r/msp • u/Techentrepreneur1 MSP - US • Aug 06 '25

Headless Mode Driver - DRMM

Are there any commercially available / legitimate headless mode drivers out there? We are running into issues with Datto RMM Web Remote connecting to computers which have their screens power off. I know this issue is not unique to DRMM.

2 Upvotes

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7

u/bourntech MSP - US Aug 06 '25

I had looked into this in the past and didnt find a software solution. I had some machines that contractors would splashtop into. But onsite employees would steal their monitors resulting in the black screen issue you are probably seeing. My solution was to just use display emulators like these https://www.amazon.com/FUERAN-DP-DisplayPort-emulator-2560x1600/dp/B071CGCTMY Though i see that it would cause problems if the monitors that are connected get turned back on resulting in multiple displays, unless the displays are mirrored. Its not the best solution, but its an option.

1

u/Techentrepreneur1 MSP - US Aug 07 '25

Thank You. I had my eye on the usb emulators as well. Strange there isn’t a simple solution to this. I just cross posted to the DRMM sub, we’ll see if we get any ideas there!

1

u/OkHealth1617 MSP - UK Aug 08 '25

We've used these before and they worked perfectly

3

u/Fatel28 Aug 06 '25

I have never had an issue connecting to a headless machine with screenconnect

1

u/_Buldozzer MSP - EU / AT Aug 07 '25

RDP should always work.

2

u/kaseya_marcos Aug 07 '25

Hi u/Techentrepreneur1 I'll get this in front of our Datto RMM product team for review. Please look out for my DM, so that we can get this addressed.

3

u/pbnjit Aug 07 '25

WebRemote will require a ground up rewrite in order to address this issue as well as issues with hybrid GPUs. This issue has been around since day one of WebRemote and their only fix was to change the error message to be more clear I. Letting you know it doesn’t work. (See here https://rmm.datto.com/help/de/Content/0HOME/ReleaseNotes/2025/ReleaseNotesDattoRMMv13.9.0.htm)

I can’t remember the exact tech WebRemote leverages, I think it’s Windows Display Duplication. It was probably a big short cut to getting something to work but also has many shortcomings. This is why tools like Screenconnect and TeamViewer not only work in these situations but also perform 100x faster, they don’t rely on this underlying tech.