Toast Via Leopard Screen Sharing

[iHoo]

I was having the hardest time figuring out why I couldn't install Toast on my mac mini, that I keep next to my imac and access via leopards screen sharing feature. I use the mac mini for various tedious, processor intensive things -- capturing and rendering video, etc -- and wanted to use toast on it.

 

I finally found a post somewhere on the internet suggesting that the problem was with trying to get it installed over the Screen Sharing VNC connection. Sure enough, when I hooked it up to a monitor and plugged in a keyboard, it installed and opened fine.

 

I moved it back and now cannot open the application via Screen Sharing, it bounces in the dock and then closes.

 

Does anyone know if there is workaround for this, or is my neat little office setup basically hosed if I want to use Toast on the mini.

 

thx

 

 

 

[John at Roxio]

Ok, I tested this myself and it seems to work ok. My setup and steps below:

 

Setup

My Machine - MacBook Pro (2.33 GHz Core 2 duo) 2GB of RAM, running 10.5.3

Wife's Machine - Mini Mac (1.83 GHz Core 2 duo) 1GB of RAM, running 10.5.2

Currently sitting on the same desk for testing, 2 feet from one another

 

 

Steps for Testing

1) Copied the Toast folder onto the Wife's machine (from original Toast install disc) and didn't launch it.

2) On my machine I opened up screen sharing to view wife's system screen.

3) Launched Toast on Wife's machine and went through setup process. Toast launched successfully at the end of the process

4) Close Toast and opened again to confirm it is still working. I didn't try burning anything, but it appears to be working properly

 

Thoughts

Well, I did install 10.5.3 on my MacBook Pro prior to running the test so maybe something has changed. Otherwise, I am available to do any more testing if you have some other things for me to try.

[John at Roxio]

Update, see this thread for the possible cause.

http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?showtopic=36517

It's not screen sharing, its the fact that no monitor is attached. We are looking into this issue.

[iHoo]

Update, see this thread for the possible cause.

http://forums.support.roxio.com/index.php?showtopic=36517

It's not screen sharing, its the fact that no monitor is attached. We are looking into this issue.

 

 

Interesting. I take it your mac mini in your above post was hooked up to a monitor.

 

Well thanks for the info. I'm glad I'm not crazy. I couldn't understand why your example worked when mine didn't because i was doing the exact same thing...other than not having a monitor for the mini.

 

 

 

[John at Roxio]

Interesting. I take it your mac mini in your above post was hooked up to a monitor.

 

Yep, it sure was. It's always the minor detail that I overlooked that ends up being the issue.

[iHoo]

How does the computer know if it is hooked up to a monitor, anyway. When I got toast to install and open, I had it hooked up to a regular ol' CRT television, via DVI-component adapter.

 

Makes me wonder, do you think it would work if I just plugged something into the DVI port, even if it didn't go anywhere. e.g. a DVI cable not attached to a monitor

 

Or maybe the mini knows it is hooked up to something. If that is the case, could I just stick the component cable into the back of the VCR in my office -- not to actually send data but just to have it hooked up to something it might think is a monitor.

 

As you can see, I really want my setup to work without having to bring in another monitor or television.

 

 

 

[iHoo]

Interesting:

 

I found this..

 

http://blackfriarsinc.com/blog/2007/04/how...-mac-mini-happy

 

which fools the mini into thinking it has a monitor attached by putting the end of a resistor into two of the slits in the DVI port. This makes me sort of think just plugging the other end of my video cable into anything that is designed to be the receiving end of video ouput might work...

 

 

 

[John at Roxio]

FYI, I just tested with the DVI to VGA adapter attached and that didn't seem to work. I cant really think of anything else that might help. I did talk to the developers and they said that they marked this issue as a bug, but unfortunately it may not be addressed for a while.

[iHoo]

Thanks for testing it!

 

I, however, just plugged in a dvi to composite/s-video adapter to the mac mini, and toast opens! The adapter isn't hooked plugged into anything else.

 

Crazy.

 

I guess the mac interprets having that adapter as having a monitor plugged in, but not so with the vga adapter.

 

 

So the lesson is, if you have trouble getting your mac mini to run headless, trick it into thinking you're hooking it up to a 15" Trinitron.