Citrix: Background screen does not exit

 

Description of the Issue:

Background screen does not exit even after graceful logoff from published application. Application is published on Xenapp 6.5 on Windows 2008 R2 server as an "application" type. When the user closes the application the background window does not get closed.

When we see the session in Citrix console the session seems to be logged off.

The application is accessed through Web Interface where the application is configured to open in a fixed Window mode of 1024x768.
In seamless mode it works fine. There is no background window appearance.

 Root Cause:

 When the application is gracefully exited, some windows OS process is not able exit and hence the background window is taking a long time to close.

Solution:

 Caution! Refer to the Disclaimer at the end of this article before using Registry Editor

This registry change allows you to set the length of time a client session waits before disconnecting the session. 

Note: Setting this value also increases the time it takes for a user to log off the server.

 Create the following registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Citrix\wfshell\TWI

Value Name: LogoffCheckerStartupDelayInSeconds
Type: REG_DWORD

 Value: An integer that denotes the time to wait for the application to start (10 Hexadecimal recommended)

It is more useful as a troubleshooting step to confirm that the issue is due to the length of time required for your application to launch.

http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX128009 

Disclaimer: 

Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that might require you to reinstall your operating system. Use Registry Editor at your own risk. Be sure to back up the registry before you edit it.

Users Facing Blue screen on Citrix PS 4.x for Published desktops

Problem Description:

Users not able to login to Published Desktop Applications and they see just a Blue screen.
However RDP login works fine. The problem appeared on Citrix PS 4.x platform in windows 2003 servers.

Root Cause:
 This issue has appeared after the server has been updated with two patches from Microsoft KB2922229 and KB2936068

Solution:
1.  Uninstall both the patches and reboot the server. You need to also block these patches on your automatic patch system like WSUS otherwise these will get instllaed in next patching cycle again.
2. Change Farm Level Settings

For PS 4.0:
In Management Console, right-click the farm name and hit Properties.  Open the MetaFrame Setting section and uncheck "Use Client's local time"

 FOr PS 4.5

In Access Management Console, right-click the farm name and hit Modify farm properties>Modify all properties.  Open the Farm-wide>Presentation Server>General section and uncheck "Use Client's local time

Citrix Server not accepting connections.

Description of the Problem: One server in the Citrix farm, suddenly stops accepting new ICA connections and RDP Connections.

Symptoms:

1) No new Citrix connections.

2) No new RDP connections.

3) Resource utilization on the server is normal.

4) Event ID 50 is observed in the event viewer with following error message

    Source: TermDD with the following error message:

"The RDP protocol component WD detected an error in the protocol stream and has disconnected the client."

5) Rebooting the server resolves the issue.

Cause:

1) Possibility is that the TS encryption certificate is out of sync or invalid.

2) Another possibility is that Rdpwd.sys (RDP WinStation driver) has crashed or got corrupted.

3) RDP TCP listener which represents the RDP-TCP protocol is down.

 

Solution:

Although the problem may resolve by restarting the server but you may try the following solution if you don’t want to restart sever.

 Without restarting the server.

A) Resetting the RDP-TCP and ICA-TCP listener.

1) Take the console session of the server (through RSA/ILO management card or through VCMS if it is a virtual server)

2) Login to the server with admin credentials.

3) I received this suggestion from Microsoft:

4) Launch TSCC.MSC and disable the RDP-TCP listener. (Right click on RDP-TCPà All Tasksà Disable)

5) Enable the RDP listener again.

6) Similarly do with ICA-TCP listener.

 

You may alternatively try the below two steps to recover from the situation. (Server restart needed)

B)  Deleting Registry settings

1.        Start Registry Editor.

2.        Locate and then click the following registry subkey:

“HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\TermService\Parameters”

 3.        Under this registry sub key, delete the following values:

 

*        Certificate

*        X509 Certificate

*        X509 Certificate ID

4.        Quit Registry Editor, and then restart the server.

 

C) Delete the RDP-TCP Listener.

1. Launch TSCC.MSC and delete the RDP-tcp listener.

2. Reboot.

3. Recreate the RDP-TCP listener. (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc771694.aspx)

RDP Connection Drops after Sp1 Installation on Win2k8 R2 server

Issue: After installing Service Pack 1 of Windows 2008 R2, RDP connection is dropped after accepting username/pwd. Event viewer logs event id 7031 this "remote desktop services service terminated unexpectedly".

Solutions:

1)    Log on to the server console, download and install the following hotfixes.

Security Update for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Edition (KB2667402)

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29169

Security Update for Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 Edition (KB2621440)

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=29116

Restart your server. In some cases simply installing KB2667402 solves it whereas in other both patch needs to be installed. Reapplying above hotfixes even if they have been reported as installed, fixes the issue.

2)    This problem appears to be directly related to the fact that SP1 is installed via a RDP session.

Replace rdpcorekmts.dll and rdpcode.dll with one copied from a working SP1 installation.

3)    Uninstall Sp1 and install it again through RDP console session.

Performance Issues on Windows Server 2003

Symptoms    : Windows 2003 Server is frequently hanging and is dead slow when while you work on it. Also the following event is appearing repeatedly on it.

Event Type        : Error

Event Source    : DCOM
Event Category: None
Event ID             : 10010
Description       : The server {BA126AD1-2166-11D1-B1D0-00805FC1270E} did not register with

                              DCOM within the required timeout.

Solution     It appears as some MS patch might have changed the permissions on the following

                     registry key.
                     In order to resolve the problem, kindly verify the permissions and add the following
                     permissions if they are not aligned.

                        Registry Key: HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID (and all child keys and values)

                   

                       

                          Permissions Added:  Authenticated users      : Read access 
                                                               Network Service             : Full control

Warning: The Windows registry is a mysterious place but if you're not comfortable editing it,
make sure to make a backup of your registry before you start tweaking.

Annoying Citrix Program Neighborhood (PNA) agent PopUp

Problem Description: Whenever a user is logs in to Citrix, the below popup appears asking “What is the address of the server hosting your published resources?”

Solution: I propose two solutions

1) Delete the shortcut of the Citrix Program Neighborhood Agent from the Startup of the Workstation to get rid of this POPUP.

 Go to Start--> All Progs--> Startup-->Citrix XenApp --> Right Click and Delete

This will stop this annoying Popup but can be configured later if needed.

2) Create a PNA website along with the web interface. The default site name will be like as mentioned below. Configure this Url when the popup appears again

http://servername/Citrix/PNAgent/config.xml

You will get a new Pop up for the password prompt with user name and then you can see the application of this farm in your system tray on the right hand side bottom of your workstation. The Pop up will not appear again and you can login to the applications directly from the system tray rather than using the Web interface.

Problem in Trust Creation with Domain Controller on VM

Problem description: When you try to establish a trust from a domain controller running inside a VMware virtual machine, the trust is not established and is followed by the below error.

"The local security authority is unable to obtain an RPC connection to the Domain controller"

As per Microsoft it can be a DNS issue or RPC problem.

Resolution:  The origin of the problem is a component in a VMware Tools i.e. Shared Folders. The purpose of this component is to be able to share files between a management workstation and the virtual machine.

 Here is the resolution.

A)    Uninstall the Shared Folders component in your virtual machine (DC).

àGo to Add/Remove Programs à VMware Tools à click "change" à next à deselect "Shared Folders".

B)    Reboot the machine.

C)    Establish the trust.

Mapped Network Drive: An unexpected network error has occurred.

After applying a security hardening policy through a GPO on the servers in our environment we were
not able to access the mapped network drive on CIFS filer.
I was able to map the drive  but when I try to access the mapped drive I get an error "An unexpected network error occurred".


Resolution: Some GPO settings were blocking this as the Netapp filer was supporting only NTLM
protocol authentication.
The policies should be set as below.
1) Network Client Digital sign Network communication always : Disabled
2) Lan Manager Authentication Level: Send NTLM response only
3) Minimum session security for NTLM session based (including secure RPC) Clients : No minimum
4) Minimum session security for NTLM session based (including secure RPC) Server : No minimum

Multi Monitor Configuration Settings in Citrix Xenapp 4.5

In one of our Citrix Farms, Users were facing an issue with a Particular Published Application where they want to work on Multi Monitors and this application was behaving erratically  with Dual Monitors.

That’s when I resolved the issue with the below settings in our environment with reference to a particular Citrix Document CTX115637.

1)   Open Farm server Properties and set the display settings as per the screenshot below.

è Deselect “ Use Farm Setings”

è Set Max memory usage to 8192 KB (max which you can set)

è Degardation the colour depth first

è Deselect the notify user option

       2)  Adjust Window’s SessionPoolSize parameter as needed to accommodate increased LVB

           memory requirements. SessionPoolSize parameter is held in a DWORD value named

           SessionPoolSize in the system registry.

            HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management

            It is expressed in MB. Default SessionPoolSize for x86 systems is either 16MB or 32MB

           depending upon how much memory your system is configured with. Default SessionPoolSize

           for x64 systems is 64MB 

3)      Calculating the DWORD DefaultHooks Value

è To change the behavior from the default, choose the hooks you want enabled and add them together, remember to use decimal mode when entering the value in the registry, or first convert to HEX.

è Setting a value of zero is the same as disabling MMHook

è For our case this value comes to 40959.

For more information and kindly refer http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX115637