Ubuntu Edgy Eft Xvnc Disconnect Problem

Diagnosis of Problem:

I installed the Automatic Updates on Ubuntu Edgy Eft recently, sometime around January 06 (2007-01-06), and after a reboot, my Xvnc running through xinetd stopped receiving connections. It disconnects immediately after connecting, or immediately after receiving the password. Log files turn up almost nothing, there is a "xinetd[nnnn]: warning: can't get client address: Transport endpoint is not connected" error showing up in /var/log/daemon.log and /var/log/syslog and upon telnetting to the vnc port I received nothing but RFB 003.008 (the usual VNC protocol greeting) followed by an immediate drop of the connection. xinetd does pass the connection to VNC, we know this because the greeting is given, but an examination of the running processes will not show Xvnc in the list because it closes immediately after opening.

Running Xvnc server manually with the appropriate options and connecting to it with vncviewer resulted in a gray screen (so-called "root-weave") with an X or a watch cursor on it, and the gdm (Gnome) session never starts.

The Solution:

Temporary solution: This happened because of an upgrade in the vnc4server package. Run synaptic package manager, search for vnc4server, click on it, go to Packages, Force Version and choose the previous version. Downgrade to the previous version and you should be alright for now. Wait until the next version comes out before you attempt to update this package again.

How I Found the Solution:

It took me many hours, but I found the answer on https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/vnc4/+bug/78282

The person who first reported the bug incorrectly listed the date of the upgrade as 2006-01-06 (happy new year feranick).

I hope this helps! Drop a comment to let me know if this post eased your pain.