system and each would get their own desktop.
What I suspect you really want is something like X11VNC, which basically start a VNC server that you can connect to an existing X11 session on the console. See http://help.ubuntu.com/community/VNC#Accessing_your_PC_over_the_Internet