latest Vangelis here (updated yesterday). One thing i have noticed (and please forgive me if this is a naff question/has been answered already - but i can’t find such topics here when searching) is that the zynthian.local webmenu will not reveal the vnc options unless i boot my pi with a hdmi-connector plugged in.
I tried twice to reboot it without, both times those two menus where missing. The third time i plugged the cable in and it was immidately visible in the pull-down menu.
Is this a known quirk? Any way to solve it in order to boot it headless with VNC?
On a ‘normal’ Zynthian, the VNC options are not available until you explicitly enable them in the webconf (Interface → UI Options). Interesting that they show up if you plug in a display, perhaps the VNC options appear not directly because the VNC options have been enabled, but when a display has been detected, and enabling VNC results in the presence of a ‘virtual’ display.
Yes, it kind of makes sense (having no physical display to mirror) and not make sense (i’m thinking some virtual “viewport” enabled that could enable the VNC?? (maybe i’m using the wrong terminology here?)
Its not a huge issue of course, but sometimes if just wanting to fire the pi up and boot zynthian, then from a completely separate machine vnc to it and load engines, etc, it would be quite nice to be able to do so.
I haven’t understood if you have been able to turn on VNC in the webconf. If you go to the webconf, then go to Interface → UI Options, then click on Enable VNC under User Interface, then click Save at the bottom of the page, the UI will restart and after a couple of seconds you should be able to see the VNC-UI and VNC-Engines entries in the Interface menu.
It doesn’t work here. Tried the ui→enable vnc + what jawn suggested with a ctrl+refresh… No vnc is visible at all when booted without hdmi connected.
As soon as i connect hdmi and reboot, they do pop up immediately.
edit. confirmed. as soon as i pop in the micro-hdmi and do system reboot, the options immideately show up in the ui. Also, when booting headless, i can’t connect VNC from remote either. One hdmi-reboot later and i have no issues connecting through Ultra-VNC.
You could try to configure by hand, but to avoid the zynthian config system to overwrite your changes to the cmdline file, you better add something like this:
From glancing at the webconf code, I guess the menu is cached until the user forces a browser refresh. Unfortunately I don’t know how to solve it.
From a user perspective, this sounds like a bug. Should I log it? Getting this solved will reduce frustration and forum comments. It also affects other settings,.e.g. MOD_UI.
Ok, so i found a solution thanks to a gentleman over at one of the FB groups.
The trick is to select a physical display in the “Display” section, like the “Waveshare 7 hdmi+usb 1024x600”. After a reboot and the ctrl-f5 refresh, vnc pops up without a physical cable connected. Works nicely.
