A TeamViewer Connection is Blocked After a Timeout

A TeamViewer Connection is Blocked After a Timeout: Two Solutions

How to, Troubleshooting Updated on:  

Being a free user of the TeamViewer application, sooner or later you face the limitations of the free license.

When a TeamViewer error message is telling you that your connection is blocked after a timeout and you should wait until you can create a free connection again, there are two ways to resolve the issue. The obvious one is upgrading and activating a paid TeamViewer license. The other one is changing your TeamViewer ID. Read on to learn more about each of the methods.

What is a TeamViewer license?

Today, TeamViewer lets you choose a license to meet your personal or business requirements. They offer a free license for personal use and paid options well suited for commercial organizations.

You can get the license that is right for you and change it whenever you wish. Depending on your license type the user experience will differ.

When using the free version of the software your access is regulated by the free license it comes with.

Connection timeout limitation in the free TeamViewer license

As users say, the free TeamViewer license may limit connections to remote devices in time. This results in forced disconnections and you get TeamViewer timeout messages.

In other words, while you are connected to the TeamViewer server, you may find your session automatically disconnected if the server detects your usage to be excessive or more in line with commercial use. So you might rightfully ask: how do I fix a TeamViewer session timeout?

The easiest way to deal with this is to purchase a TeamViewer license that fits your needs best. Once you activate a paid license, you will have no time limits and no error messages should interrupt your TeamViewer connections.

However, a situation may arise where you receive the timeout message but are unable to immediately purchase a commercial license. In this case, you can try resetting the TeamViewer ID.

How to change the TeamViewer ID

In order to connect using TeamViewer, you require a unique ID and password combination.

This identifier is generated automatically and assigned to your computer the first time TeamViewer connects to the server.

Simply restarting the application will not work if your connection has been blocked, it will keep timing out after 1 minute. By changing the ID, the computer will be seen as a new client by the server.

The message you get will depend on the version of TeamViewer in use.

For users of version 14, you will see a “TeamViewer trial” error alert message.

TeamViewer trial periodhas expired

For version 15 users, you will be prompted to buy a license to continue.

software must be licensed for professional work

You can not bypass this by reinstalling the software.

Change TeamViewer ID on Windows

In order to change the TeamViewer ID on Windows machines, make sure the TeamViewer application is closed. Also, stop the service either by opening services.msc from the run command, or use net stop TeamViewer in your console.

Stop TeamViewer service

Remove the TeamViewer ID from the registry by following these steps:

  1. Open regedit.exe
  2. For Windows x86 users, go to the registry key HKLM\SOFTWARE\TeamViewer\, locate REG_DWORD with the value ClientID
  3. Windows x64 users should find the
    HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\TeamViewer ; key then delete ClientID

    delete TeamViewer client ID
  4. Delete the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\TeamViewer registry key.

    delete TeamViewer registry key
  5. Enter the following command in the Windows Powershell with administrator rights.

    Get-Item "C:\Program Files" | select Name,CreationTime
  6. Download the NirCMD tool to change the creation date of your Program Files folder. Then run the Command Prompt as administrator and run the following command:

    nircmdc.exe setfilefoldertime "C:\Program Files" now now
  7. Now repeat step 5 to check if the change has taken effect.
  8. Next, use one of the special tools available to change your network card’s MAC address. Alternatively, you can follow the steps below to edit your MAC address through the registry.
  9. Use the following command in your command prompt to get the current MAC address.

    Ipconfig /all

    edit your MAC address The two values of interest are (as per above example)
        • Description (LAN card description) — Intel(R) 82574L Gigabit Network Connection;
        • Physical Address (MAC address) — 00-0C-29-9D-4D-81
  10. Now open the Registry Editor and go to the following key

    HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Class\{4d36e972-e325-11ce-bfc1-08002be10318}

    Each network component is represented by a four-digit number. Find your network card in the registry key by looking for the correct DriverDesc value.

    When you find the correct key, change the value of the REG_SZ parameter named “NetworkAdress”. You can just alter one character in the current MAC address.

    change the value of the REG_SZ parameter named NetworkAdress
  11. Download and extract VolumeIDv2.1 to change the VolumeID or unique identifier of your system partition
  12. Open the command prompt with administrator rights and check your current VolumeID by simply typing
    Vol check your current VolumeID In this example, the current volume is 5E37-ECE1. Change it to 5E37-EC11 using the following

    Cd c:\users\root\Downloads\VolumeID

    Volumeid.exe c: 5E37-EC11

    change your current VolumeID
  13. Now close the command prompt and reboot your machine. Then relaunch TeamViewer and you will be assigned a new TeamViewer ID.

Change TeamViewer ID on Linux

For Debian 9 users, follow these steps:

  1. Uninstall TeamViewer with su privileges

  2. If the /var/lib/dbus/machine-id file exists, remove it.

  3. Edit the GUID (you can just change the last character)

    mc -e id.txt

  4. Change the MAC address of your network card using the following commands:

    ifconfig eth0 down
    ifconfig eth0 hw ether New_MAC_HERE
    ifconfig eth0 up
    nano /etc/network/interfaces

  5. Correct string:

    pre-up ifconfig eth0 hw ether New_MAC_HERE

    Change the MAC address of your network card on Linux
  6. Reboot the OS

  7. Install TeamViewer again, you should now get a new ClientID

Linux Mint distro users can follow these steps:

  1. Delete TeamViewer
    sudo dpkg -r teamviewer

  2. Remove the binding file if it exists
    sudo rm /var/lib/dbus/machine-id

  3. Change the NIC’s MAC address

  4. Reinstall TeamViewer
    sudo dpkg -i teamviewer_13.2.13582_amd64.deb

  5. If you experience any error with missing packages, run the following command:
    sudo apt-get install -f

For cloned Linux machines:

  1. Stop the TeamViewer daemon
    systemctl stop teamviewerd

  2. Delete TeamViewer settings:
    rm -r ~/.teamviewer

  3. Remove folder /opt/teamviewer{TW_VERSION_Here)/config;

  4. Start the TeamViewer daemon

Change TeamViewer ID on Mac OS

Mac users can use a python script available on GitHub

  1. Download the script

  2. Close TeamViewer completely (make sure it’s not still running in processes)

  3. Run the downloaded script
    sudo ./TeamViewer-id-changer.py

  4. Reboot your device

RELATED ARTICLES

Connection timeout issue with a paid TeamViewer license

As you already know, a message about the license limit for the maximum session duration is created to show up for the users of a free TeamViewer license.

At the same time, it may happen that this error message appears in the software after the purchase of a TeamViewer corporate license.

What is the reason? As many users assume, this may be the case if the paid version of TeamViewer hasn’t been activated correctly.

Each paid version has its own activation instructions that you can find on the TeamViewer website.

Once you make sure your license is activated, the issue should be resolved. If the problem persists, it’s recommended to reach out to TeamViewer’s customer support for professional assistance.

Frequently Asked Questions