Problem(s) Encountered:

While trying to take flats, I hit one of the hand paddle button twice in quick succession. This caused an error window to pop up, as a warning to let the telescope get to the offset before hitting the hand paddle buttons again. However, that wasn't the problem. The real issue was that when I tried to dismiss the error, I couldn't. The mdm computer could register that my mouse was hovering over the dismiss button but when I tried to dismiss it, nothing would happen. I tried to look for any other errors that I might have missed but there were none. This was not a unique problem to the error window--I had managed to close the error window just by clicking the window/menu and hitting  close --None of the other buttons were responsive either. For instance, in the TCS Session log window, I tried to clear the output by hitting  clear  but it wouldn't respond. None of the buttons seemed to respond. I did contact Eric and I believe he restarted the mdm computer and had to drive up the mountain to reset the Owl windows/Jskycalc/tigervnc for MaximDL+Andor, etc. I am not so sure how it was solved exactly, but I was able to sign in roughly an hour later (thank you Eric!).

Solution:

This was a weird one.  Via VNC connection, the mouse would move as directed.  Button operations would work as far as pull-down menus went, but would not work for anything else (eg clicking OK or CANCEL, closing windows, etc).  Only choice was to reboot mdm13ws1.  Unfortunately, due to an issue with booting this machine, the user is required to strike the F1 key midway through the boot process (I don’t recall offhand what the associated “error” is).  This typically can be handled by the 2.4m observer, but there currently is no one on that telescope.  So I headed to the mountain to get the telescope back in service.  Once reboot, everything was successfully brought up and the rest of the night went smoothly.