Troubleshooting connection problems

The four situations we hear about most: the connection won't establish at all, the screen is black / clicks don't register, the session keeps dropping, and "where are the log files?". In order:

The connection won't establish

Is Remora running on both sides? The app must be open on the host machine. (If service mode is installed on the host, connections are accepted even without the app open — it can be set up from Settings.)
Check the codes: the Host ID is 10 digits, the PIN is 6; dashes and spaces don't matter. Attempts without a PIN (or with a wrong one) only connect if someone at the host approves — if nobody is there, the pending request goes nowhere. Details: connection guide.
The host may be busy: while a session is active, the host ignores new connection requests. Wait until the current session ends.
The PIN may have just rotated: if the host rotated its PIN (manually or on a schedule), the old PIN you have — or stored in a saved device — no longer matches, and you fall back to host approval. Ask for the current PIN.
Network / firewall: Remora dials out to the pairing server (signal.embedra.net) over HTTPS (443); video flows between the two machines over WebRTC (UDP). When a direct path can't be established (e.g. symmetric NAT, CGNAT), traffic automatically falls back to our encrypted TURN relay — that needs outbound access to ports 3478 (UDP/TCP) and 5349 (TLS). On a corporate network, ask IT to allow those ports; no inbound rules or port forwarding are needed.
"Can't reach the signaling server" banner: if the sharing screen shows this, the host can't reach the pairing server (internet outage, proxy, DNS). The app retries on its own every few seconds; the banner clears once it gets through.

Black screen / clicks don't register (UAC and elevated windows)

Windows restricts what an app running with normal user rights can do with elevated (administrator) windows. If Remora on the host is not running as administrator, you'll see two symptoms:

Video: UAC prompts (the dimmed consent screen) never reach the viewer at all, and elevated windows like Task Manager may not be capturable — the picture stays black or appears frozen.
Input: clicks and keystrokes sent to an elevated window silently do nothing — the cursor moves, but clicks have no effect.

Fix: run Remora as administrator on the host. The app makes this easy: the "Administrator privileges" section in Settings shows the current status and a "Restart as administrator" button does it in one click. Note that if the connection was accepted as "Accept as normal", viewer input being suspended during UAC is deliberate security behavior — full control including UAC requires the connection to be accepted with "Accept as host" and the host app running as administrator.

The session keeps dropping

On short blips the viewer retries by itself — three attempts at 1, 2 and 4 second intervals, with a "reconnecting… (1/3)" counter on screen. If all three fail, reconnect manually.
The host re-registers itself when its link to the pairing server drops or its registration times out — no need to restart the host app.
Typical causes of drops: the machine going to sleep, switching Wi-Fi networks, a VPN turning on or off. Reconnecting resolves these.
If the session stays up but the picture stutters: pick a lower profile in Settings under "Bandwidth" (Low / Medium), or use Manual to lower FPS and bitrate yourself.

Where are the logs?

Remora writes log files to %APPDATA%\Remora\logs (e.g. C:\Users\<you>\AppData\Roaming\Remora\logs). Quick access: Win+R → %APPDATA%\Remora\logs → Enter.

Files are kept per day (like remora.2026-06-12.log) and the last 7 days are retained.
Attaching the file from the day the problem occurred speeds up support enormously.

Something this page didn't solve? Write to us with the log file attached: remora-info@embedra.net