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I'm running x11vnc on Ubuntu as a service at startup. It generally works fine, but I want to run it headless. If I start the server with a monitor connected but off, VNC connects and responds quickly, however if I restart the server without a monitor connected (I want to remove the monitor from my desk) then it's painfully slow to use - like 5 fps response, until I connect a monitor again and then it's fine.

Here's the content of my service file

[Unit]
Description=Start x11vnc at startup
After=multi-user.target

[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/x11vnc -display :0 -geometry 1024x768 -auth guess -forever -loop -noxdamage -repeat -rfbauth /etc/x11vnc.pass -rfbport 5900 -shared -o /var/log/x11vnc.log

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Be really grateful if someone can point out where I've gone wrong with this. Thanks

Eddy555
  • 51
  • Were you able to solve this? I have the exact same problem. – freebie Sep 08 '17 at 17:16
  • Unfortunately not, and now my server has updated to a latest build of 17.10 which x11vnc doesn't work with at the moment :/ – Eddy555 Sep 10 '17 at 11:58
  • This may be worth looking as a temporary fix: https://askubuntu.com/questions/453109/add-fake-display-when-no-monitor-is-plugged-in – PGA Sep 23 '17 at 23:03

1 Answers1

9

  1. Disable Composite tweaks via Start->Window Manager Tweaks->Compositor-> Disable

  2. Disable vsync, xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/vblank_mode -s off

Reference - https://github.com/LibVNC/x11vnc/issues/102

Anders F. U. Kiær
  • 2,171
Anurag Sodhi
  • 91
  • Omg, thanks for this. Using Ubuntu Mate 20.04 the x11vnc server was incredibly slow. Disabling the compositor sped things up well into the usable range. (MATE Tweak -> Windows -> Window Manager -> Marco (no compositor)) – Cheesington Mar 01 '21 at 00:58
  • 2
    To disable the compositor from command line : xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -s false – pim Jun 23 '22 at 08:23
  • Is this answer specific to xfce, which is an alternative desktop environment? But I have several plain vanilla Ubuntu installs with "ubuntu:GNOME" desktop environment and none of the proposed solutions work : there is no xfwm4, no Window Manager Tweaks. Is there a VNC fix for standard Ubuntu? – jhnlmn Jun 04 '23 at 22:23