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Connectwise Control: Disable Guest Preview

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FQ-Connectwise
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Hello!

We have Connectwise Control deployed out to all of our endpoints, and on the Mac side of things, we are upgrading to macOS Sonoma. Our users have begun seeing menubar notifications stating that 'Connectwise Control is capturing your screen', despite there being no active session. This is a new macOS Sonoma functionality, and this is happening because the Connectwise Agent captures a 'Guest Preview' periodically, which prompts this notification to the end-user.

Image 1206

Many of our users work with confidential information, so them seeing such a notification is becoming concerning for them. I wanted to see what options we have to disable this 'Guest Preview' functionality, as we do not need the guest preview functionality.

Currently in the Connectwise admin settings, I only see the ability to reduce the quality of the snapshot taken, but no means to disable it altogether. The end goal here is to disable this functional entirely so that our users do not receive this notification in their menubar.

Please let me know if there's anything we can do in the meantime to prevent this notification to end-users. 

Thanks!

Robert

Replies 14
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mhansonIT

This should be high priority! My Users are upgrading to Sonoma as well, and receiving this same screen. We also do not use the guest preview and have it set to Zero, but this should be allowed to be disabled on the client. We are asking our users to disable the screen sharing privacy setting until this is resolved. If this isn't fixed soon, we may need to switch to a different remote support tool. 

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anonymous

Thanks for your report, we are investigating this issue, but so far have not been able to consistently reproduce. We had it occur on one of our Macs that had multiple agents on it, but once the agents were removed and we reinstalled new ones, the problem did not occur again.

Additionally, we tested commenting out the Guest Screenshot preview code, but since it would not reproduce on demand, we are not able to say if that is the cause or not.

It may be a Sonoma bug, but we do really need y'alls help with this one.

If you can please DM me your contact information, I will arrange a support call with our T3 team. 

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FQ-Connectwise
Quote from anonymous

Thanks for your report, we are investigating this issue, but so far have not been able to consistently reproduce. We had it occur on one of our Macs that had multiple agents on it, but once the agents were removed and we reinstalled new ones, the problem did not occur again.

Additionally, we tested commenting out the Guest Screenshot preview code, but since it would not reproduce on demand, we are not able to say if that is the cause or not.

It may be a Sonoma bug, but we do really need y'alls help with this one.

If you can please DM me your contact information, I will arrange a support call with our T3 team. 

Hey Sean,


Thanks for the response! This sounds silly lol, but I'm not sure how I can DM you to provide my contact information. If I click into your profile on this forum, I don't have an option to send a DM. Is there an email address we can sync up on instead?


Thanks!

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cmacIT

Hello, we're seeing the same prompt on our machines. Hoping to se if a fix has been found. Thank you.

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Sean White Team Member

All, so far, we have not been able to replicate this behavior internally, nor been able to definitively identify ScreenConnect as the culprit.

The Screen Recording icon that is appearing is a new feature of Sonoma and is supposed to only appear when an application is actively recording the screen (ie: a host is connected to the session for ScreenConnect). Anyone here reporting this should contact support or post here with the following information:
1- Exact Version/Build of Sonoma (Apple menu > About this Mac > Click the "Sonoma 14.0" text)

2- Is another application that uses the Sonoma Screen Recording permission running or active?

3- Does the icon, when hovered over or opened identify that ScreenConnect is the application causing the alert?

Thanks!

Sean

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mhansonIT

I had opened a support ticket on this (#01651280), the response I received yesterday was this:

---

As an update, the following has been registered at the highest priority within Development.

SCP-38425
Update Java Client to Prevent Screen Capturing When Guest Screenshot Settings are Disabled

We are working to get this solved as quickly as possible.

---

As far as I know there is only 1 released version of Sonoma as of today. (not counting Betas) Here are the details from my users computers. 

Operating System:macOS

Operating System Version:14.0.0

Operating System Build:23A344


Looks like disabling the guest preview stops it from showing in the admin panel however the client is still capturing the screenshot. 

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Sean White Team Member
Quote from mhansonIT

I had opened a support ticket on this (#01651280), the response I received yesterday was this:

---

As an update, the following has been registered at the highest priority within Development.

SCP-38425
Update Java Client to Prevent Screen Capturing When Guest Screenshot Settings are Disabled

We are working to get this solved as quickly as possible.

---

As far as I know there is only 1 released version of Sonoma as of today. (not counting Betas) Here are the details from my users computers. 

Operating System:macOS

Operating System Version:14.0.0

Operating System Build:23A344


Looks like disabling the guest preview stops it from showing in the admin panel however the client is still capturing the screenshot. 

I can confirm that is something we are working on, but it's not expected to resolve this issue, because as I have mentioned, we can't confirm with certainty that the ScreenConnect agent is the cause of the icon appearing (except of course when a host is connected)

The SCP you mentioned is more for code sanitation.

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cmacIT

Been able to confirm with three users prompts.
To answer questions above:

1. 14.0 (23A344) - Same for all three users
2. Confirmed no other software actively using screen recording permissions.

3. In all cases when users however over the icon indicating a screen capture is ongoing by connectwisecontrol-xxxxxxxxxxxxx is capturing your screen. In each case the xxxxxxxxx is the same mix of characters and numbers. 

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FQ-Connectwise
Quote from Sean White

All, so far, we have not been able to replicate this behavior internally, nor been able to definitively identify ScreenConnect as the culprit.

The Screen Recording icon that is appearing is a new feature of Sonoma and is supposed to only appear when an application is actively recording the screen (ie: a host is connected to the session for ScreenConnect). Anyone here reporting this should contact support or post here with the following information:
1- Exact Version/Build of Sonoma (Apple menu > About this Mac > Click the "Sonoma 14.0" text)

2- Is another application that uses the Sonoma Screen Recording permission running or active?

3- Does the icon, when hovered over or opened identify that ScreenConnect is the application causing the alert?

Thanks!

Sean

1. We are on Sonoma 14.0; I believe this is the only version available at this time

2. No; the notification clearly states only Connectwise is using the permission

3. Yes, Please see the screenshot attached to the original post. 


It's worth noting that this Screen Recording notification/icon is NOT persistent; it only shows up for a couple of seconds at a time, maybe a few times per day. This may make it hard to catch/troubleshoot on your end, however it's what is happening on our systems, and there's no doubt that it's Connectwise accessing this permission. My gut is that it's the Guest Preview that's capturing the screen, which would make sense it's only showing the notification for a few seconds.

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Johnny Lam

Hi, 
Is there any update on this? 
1. 5~7 MacOS, non Sonama, got the pop up.
2. Confirm no software using screen recording permission.
3. Yes, when hover over, ScreenConnect is named in the message. 



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