Slow connection and lag

If a remote session is slow, stutters or lags: the connection quality indicator, quality and view settings, relay servers and network checks.

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Symptom

In a remote session, the mouse and keyboard respond late, the picture stutters, becomes blurry or moves frame by frame.

Check the connection quality

On the session toolbar in the operator app, next to the remote device's name, there is a four-bar connection quality indicator. Hover over it to see the quality (good, fair or poor) and the latency in milliseconds. Green bars mean low network latency; orange or red bars mean high latency.

Likely causes

  • Network speed and latency: if either side's internet connection is slow, busy or unstable (e.g. weak Wi-Fi, mobile data), the session slows down too.
  • Relay server in use: Polpo Desk connects the two devices directly (peer-to-peer) whenever possible. If a firewall or the network layout doesn't allow a direct connection, the traffic passes through a relay (TURN) server, which can add latency.
  • High quality and resolution: High quality or the Original size (1:1) view need more bandwidth, especially on high-resolution (e.g. 4K) screens.
  • Load on the remote computer: if the remote computer's processor is fully loaded, screen encoding slows down as well.
  • Other traffic at the same time: several open sessions, a large file transfer in progress, or another heavy download on the network.

How to fix it

  1. Lower the quality. Click the View and quality button (slider icon) on the session toolbar and choose Fast · low latency under Quality. In fast mode the picture is a little less sharp, but movement is smoother. On a good network, Balanced usually gives the best result.
  2. Switch the view to "Fit". In the same menu, choose Fit. In this mode, the remote screen is sent at the size shown in your window; Original size (1:1) sends the full resolution and uses more bandwidth.
  3. Set the default quality. If you often work over slow networks, save Fast as the Default quality in the operator app's Settings; new sessions open with this setting.
  4. Check the load on the remote computer. Turn on Show resource usage (CPU / RAM) in the View and quality menu. If the remote processor is constantly very high, ask the other side to close heavy programs.
  5. Close unneeded sessions and transfers. Close session tabs you aren't using; if a large file transfer is running, wait for it to finish.
  6. Improve the network. If possible, use a wired connection on both sides or move closer to the wireless router. Temporarily pause large downloads on the network (e.g. updates).
  7. Allow direct connections. If you constantly see high latency on a corporate network, ask your network administrator to check whether outgoing remote desktop traffic (WebRTC, UDP) is blocked. When a direct connection can't be made, the traffic is routed through a relay server.
When you're connected to a computer with several monitors, the operator sees one monitor at a time. Choosing a lower-resolution screen in the monitor selector reduces bandwidth. See Working with multiple monitors for details.
Session content is always end-to-end encrypted (WebRTC DTLS-SRTP). Even when the traffic passes through a relay server, the server cannot read the content.

When to contact support

If the connection quality indicator constantly shows poor and the steps above don't help, contact us. Include the latency value shown by the indicator, the network type on both sides (wired, Wi-Fi, mobile) and the times when the problem occurs. To open a support request, see Creating and tracking a support request; for all session options, see Session settings.

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