topic Re: fusion 360 headless pc with VNC in Fusion Support Forum

fusion 360 headless pc with VNC

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 22:21:08 GMT

I recently tried to run Fusion 360 on a PC that had no monitors connected to it just VNC server(aka headless mode) I was still able to use the desktop normally this way but trying to run Fusion 360 like this it would not fully launched. The startup image would stay up and not disappear, but the rest of UI would show up and was somewhat usable. I could not see what I was doing I could tell buttons could be pressed or start a sketch but the startup logo would always be in the way. My project menu will not load any of my projects the only way I could solve it was plug in a VGA to HDMI adapter without anything connected to it, to it trick the computer into thinking that there was a monitor plugged in and then Rebooted after the reboot Fusion 360 started normally. I think this is just a small bug but it would be nice if it was fixed.

This is repeatable I have removed the adapter again to see if they would do it again and it does. let me now if you need log files.

Re: fusion 360 headless pc with VNC

ahreum.ryu — Sat, 24 Mar 2018 22:04:46 GMT

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for reporting this issue!

I think the data panel is related to a graphics card. I received a couple of issues and here is our article.

The entire Data Panel space is shown in black

Data Panel does not function in Fusion 360

Are you using an HP laptop and having dual graphics cards? If you confirm that, I will update our article with your solution.

Thank you for sharing your solution.

Many thanks,
Ahreum.

Re: fusion 360 headless pc with VNC

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 22:09:29 GMT

Hi Ahreum Ryu

Thank you for getting back to me so soon. 🙂
You made be right on a GPU side of things to a point.
I still think it may be part of a bug that could be fixed and I may need to put a post over on nvidia's forms seeing if they know anything about this, but until I get an answer from them let me dive deeper into my computer specs, as you seem to think I'm running an HP computer even though I am not.
It's a semi custom computer that I have put together just for running Windows.
I primary run Linux on my main desktop Ubuntu 16.04. I setup the Windows computer to run headless where I could just remote in using VNC server that way I'm not having to change mouse and keyboard over, it just simplifies my workflow.
The Windows computer is an i5 650 intel CPU running 12gb of ram with a GTX 650 TI for a GPU on a Samsung 250GB SSD and normally I would run it without any monitors connected to it. The software I'm running on the Windows computer is called Tight VNC it works similarly to Windows remote desktop protocol but allows you to use your GPU for graphics unlike Windows remote desktop.

When running Windows in a headless mode like this with no monitors connected to the GPU at all with the VNC installed. The computer still boots normally like you would if you have a monitor connected. So you can still set your refresh rate and your resolution of the Desktop like if you did have a monitors and stuff like that and Nvidia control panel still comes up. It basically just act like you had as a virtual monitor.

The adapter I was using to get Fusion 360 to working in this setup, was basically what is an VGA to HDMI adapter and it's job normally is two convert an VGA signal coming from the computer to an HDMI compatible signal. I am using that adapter to trick the computer into thinking that there is a monitor plugged when there is no monitor plugged in.

I think where the bug lies is where when Fusion launches on a computer that is in headless mode, it can't find the monitor information it needs but with a fake monitor( aka the VGA to HDMI adapter ) plugged in to the GPU and can get some information on what it needs to load up for resolution and spec-wise for the monitor