I'm modifying a 4:1 ratio, 8.5in wide display to contain a Pi Zero 2 W and a battery pack.
I have to access it over ssh, as it's a bit awkward to connect a mouse and keyboard.
I've installed and started VNC by:
$ sudo /etc/vnc/vncservice start vncserver-x11-serviced
The display shows up as:
$ kmsprint -m
Connector 0 (33) HDMI-A-1 (connected)
0 480x1920@60.00 66.280 480/30/30/30/+ 1920/6/6/6/+ 60 (60.00) P|D
1 504x315@62.05 12.175 504/0/48/48/- 315/1/3/8/+ 62 (62.05)
2 328x205@92.02 7.828 328/0/32/32/- 205/1/3/8/+ 92 (92.02)
I want to connect from my Windows portable over VNC to the same display as is visible on the HDMI screen. The problem is that I can't connect to the system using VNC - I get an error of "Cannot currently show the desktop" (which appears to be a bitmap image sent from the Pi rather than an error generated by the VNC client. I have 6 different VNC clients on my Windows portable and all of them give the same error, so I'm fairly sure it's a server problem rather than a client problem.)
I can set up VNC to connect to any of my other pies, so I'm suspicious that the problem here is specific to the obscure HDMI mode?
Any idea what I need to do to be able to VNC to the primary desktop? The software I'll be writing to display things on the 480x1920 HDMI screen is a lot easier to write if I invoke it from that desktop on the real display rather than a virtual VNC desktop.
(It might be easier for me if it were a 1920x480 display since I'll be using it horizontally rather than vertically, but since I'll be writing the software that displays stuff I'm not too worried about it being 90 degrees off at the moment as I'll be able to correct it in the images I generate)
The display will have a couple of uses; one is a large format digital clock with a small weather display at one side; another is as a videogame marquee for the Vectrex console.
Thanks for any help re VNC.
Graham
I have to access it over ssh, as it's a bit awkward to connect a mouse and keyboard.
I've installed and started VNC by:
$ sudo /etc/vnc/vncservice start vncserver-x11-serviced
The display shows up as:
$ kmsprint -m
Connector 0 (33) HDMI-A-1 (connected)
0 480x1920@60.00 66.280 480/30/30/30/+ 1920/6/6/6/+ 60 (60.00) P|D
1 504x315@62.05 12.175 504/0/48/48/- 315/1/3/8/+ 62 (62.05)
2 328x205@92.02 7.828 328/0/32/32/- 205/1/3/8/+ 92 (92.02)
I want to connect from my Windows portable over VNC to the same display as is visible on the HDMI screen. The problem is that I can't connect to the system using VNC - I get an error of "Cannot currently show the desktop" (which appears to be a bitmap image sent from the Pi rather than an error generated by the VNC client. I have 6 different VNC clients on my Windows portable and all of them give the same error, so I'm fairly sure it's a server problem rather than a client problem.)
I can set up VNC to connect to any of my other pies, so I'm suspicious that the problem here is specific to the obscure HDMI mode?
Any idea what I need to do to be able to VNC to the primary desktop? The software I'll be writing to display things on the 480x1920 HDMI screen is a lot easier to write if I invoke it from that desktop on the real display rather than a virtual VNC desktop.
(It might be easier for me if it were a 1920x480 display since I'll be using it horizontally rather than vertically, but since I'll be writing the software that displays stuff I'm not too worried about it being 90 degrees off at the moment as I'll be able to correct it in the images I generate)
The display will have a couple of uses; one is a large format digital clock with a small weather display at one side; another is as a videogame marquee for the Vectrex console.
Thanks for any help re VNC.
Graham
Statistics: Posted by gtoal — Sun Jul 13, 2025 6:47 pm