TigerVNC only displays blank windows

[DanHam (Dan)]

When opening TigerVNC the windows have no text and are completely blank.

I'm fairly confident I have run into the issue described ​here on GitHub. This seems to suggest the problem is specific to machines running Mojave, although I am unable to confirm that.

As described in that issue, the problem may actually lie with FLTK rather than being a problem with TigerVNC directly - see the ​FLTK bug report.

As an aside, I have installed and tested the official (and latest) TigerVNC 1.9.0 release and this works OK. Clearly though, I would prefer to have TigerVNC installed and managed by MacPorts instead.

$ sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.14.2
BuildVersion:   18C54

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

WFM on Mojave. I installed fltk-devel however. Can you see if that fixes the problem for you?

[DanHam (Dan)]

log from failed install of fltk-devel

[DanHam (Dan)]

Sorry for any ignorance on my part, but how do I do that??

tigervnc depends on fltk, but fltk-devel conflicts with fltk. If I try to install fltk-devel after installing tigervnc I get:

$ sudo port install fltk-devel
--->  Computing dependencies for fltk-devel
Error: Can't install fltk-devel because conflicting ports are active: fltk
Error: Follow https://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets to report a bug.
Error: Processing of port fltk-devel failed

Also, there seems to be an issue with the fltk-devel port. If I remove tigervnc and fltk, when I attempt to install fltk-devel I get an error:

$ sudo port install fltk-devel
--->  Computing dependencies for fltk-devel
The following dependencies will be installed:  jpeg
Continue? [Y/n]: y
--->  Fetching archive for jpeg
--->  Attempting to fetch jpeg-9c_0.darwin_18.x86_64.tbz2 from http://mse.uk.packages.macports.org/sites/packages.macports.org/jpeg
--->  Attempting to fetch jpeg-9c_0.darwin_18.x86_64.tbz2.rmd160 from http://mse.uk.packages.macports.org/sites/packages.macports.org/jpeg
--->  Installing jpeg @9c_0
--->  Activating jpeg @9c_0
--->  Cleaning jpeg
--->  Fetching archive for fltk-devel
--->  Attempting to fetch fltk-devel-20190105_0.darwin_18.x86_64.tbz2 from http://mse.uk.packages.macports.org/sites/packages.macports.org/fltk-devel
--->  Attempting to fetch fltk-devel-20190105_0.darwin_18.x86_64.tbz2 from http://lil.fr.packages.macports.org/fltk-devel
--->  Attempting to fetch fltk-devel-20190105_0.darwin_18.x86_64.tbz2 from https://packages.macports.org/fltk-devel
--->  Fetching distfiles for fltk-devel
--->  Verifying checksums for fltk-devel
--->  Extracting fltk-devel
--->  Applying patches to fltk-devel
Error: Failed to patch fltk-devel: command execution failed
Error: See /opt/local/var/macports/logs/_opt_local_var_macports_sources_rsync.macports.org_macports_release_tarballs_ports_aqua_fltk/fltk-devel/main.log for details.
Error: Follow https://guide.macports.org/#project.tickets to report a bug.
Error: Processing of port fltk-devel failed

See log file attached above

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

According to your log, that is a bug in fltk-devel. It is missing a build dependency on autoconf.

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

Also, to install fltk-devel, you would need to deactivate fltk first.

[DanHam (Dan)]

That seems to have done the trick.

Starting from scratch, e.g. no vncserver, fltk, or fltk-devel installed, to get a working install of TigerVNC I had to:

• Install autoconf
• Install fltk-devel
• Install tigervnc

Note that MacPorts prompted to rebuild tigervnc during the install to fix an error.

It would be great if, in the process of fixing this, we could upgrade to the latest TigerVNC in the process!! :)

Many thanks for your help with this.

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

I fixed the fltk dependencies in changeset:dd415bc49b8941e7b3c269c5618581c7fca01057/macports-ports

[vidakris]

I'm not sure if I experience the same problem, tigervnc shows only a gray striped window, but the mouse pointer changes correctly depending on the position, and, to make things more weird, the windows appear when the vnc window is on an external display, and disappear again on the laptop screen.

It happens with tigervnc @1.7.1_1 on BigSur.

Replying to DanHam:

When opening TigerVNC the windows have no text and are completely blank.

I'm fairly confident I have run into the issue described ​here on GitHub. This seems to suggest the problem is specific to machines running Mojave, although I am unable to confirm that.

As described in that issue, the problem may actually lie with FLTK rather than being a problem with TigerVNC directly - see the ​FLTK bug report.

As an aside, I have installed and tested the official (and latest) TigerVNC 1.9.0 release and this works OK. Clearly though, I would prefer to have TigerVNC installed and managed by MacPorts instead.

$ sw_vers
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion: 10.14.2
BuildVersion:   18C54