Situation:
When you connect to a host computer, you see a black screen with a blinking cursor, a black screen with random ASCII characters, or a toolbar with no host desktop icons.

Solution:
Sometimes, deleting temporary files and restarting the computer solves this problem, so this is the first thing to try. If that does not solve the problem, find the section below that describes the symptoms and follow the instructions. Click an icon to either expand ( ) or collapse ( ) each section. (If you cannot expand a section, then read the document Cannot expand or collapse a solution in a Symantec Knowledge Base document.)

Delete temporary files and restart the computer


Black screens are caused by two general categories of problems: connection problems and video driver problems. If you have tried deleting temporary files and that did not solve the problem, find the section below that describes the symptom, and follow the instructions:

Black screen with pcAnywhere toolbar

Black screen with blinking cursor


Black screen with ASCII characters
The items listed above (except for video) can also cause a black screen with random ASCII (garbage) characters. In addition, caller ID functionality can also cause the black screen with ASCII characters.

Many new modems are voice-capable and many of these are designed to handle caller ID information. If you have such a modem at the host and the host is set to answer on the first or second ring, the incoming caller ID information will disrupt the information flow between the modems and appear as random strings of ASCII characters on the black screen.

Check the documentation for your modem to determine whether it handles caller ID information.
To check the "Ring number to answer on" setting in pcAnywhere, follow these steps:

pcANYWHERE32 7.5, 8.x, 9.x and 10.x

1. From the main pcAnywhere screen, click File or Tools, and then click Application Options.
2. On the Host Operation tab or the Host Communication tab, make sure that the "Ring Number to Answer On" is set to 3.
   pcANYWHERE32 8.02, pcAnywhere 9.x, and pcAnywhere 10.x set the ring number to 3 by default.
3. Click Apply, and then click OK.

Document ID: 199753082441
Last Modified: 01/05/2007
Date Created: 05/30/1997
Operating System(s): Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP, Windows NT3.51
Product(s): pcAnywhere 10.0, pcAnywhere 10.5, pcAnywhere 9.0