Troubleshooting the background service in Synergy 3

What is the background service?

The background service is a special process (synergy-service) in Synergy 3 that runs the auto-discovery, config-sync, and many other functions. It communicates over your LAN (local area network) between all computers which Synergy 3 is installed on.

Complete reinstall

The most reliable way to fix most issues related to the background service in Synergy 3 is to follow the guide: How to reinstall Synergy

It is very important that you follow the instructions carefully; especially the uninstall instructions for deleting config files, and also the order in which you should uninstall, reboot, then install. Rebooting after uninstalling, as well as deleting the config files on disk seems to solve most problems.

If that doesn't solve the problem, please continue reading.

Ongoing known issue

Because this is a totally new part of Synergy, there can sometimes be bugs that prevent it from starting. We appreciate the patience of our customers while we work hard to resolve these bugs.

It would help us greatly to resolve issues with the background service if you send us the .zip diagnostic report files. This gives us vital information about what's going wrong, which will help us to fix the problem.

There is currently a known ongoing issue in Synergy 3 where you'll see a background service error when starting the app. Our developers are working hard on fixing this problem, but in the meantime, here's a few things you can try.

macOS security settings

If you're using a Mac, there could be a problem with the Security & Privacy Accessibility settings. Sometimes this fails silently and provides no information about an error.

We have a help article that provides steps to resolving this: 
How to fix the macOS Security & Privacy Accessibility settings

Run the reinstall commands

The synergy-service process comes with a built-in way of reinstalling itself. This will potentially remove any invalid files, and recreate the required files that it needs to function properly.

Windows

Start the Command Prompt app (run as Administrator) and run the following:

C:\Program Files\Synergy\synergy-service -u

C:\Program Files\Synergy\synergy-service -i

macOS

Start the Terminal app and run the following:

sudo /Applications/Synergy.app/Contents/MacOS/synergy-service -u

sudo /Applications/Synergy.app/Contents/MacOS/synergy-service -i

Linux

Start the Terminal app and run the following:

sudo /opt/Synergy/synergy-service -u

sudo /opt/Synergy/synergy-service -i

Note: The installation path may vary depending on your flavor of Linux. In some cases if the synergy-service is running under the user session, exclude sudo from the above commands