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Troubleshooting Timbuktu 6.0.x: bandwidth hogging bug
Ethan Wilde reports a functionality lapse in Timbuktu 6.0.x that can fully drain bandwidth on even relatively fast connections:
"When a user has a screen-sharing (control or look) connection to a machine running Timbuktu 6.x on OS X and the computer goes into screen saver mode (the screen-shared Mac not the client Mac connecting), Timbuktu begins transmitting the entire screen, in full color depth, continuously. The net effect is that one single Timbuktu connection will flood an entire T1 line worth of outgoing bandwidth for the network that has the machine that someone is connected to on it.
"Netopia technical support had this say about the matter: The Windows version of Timbuktu supports an idle disconnect timeout option, but the Mac version does not. (Didn't Timbuktu start its life on the Mac?). Nor can the Mac version prevent the Screen Effects screen saver from kicking in on the screen-shared Mac. This effectively means that if you have Timbuktu users connecting over your router to another Mac that has Screen Effects screen saver enabled, you have to trust them to close the connection as soon as they are done using the remote Mac, otherwise the screen saver will swamp your outgoing bandwidth."
It should be noted that Timbuktu 6.0.3 (the latest release) allows you to set the color depth of the screen data that is transmitted to something other than the default setting so less data is transmitted, but bandwidth can still be absorbed quite quickly.
Feedback on this issue? Drop us a line at late-breakers@macfixit.com.
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Bryan
We are an Apple Authorized Reseller (VAR) and an
HP/Compaq Authorized Reseller (VAR) effectively
meaning that we cover both platforms, PC and Mac.
We have been supporting both platforms AND crossing
platforms since the late 1980's. We have numerous
clients with Wintel and Mac and have been using
Timbuktu for as long as I can remember BECAUSE it
has clients for both Mac and PC. However, and
unfortunately, their (Netopia's) product has gotten more
and more unstable as the years have progressed. We
are always concerned when using Timbuktu, on
EITHER platform, that we will either crash the "host"
computer or "Crash" the Timbuktu client on the host
computer. Either way, the host computer becomes
unreachable via Timbuktu and the ONLY solution is to
reboot it; kind of difficult if you are 300 miles away on a
Saturday afternoon! We have therefore tried to make
sure we always have a back door to reboot the host
computer, like Terminal Services if a Server level PC for
example. There is no "live-update" type feature on
either platform, so all patches and interim updates
have to be manually downloaded and installed. On the
PC platform you have to completely uninstall your
current version BEFORE installing any updated version.
As for the "interim updates" they are few and far
between, and Netopia tends to wait for major,
CHARGEABLE updates/releases before addressing
MANY easily reproducible and/or easily identified
issues. One recent version for Wintel (build 869) had
an issue where the host machine's screen would be
"erased" as you traversed it with the client mouse
almost as if you were using a drawing program's
eraser function. They never fixed this problem with a
patch and claimed it to be rare. I can assure you it was
anything but rare. Another issue was if you tried using
the ALT-TAB to switch applications, the resulting
window showing the running applications would NOT
go away unless you restarted the host machine. If you
tried using Timbuktu through a firewall, many of the
services became unavailable since they used dynamic
ports which were not changeable. "Ask for permission"
would NOT work through a firewall. If you take control of
a Windows machine, you are presented with TWO login
screens causing MAJOR confusion and even MORE
MAJOR headaches. In some cases, if you log into the
FIRST credentials window, it would create an
ENTIRELY new Windows user profile on the host
machine!!! Of course the end result was that the user
would lose access to all of their mail, documents,
desktop icons etc. This happened repeatedly and
WITHOUT warning the controller that it was ABOUT to
happen. You can imagine the tech support technicians
nightmare when the user says that they lost
EVERYTHING (even though it was just located in their
"old" profile on the same machine.) Their [Netopia's] IP
Locator service, a valiant attempt at storing your
location in an updating database so you could perhaps
control your machine via your email address vs. a fixed
IP number, was flawed in that instead of transmitting
(or reading) the IP address from which the locator info
CAME from, it read the IP address ON the machine and
transmitted that, once again making the IP Locator
useless if you were using NAT or similar masking
functionality. On the Mac side, there is an ability to scan
a range of IP addresses for a Timbuktu host, very
useful if doing tech support for an entire office.
Unfortunately, they have never implemented this simple
capability onto the PC side. They have never, that I am
aware of, addressed the issue of printing locally (like
PC Anywhere does so elegantly). All in all there
seems to be a very poor level of Quality Control with the
Timbuktu software product and an even lower level of
Foresight and needs awareness by the design team.
The moral of this story... Don't expect any
soon-to-be-released fixes for the problem that Ethan
describes. Netopia is just simply NOT responsive to
their plethora of KNOWN issues and I, for one, wouldn't
expect this one to be any different!