I wanted to connect to my phone today, too, and it didn’t work. Stumbled upon your post. I don’t know if it ever worked.
BTW: I’m running windows. I can start the server, SSH into the device for tunneling and when I try to connect via RealVNC Viewer it says “connecting” forever. When I close ssh RealVNC Viewer gives an error message immediately so at least I know that the port was open.
Any ideas?