Libreelec 9.2.8 and VNC add on

1st Official Post

    Hi all,

    just a short question, if someone came across the same issue.

    RPi 4B 4GB with LE 9.2.8 freshly setup. I need to remotely connect via VPN to this little box using Dispmanx VNC server (client is VNC Viewer in Windows).

    The LE is connected to a 4k TV and Gui size is limited to 1080, resolution at 4k. All works fine, like SSH via VPN, Chorus, but VNC only displays a black screen. Interestingly (on phone) the user sees the mouse moving or sees the keypresses on the TV. During setup the LE was headless and VNC connected fine, but only with resolution of 1024x768. TV on or off make no difference (hdmi_force_hotplug is set).

    So VNC connects, but only black screen here in my client. Could it be that 4k is simply not supported? I googled the world, but found no further info.

    Any idea or report if it works would be helpful.

    Thanks

    PS: I saw the other thread concerning the suggestion to use Chorus, but that won't help in my case, as I need to guide a person remotely through the screens to explain and educate.

    Thank you chewitt,

    understood and I was kind of already expecting that there is nothing that can be done.

    I hoped some flag in the settings could help, as 1080i was somehow automatically displayed as 768, when I did setup the little box.

    Sounds indeed interesting that you had thought about kind of VNC for LE10, but I guess that is quite a big task to do and (without knowing) the user base for such a feature may not be very high.

    • Official Post

    VNC can work under GBM/V4L2 (there is prototype code) but it currently requires full copies of frames to be made which is compute expensive and results in high-CPU load so the FPS rate need to be deliberately hobbled to keep things sensible. For people who really MUST use VNC to remote navigate a box it sort of works (with dial-up modem framerates) but it's not a means of watching movies. I don't think anything will be made public until a more efficient way to output video is figured out.

    Full frame copies are truly putting a huge load to our little boxes, esp. with high resolutions these days.

    Watching movies via VNC was never an option in my view, esp. sound wasn't transmitted, but for some occasional maintenance tasks, I was using VNC rather than Chorus, as it allowed the remote user to see what I was doing (mainly adding movies or series to the DB and switching the scraper to get best results).

    Would be great, if VNC-like solution is someday coming back.

    Thanks a lot chewitt!

    Quote from chewitt

    VNC can work under GBM/V4L2 (there is prototype code) but it currently requires full copies of frames to be made which is compute expensive and results in high-CPU load so the FPS rate need to be deliberately hobbled to keep things sensible. For people who really MUST use VNC to remote navigate a box it sort of works (with dial-up modem framerates) but it's not a means of watching movies. I don't think anything will be made public until a more efficient way to output video is figured out.

    Wouldn't a VNC version be possible at a few FPS? The goal is to be able to move around the desktop and troubleshoot remotely, not watch videos.

    Edited once, last by havhav (November 23, 2021 at 1:18 PM).