The TightVNC 1.3.10 Viewer stops working correctly, on slow connections. The effect happens from time to time when the full screen refresh is necesary. For an instance the system shut down procedure causes the full screen to change, or some sort of full screen application changing the whole screen contents. The probability of the Viewer lock effect increases with the connection getting worse. The task manager does report the TightVNC viever as not responding, in such a case.
I have been observing the problem with both TightVNC server 1.3.10 and Real VNC server mostly on Windows 98 systems.