Remote Desktop - Black Screen No Login
Goal: Use Remote Desktop client on a laptop to access office computer running Windows XP Pro.Unknowns: Will Remote Desktop work over Hughe's DirecWay Satellite Internet.
Laptop: Dell Inspiron 9400, running Windows XP Pro. Customer's office PC: Dell, running Windows XP Pro.
Setup: We actually provide wireless Internet for this customer, so it will be wireless at a minimum of two segments along the route (not to mention that a wireless router is used at the home).Testing: Remote desktop works over our wireless system, and should work at all points along the way. DirecWay Satellite is an unknown, however. Instead of starting at the side sure to work, a drive to the customer's house is in order. Testing the laptop to our Windows 2003 Terminal Server, at our office, shows that Remote Desktop works reasonably well over DirecWay...at least to the degree that the customer was happy enough with the experience to continue with the project to setup in order to connect to the customer's Windows XP Pro machine.
A drive back to customer's office location, the XP Pro machine is configured, as well as the customer's router. A call to the customer to test it, and customer reports getting a black screen, with no login prompt, only the bar at the top of the screen. After a brief period of time, a message pops up saying that a network error has occurred.
Further Testing: Customer, from their house and over DirecWay, can pull up our 2003 Terminal server just fine, pull up remote desktop in that session, and remote desktop to the customer's XP Pro machine. An XP Pro machine is configured at our office, and customer is also able to pull it up with no problems. Customer brings laptop to our office. It pulls up customer's office XP Pro box with no problems (although it did seem to hang sometimes when logging off).
Since customer's laptop works at our office, it is assumed that the problem is in the hop at the DirecWay segment of the route. Customer's laptop, as well as a work laptop is taken out to the customer's house. Customer's laptop, which worked at our office, exhibits a black screen, no login, and a network error after a brief period. Our work laptop also does the same! However, a RDA session to the XP Pro machine at our office, pulls up just fine.
Overview:
Customer's laptop: Can pull up 2003 Terminal Server at our office - no problems
Customer's laptop: Can RDA out of our Terminal Server to customer's office PC - no problems
Customer's laptop: Cannot pull up customer's office PC directly - black screen, no login.
Final Solution:The exact cause of the problem is unknown, and I might add, rather bizarre, even for someone familiar with Window's normal quirkiness. A lot of searching reveals other people having the same problem, yet nothing really official from Microsoft. The two things found to correct the problem are to lower the MTU unit and turn off the bitmap caching.
Bitmap caching - turned off and still get black screen.
RDA client: All options turned off - resolution changed to 256 colors - still get black screen.
Office router dropped from MTU of 1495 to 1400 - still gets black screen (at least for a period).
RDA client: Colors increased to 16-bit - still gets black screen.
Customer's laptop: dropped the resolution down from maximum to 1024 x 768. - it logs on normally.Further testing shows that customer can log on to office XP Pro machine only if bitmap caching is off and the RDA-client color scheme is 15-bit or 16-bit (or above). Customer logged on a couple of times without dropping the screen resolution of the laptop, but then had problems again. It is found that machine logs on fairly reliable by dropping the laptop screen resolution down to 1024 x 768. It is also found that, once the laptop is logged on, the resolution can be raised back up to any level without problems. The MTU rate of the customer's office router is left at 1400. Whether or not changing the router setting played a role in getting the laptop to log on is unknown, but again, it was left at 1400.
Final Comments:Whatever caused this problem, it is certain that it was a combination of the customer's laptop/office XP Pro machine and DirecWay satellite. Since the laptop was able to pull up the customer's office PC from our office, but not over DirecWay, then DirecWay must be implemented as a culprit in the problem. However, since our Windows 2003 Terminal Server worked fine over DirecWay, as well pulling up an XP Pro box sitting in our office (only one hop away from the customer's office), it is safe to say that Remote Desktop does work over DirecWay in most circumstances. It is my personal opinion that the screen resolution of the customer's laptop had some conflict with something on the customer's office computer, and that a touch of latency or some setting over the DirecWay segment, combined with whatever conflict was already going on, caused the black screen with no login prompt. Given the amount of testing that went into this, it can only be concluded that there is no reason the customer's laptop shouldn't have been able to pull up the customer's office XP Pro box in the first place. It must be concluded that the operating system used played some part in the problem - as it does appear to be a known -- although unacknowledged -- problem with Windows XP Pro. Ultimately, the correct solution to the problem, should probably have been a switch to Linux or Mac OS X.
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black screen (3:45am EST Tue May 25 2004)
I've experienced problems, when connecting a RD-Session via VPN over a DSL-Link. Instead of the logon picture appears only a black screen, after a while the connection disconnects with an error message about a network problem.
The solution for this problem is to deactivate the bitmap caching. Anyone knows the reason for this problem? - by Hoschi
PROBLEM WITH RDP (10:52am EST Mon Apr 11 2005)
I seem to be having a problem similar to Raj, I can connect from work and it's all ok for about 30 seconds then it freezes and disconnects. If I try and reconnect I can login but am presented with a black screen. If i logon with the 2nd user it works fine all the time (or so it seems, I'm logged on with that user now). I also have a nvidia gfx card and am now using Windows XP x64. Any ideas?
Some notes collected from other people experiencing the same problem:
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Hi all,
I am going crazy over this issue.
My home computer is XP pro (sp1) and I am trying to remote desktop to it.
From work (xp pro, sp2) works fine.
From friends laptop (xp home) works fine.
From my laptop (xp pro, sp2) all I get is the little yellow bar on top with the IP address and a blank screen..no login box..I do have mouse movement however.
I am 100% sure it is a configuration problem on my laptop (because of the other tests and because my friend tried his laptop on the same network where I try my laptop!) I have disabled all firewalls.
I appreciate any help..This is so illogical.
Instead of the logon picture appears only a black screen
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I bought this upgrade specifically to use remote desktop -- however it does not work. There are many reports on the web re. Remote desktop black/blank screen no login dialog box.
I have used remote desktop on other machines & connections without problem but there is clearly a problem with many connections using the version in WindowsXP sp2. Microsoft has not acknowledged the problem, produced a KB article or a fix for this yet. My suggestion is to avoid this until at least XP sp3 is issued. Concensus seems to think this is due to a poorly designed/implemented remote desktop protocol -- apparently it does not handle fragmented packets.
[Some have found changing the MTU size from 1500 to 1400 using a third party tool fixes it for them. However this did not work for me.]