Dimdim Troubleshooting Guide - Windows

You get an error which says Unable to connect to server

This usually points to a network issue. Dimdim Screencaster attempts to detect your network settings from Internet Explorer and use them to connect to the Screen-share Streaming Server.
However, you might be under an authenticated proxy which would need your credentials to be supplied to the Dimdim Screencaster Application.

If you are under a proxy,
- Start sharing. This must have failed for you, so you probably have already completed this step.
- In the taskbar, look for the Dimdim icon (bubbles, in gray color).
- Right click on the icon and select 'Settings'. Alternately, you can double click the tray icon.
- You should see some pre-filled entries in that dialog, if you have proxy settings.
- Enter your Username and Password, leaving the Domain field empty.
- Apply your changes and trying sharing your desktop again.
- If this fails, enter your Domain name (if any) and try steps 1.e and 1.f above again.
- If you are still face the same issue, please contact support@dimdim.com with your logs. Method for collecting logs is mentioned in the 'How to collect Logs' section.
If you are not under a proxy, please contact support@dimdim.com

Quality of share is not good

Dimdim v5.0 had a rewrite of our screen-sharing feature which would provide the best performance and quality. However if you feel that the quality of share is not good, please follow the steps below -

Dimdim v5.0 features a viewer which allows you to resize or zoom-in/zoom-out or use your full-screen to view a shared desktop.
The default setting of the desktop viewer on an attendee's console is 'Fit to screen'.
This means that the viewer attempts to show the complete desktop screen within the window of the viewer.
- Try clicking on the 'Actual Size' button on the toolbar of the viewer.
- Alternately, you can try to use the 'Zoom-In' or 'Zoom-Out' or the 'Full Screen' buttons.
When you share your desktop as a presenter, if you see the following message - "Administrative privileges are required to install the screen-caster driver. You can still use Dimdim to share your computer screen but with reduced speed and clarity." - It indicates that the Mirage Driver is missing from your machine. Details about this have been mentioned in the next section.

Driver related issues

Dimdim Screencaster utilizes the Mirage Driver to improve the quality, performance and responsiveness of your screen-share. Mirage Driver installation is a one-time operation through out the life-time of your Operating System. This means that unless you rebuild your computer or would like to use Dimdim on a new computer, you do not need to worry about Mirage Driver installation again. The driver installation requires Administrator privileges. Windows mandates that only an account with Administrator privileges can install a driver. When you start sharing your desktop, the Dimdim Screencaster plug-in verifies if a driver installation is already available. If it is not, it would launch the installation before sharing starts. If for any reason the driver installation is not available even after this, you would see a balloon tip on the Dimdim Screencaster tray icon which says the following - "Administrative privileges are required to install the screen-caster driver. You can still use Dimdim to share your computer screen but with reduced speed and clarity." You have 3 options here -

Try and gain access to an Administrator account temporarily and request support@dimdim.com for a direct link to download the driver. You can then install it and then get back to your own account to start sharing your desktop.
You can also log on to an Administrator account and follow the steps below -
- Click on the Start Button / Orb and choose Run
- Type '%PROGRAMFILES%\Dimdim' (without the quotes) and press Enter.
- Navigate to the Publisher folder. Here you would see either a folder named IE or FF or both, depending on the browser from which you have installed Dimdim Screencaster Plug-In. Navigate to that folder.
- You will find a folder named DFMirage with two scripts – install.cmd and uninstall.cmd
- If you do not find these scripts, it means that the version of Dimdim Screencaster you have is not v5.0. Please upgrade to v5.0.
- Double-click on install.cmd. In case of Vista, you would be presented with a UAC dialog which requests you to 'continue' or 'cancel'. Choose 'continue'. Wait till your screen blinks. It could take a few seconds.
- Once the screen blinks, the driver has been installed. You can now use your original account to share your desktop.

How to collect your logs

Close your meeting.
Click on Start button or orb and select ‘Run’.
Type '%APPDATA%\Dimdim' (without the quotes) and press Enter.
Zip all the files in this folder and send them to support@dimdim.com

You would like to share an application which is hardware-accelerated (OpenGL or DirectX based applications like Blender, etc.)

Click on Start button or orb and select 'Run'
Type '%APPDATA%\Dimdim' (without the quotes) and press Enter.
Open the file DesktopShare.cfg in a text editor (e.g. Notepad, Wordpad etc.)
Modify the entry which says 'UseDriver=1' (without the quotes) to 'UseDriver=0' (without the quotes.)
If you have the Dimdim Screencaster Plug-in tray icon in your task bar, right click on it and select 'close'. You can also choose to close and restart your meeting.
Start sharing your desktop again.