UVNC using 3.com dongles

[morrismajo]

I am a beginer. I have been trying VNC now for a couple of weeks but need help....

I cannot maintain a UVNC viewer connection using 1.0.9.6, via '3.com' dongles. I get to a point after the Password entry, which is accepted, where the 'viewer' screen opens briefly in 'service mode'? and then quickly disapears, similarly to minimising a window. I have tried this using different flavours of Windows from xP Pro to Windows Ultimate but result is always the same.

I have successfully used the same dongles and also a friends '3.com' dongle to use UVNC SC which worked OK but I cannot make the transition up to full UVNC.
NB/ I am aware that a Vodafone does does not appear to support even UVNC SC from my first attempts using it ans subsequent trawling of google!

Has anyone any experience using dongles or possible solutions please?

regards

[B]

Sorry but I have no idea what you're talking about. 3Com went out of business long ago. Are you talking about cell phone adapters such as http://www.vodafone.co.uk/personal/mobi ... /index.htm ?

You need to treat them like any other machine behind a NAT router. And since you do NOT control that router (your cell phone provider does) you will have to ONLY make outbound connections from the machine(s) using the dongles. An UltraVNC repeater may help in this regard. (And that's why you may have had more luck with UltraVNC SC, which does make outbound connections from the "server" PC.)

[morrismajo]

Sorry about confusion meant the UK version of 3 broadband dongle. I am using 2 of these dongles to try out UVNC. UVNC SC worked ok no problem but full version of UVNC 1.0.9.6 had the disapearing screen view as mentioned in original topic.

[B]

Ah, so you're talking about these guys I guess http://www.three.co.uk/Mobile_Broadband

I don't know anything about those dongles or what restrictions they would have (other than the general NAT cell phone warnings I mentioned earlier).

I wonder how you got SC to work -- were you able to put the "viewer" into listening mode and successfully access it by its public IP address?

I just don't know that your issue has ANYTHING to do with the dongles -- perhaps you can test your setup using more common hardwired broadband or office or cafe Internet connections? The idea would be to identify or eliminate the dongles themselves as an issue.

[morrismajo]

B, thanks for your responses and in answer to your queries...

Yes I'm trying to use a couple of 3 mobile broadband dongles.

I got SC to work fairly easily on a friends desktop (as the remote) using their own 3 dongle and using my own 3 dongle and laptop (as the viewer). Initially I hardcoded the viewer dongle/laptop public IP address into the 'helpdesk.txt' file but quickly switched to a dynamic dns which has worked for a couple of weeks albeit a bit slow and subject to screen freezing. However I've now learnt to wind the viewer quality settings down, particular colours to 256 or less which appears to have stabalised the connections.

I then trialed a move upto full UVNC 1.0.9.6 initially I was using two laptops and two dongles one 3, other one Vodafone but this did not work. I then went back to trialing SC with same set up this also failed! At that point I suspected Vodafone dongle to be culprit which seemed to be borne out by googling.
I then purchased another 3 dongle which allows an SC connection ok but when I try a full UVNC connection I get the behaivour as per first post. ie
Run viewer using public IP of remote dongle.
Connection made, password requested entered and accepted.
Viewer screen opens in 'service mode' and then quickly closes/collapses similar to a window minimising.

If the dongles were somehow blocking I would not expect to be able to make the connection initially to have password accepted?

[B]

What I'm missing here is how you're forwarding ports. But I guess you're NOT, because each dongle has its own direct public IP address? If that's the case, then the question is what ports your ISP allows you to listen on. Apparently at some point they were letting you listen on 5500 (the default VNC "listening viewer" port) but they won't let you listen on 5900 ( the default VNC server port).

You might want to go to Shields Up (google it) and do a port sweep of yourself to try to find out what ports are blocked. But then again, I just checked to see what ports 3Mobile blocks, and it appears all they block is 25 (which is typical). So I'm afraid I'm being no help; sorry.

You may be quite right about the issue not being connectivity per se -- you should also try turning off all encryption and passwords in VNC (temporarily!) to see if your connection proceeds properly that way.

You can also try the SC-workalikes SCPrompt and (if you're ready to run a repeater) ChunkVNC.

[morrismajo]

B, Thanks again for the prompt reply.

As a beginner I've limited exposure to some of the techniques you suggest but I'll research and work through your suggestions.

I had tried using the dongles as an 'easy' way of getting started with UVNC rather than configuring my home BT Voyager modem/router, which I screwed up at my first attempt.
I'll probably still persue both avenues because the viewer laptop/dongle configurationvwould enable me to assist friends whilst away from home. Thanks again for your input.

[B]

Cool. I'm not sure if they're available where you live, but both LogMeIn Free and Teamviewer are easier free solutions for people who are less technically inclined. They will almost surely work, and there's minimal need for twiddling. Good luck.

[morrismajo]

B Thanks again for the suggestions about LogMeIn and TeamViewer i hadn't realised they had free versions. I'll give them a try Thanks again