I am having a hard time accessing my database via remote open and vpn. Actually I ‘ve never been able to find the computer serving the db at the office (a mini) as a local host. And that despite being inside the vpn and being able to mount server shares and the like. Oh, and I am on a mac.

 

Anyone have any clue on what could be happening under the hood?

 

(p.s. this isn't fms 13 specific, I 've had it with 12 server too)

Local Hosts uses the bonjour protocol to scan for hosts on the same subnet as the client.  When you have a VPN connection you have multiple network connections going so don't expect the local host mechanism to be able to find all hosts.

It may or it may not depending on the VPN setup, the network bandwidth & latency between the client and the server, ... a lot of factors here that you would not have on a normal LAN setup.