---
id: known-bugs/vnc-mirror-can-orphan-duplicate-x11vnc-across
title: "VNC mirror can orphan/duplicate x11vnc across sidecar restarts"
theme: known-bugs
status: done
created: 2026-08-01
date_source: stated
order: 3
---

**VNC mirror can orphan/duplicate x11vnc across sidecar restarts.** FIXED 2026-08-01 in the
Xvnc rewrite. The diagnosis was right and survived the move off mirroring: the running desktop is
tracked in module-level state, so a sidecar restart forgot it while the server kept running
orphaned, and `waitForPort` treated ANY listener on 5900 as success — so the next start reported
success while the browser talked to the stale process. Now `reclaimPort` frees 5900 (TERM, then
KILL after 2s) before spawning, and `waitForPort` also fails if the process we spawned has
exited, so a listener that is not ours can no longer be mistaken for a healthy start.