Problem connecting to the auto-config service

[eth0]

My guess is that the cloud config is meant to avoid the known annoyance of having other computers in your same network popping up in your server requesting to connect, which sometimes happens with 1.x specially in corporate networks. If you have to login to your account when setting up the machine, that machine gets tied to your account and only has to talk to other machines registered in your account. With Zeroconf/Bonjour you advertise your service to the whole network and any machine can at least try to connect to it. The alternative is to disable autodiscovery and connect machines by static IP.

But the tradeoffs of having to rely on a remote server to be accessible and responsive just to be able to use the software far outweigh the benefits of avoiding issues with local network autodiscovery. I mean, look at it, it's not only unnecessary but also unreliable as hell. Either you make your cloud service 100% fail-proof —and that means making damn sure it's accessible from anywhere, even behind a buttload of firewalls— or you make your cloud service optional, sort of like the config synchronization service that Firefox offers, for example.

[Brian Davis]

7 hours ago, Angelos Ching said:

The world does not revolve around Symless and their servers.
There are many computers in this world running in isolated networks as well.
They could have used Avahi/Bonjour for automatic service discovery and configuration.
But they ended up with a fragile "cloud"(?) based architecture. 

My post wasn't in regards to Symless, but other alternative products. You should try to read the thread, to gain context before posting. 

[Mike Van Pelt]

Bonjour might have worked for Mac and/or Windows.  I looked into Avahi. For Linux, not so much.  The web page for that project was dead, it had not been updated in years (millennia in internet time), and I could never get it to work.  It looked to be abandonware.

That was probably behind the decision to do this some other way.

[eth0]

11 minutes ago, Mike Van Pelt said:

The web page for that project was dead, it had not been updated in years (millennia in internet time), and I could never get it to work.  It looked to be abandonware.

Really? The latest news entry in http://avahi.org/ is a release announcement from July 2017.

[Mike Van Pelt]

2 hours ago, eth0 said:

Really? The latest news entry in http://avahi.org/ is a release announcement from July 2017.

Really?  (checks)  Interesting.  That didn't exist back when I looked into it a couple of years ago.  At least, google didn't find it.

Avahi didn't work.  I was getting log messages complaining that Synergy was using the Apple Bonjour compatibility layer of Avahi, that's not well supported, and I should fix "my" application to use the native API of Avahi.  For more information see <http://0pointer.de/avahi-compat?s=libdns_sd&e=synergys>, which gets a 404.  My googling of "avahi" didn't find me anything helpful.  Some other pages, I think I recall, which had not been updated in ages. 

 

[Mike Van Pelt]

I think I recall when I tried going to avahi.org, it redirected me to that 0pointer.de site, which had nothing about Avahi.

[Guest Andrew Nelless]

On 12/7/2017 at 12:40 PM, JasonG said:

Also, why in the world would they use a self-signed SSL cert for a commercial product? You're saving literally dozens of dollars here. You didn't even get the name correct on your self-signed cert.  https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html#hostname=pubsub1.cloud.symless.com

 

@JasonG

I've posted an explanation of this behaviour here

 

[Guest Andrew Nelless]

On 12/17/2017 at 9:05 AM, JCY said:

Also like another poster I am disappointed that you chose to use a self-signed certificate for the pubsub1.cloud.symless.com when a developer on this very forum told me the session IP lock for authenticating your client with your account was to increase security. I mean what a joke? your auto-config system could be MITM and have random systems attached to my synergy link where they have clipboard access?

@JCYI have posted about the self-signed certificate here

With respect to clipboard access, I wish to make it clear that the connections to our cloud do *not* carry any keyboard, mouse or clipboard data between your machines.

To be frank, in our current security model, there is wiggle room for some classes of attack to be successful, but addressing these without compromising ease-of-use is non-trivial.

Right now we're keeping user data safe in most scenarios (like using Synergy berween machines on insecure WiFi, or on untrusted internet connections) and are primarily focused on improving reliability and useability. Future versions will defend against most attacks.

[Scott-]

4 minutes ago, Andrew Nelless said:

Right now we're keeping user data safe in most scenarios (like using Synergy berween machines on insecure WiFi, or on untrusted internet connections) and are primarily focused on improving reliability and useability. Future versions will defend against most attacks.

When will useability/auto-connect service be fixed?  I still can't use Synergy 2.0.4 between machines...

[Guest Andrew Nelless]

1 minute ago, Scott- said:

When will useability/auto-connect service be fixed?  I still can't use Synergy 2.0.4 between machines...

@Scott-

Our auto-config server is currently operating normally. I couldn't find any logs on the forum. Are you able to submit a tech support request at https://symless.com/contact/customer-support ?

[Scott-]

Just now, Andrew Nelless said:

@Scott-

Our auto-config server is currently operating normally. I couldn't find any logs on the forum. Are you able to submit a tech support request at https://symless.com/contact/customer-support ?

I already have an open ticket and have submitted logs.

[Himmelsfeger]

28 minutes ago, Andrew Nelless said:

@Scott-

Our auto-config server is currently operating normally. I couldn't find any logs on the forum. Are you able to submit a tech support request at https://symless.com/contact/customer-support ?

 

I tried to send a request but pressing the submit button does nothing (on macOS and win10/ Safari,Chrome and Edge).

[Guest Andrew Nelless]

17 minutes ago, Scott- said:

I already have an open ticket and have submitted logs.

I had a quick look, and I think I've identified a problem with reconnect logic here that could be causing issues. I'll look in to it and see if this can be added to v2.0.5

[Scott-]

27 minutes ago, Andrew Nelless said:

I had a quick look, and I think I've identified a problem with reconnect logic here that could be causing issues. I'll look in to it and see if this can be added to v2.0.5

So the software will be useless until a patch is released?

[JCY]

7 hours ago, Andrew Nelless said:

 

With respect to clipboard access, I wish to make it clear that the connections to our cloud do *not* carry any keyboard, mouse or clipboard data between your machines.

Thank you for clarifying, my concern here wasn't that my clipboard would be going to your servers. My concern was your cloud system would enable an attacker to get their own system added to my Synergy configuration of systems and then they could directly exfiltrate my Clipboard.

I am assuming based on your post that you linked that you're doing manual certificate verification within Synergy itself so this is a non issue. I do find it concerning though that you guys upgraded the server and forgot to reissue your own certificate. I mean that literally broke the entire application for all of us.

Why not make the cloud thing optional? Just give me a box to enter in my machine IP Addresses manually and then make it popup confirmation boxes on each machine that I manually specify to allow connections.

Honestly I don't understand why this software needs a remote server outside of my network to orchestrate anything it feels really lazy when you could use multicasting combined with a 6 digit passcode confirmation. Ya know like how everyone does these kinds of pairing things (Bluetooth, 2Factor, iPhone to iTunes remote and more).

[GeekZero]

I was seeing this for a while this morning (US-West, 8-10AM) then it resolved.  Frustrating, and I'm a paying customer.  Why not a local Redis cache or something?

[Gates]

After the replace of 3rd party signed ssl certificate, I can run the v2 without the problem connecting to the auto-config service!

But the function is simple and incomplete. Hope the birth of powerful v2.

[Gates]

I am from China, and I think the core of my problem is the cloud server blocked China region to connect before, and it allows to connect now. Not the replace of 3rd party signed ssl certificate.

[GeekZero]

aaaaaand - it's offline again.  Doing the restart directions for a Linux machine (has a lot of VMs so don't want to reboot the physical host if I can avoid it), the "systemctl restart synergy" as directed, which made the Synergy window now start saying it can't connect to the auto-config service, and retrying is useless.

Synergy 2.04-stable is not stable.  I've tried using it for the day, it's broken more often than it works, and that's a pity, because it's glorious when it does work.

[rpmucha23]

had problems with connecting to the auto config service, with websocket errors & 404s in the logs.  

1)  The support form is terrible.  There are tons of errors in the console log,  and the webpage just sits there with no indication that something is not right.

2)  Add a logout function/button to the Synergy-Config program (right-click with a contextual menu item 'log this computer out').  I could not get any of the logs from computer2 that i uploaded to appear in support form drop-down.  Synergy thought it was logged in but it whatever Identifier Key/ID that it was using was not correct (or even there?). I looked in all the files i could find in the normal directory & the AppData directory, finally combed the windows registry and found where the ID was stored, deleted it.  Ran the synergy-config again, and finally got it to ask me to login from the website, and it started working again.

[Slarty]

Why are synergyc and synergys gone? I reverted to the 2.0.0 beta and everything is back to working great that way.  Got a script that runs and everything.  It's all on my network, no need to go anywhere else.  Why would I want a cloud service for a bunch of machines sitting on the same LAN anyhow???

[Stephen_m64]

I would be ashamed as a software engineer to call this "stable"

I had this issue on two of my windows 10 computers and managed to get it to work. tested it and got it working by only doing a few things

1.  Close the Synergy window

2. Stop the background Synergy service (do this from services.msc)

3. In regedit go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software and delete the \Symless\Synergy key and all subkeys.

4. restart the synergy background service.

5. open the client, it will have a button to click to log into synergy, it will give you an error that it cannot connect. wait a moment and click again. second time its clicked it will likely open a browser window to log into synergy. after you log in the client will likely start to work..

this may be a login issue with the craptacular cloud service. i noticed after the successful login and the client working correctly a file called "synergy-user.cfg" appeared in the %programdata%\Symless\Synergy directory.

Someone else feel free to try this and see if it works for you as well.

 

[Kileticos]

On 1/7/2018 at 11:00 PM, Stephen_m64 said:

I would be ashamed as a software engineer to call this "stable"

I had this issue on two of my windows 10 computers and managed to get it to work. tested it and got it working by only doing a few things

1.  Close the Synergy window

2. Stop the background Synergy service (do this from services.msc)

3. In regedit go to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software and delete the \Symless\Synergy key and all subkeys.

4. restart the synergy background service.

5. open the client, it will have a button to click to log into synergy, it will give you an error that it cannot connect. wait a moment and click again. second time its clicked it will likely open a browser window to log into synergy. after you log in the client will likely start to work..

this may be a login issue with the craptacular cloud service. i noticed after the successful login and the client working correctly a file called "synergy-user.cfg" appeared in the %programdata%\Symless\Synergy directory.

Someone else feel free to try this and see if it works for you as well.

 

This worked for me!  So thumbs up for easy instructions and for taking Synergy 2.0 from an .exe in my download folder to an upgrade over 1.0. I fall into the demographic of difficult circumstances that 2.0 is designed to alleviate. 

[colinjmatt]

Does anyone have a solution for MacOS when this error appears? Reinstalling Synergy does not resolve this for me. It's worth mentioning that in the logs I'm getting a handshake failure and a 400 error when attempting to connect to the cloud.

Also, CLOUD??? WTF? Give us at least some way of configuring it to access config files from a local server rather than forcing us onto an always online system.

[Slarty]

Yeah, I was pretty let down when I discovered the new "stable" version did not include synergys or synergyc.  I have machines that don't connect to the internet.  I'm not about to use some fancy routing and firewall rules nor would I want to to connect to some cloud service.  Especially considering mouse and keyboard input are involved.  That's not really something I want floating around on the internet.  Synergy was getting so amazing and then this happened.  Sorry Symless, I love the previous version of your software.  Like top 3 applications I've been using for a decade.  But this is not too good.