View can not connect to agent with PCoIP

[kmk12]

We can connect to VM's with RDP, but PCoIP does not work. The client starts to connect to the agent, the screen left black and then the client exits

The firewall should not be the issue, client and agent can communicate due to the logs and wireshark.

Any idea is welcome here.

Our setup:

ESX 4.1

VCENTER 4.1

VManager 4.0.1 (up to date)

VIEW 4.0.1 (up to date)

[jgruenke]

Unless I am missing something here, I don't think I have seen a compatibility matrix that states that View 4.0.x is compatible with vSphere 4.1. This is especially true if you are using View Composer because it is not compatible with a 64-bit OS, which is a requirement for vCenter. The only View product that is compatible with vSphere 4.1 is version 4.5.

If you want to run View 4.0.1, you are limited to vSphere 4.0 U1, or U2, but it looks like you have to make sure that the agent is upgraded to the latest release to use PCoIP.

I would definately try to keep all of your components in a compatible family and see if that resolves the issues you are seeing.

[steverding]

This seems to be a missunderstanding :

I have used VSphere 4.0 before in combination with View 4.1. It worked after applying the patch mentioned above.

Now i updated Vsphere to 4.1 (including Vcenter) and View to 4.5 and the bug is there again.

[Linjo]

In what order did you install the VMware Tools and the View Agent? Tools should come first...

What is the version of the video-driver?

Best regards,

Linjo

If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".

[steverding]

I installed the tools first and the agent after that. I just found out something new:

Everything works fine with an Windows 7 64 bit client, but it does not work with a Windows XP 32 bit client.

[DaIceMan]

We had the blank screen problem after upgrading to ESX 4.1 and VIEW 4.5 on XP machines: reinstalling, again, the tools after the agent fixed it - possibly due to video driver issue. Windows 7 32bit VMs that were working fine through PCoIP before though are now presenting the same blank screen problem and the agent re-install or tools reinstall has no effect. Could also be due to some registry setting not being reset. Will try to clean up manually and reinstall on a test machine.

[steverding]

I can definitly say now, that the problem exists with Windows XP Clients and does not exist with Windows 7 Clients.

Our pool machines are XP's and we can connect to them via RDP and PCoIP from WIN7 Clients and only via RDP from XP clients with PCoIP showing the "black-screen-disconnect" issues.

[DaIceMan]

That's curious, as we can connect fine to our XP VMs from XP clients like the one I'm using now. However, we have the issue with W7 32bit VMs and the same XP clients, so it seems the other way around. I'll be running a few tests in these next hours so I'll report back my results.

[CareFusionServe]

And this is 4.5?

[steverding]

Yeah, all view components are 4.5 and alle vsphere components 4.1

[CareFusionServe]

Disappointing....we are looking to upgrade but need a protocol like pcoip to be solid for our wan users in quebec...right now they are on rdp and not happy when they have to rdp again from inside the vm

[DDunaway]

One question I would ask everyone is, in what fashion did you update your templates?

Did you uninstall the 4.0.x agent then install the 4.5, or did you just install the 4.5 right on top of it?

Did you remove VMware tools and reinstall it before or after you updated the agent?

I have been using the same templates since the VDM 2.5 days and each time an update was released I would run into issues like these. When I would call VMware I would get asked these same questions.

Ultimately I would end up building a new template just to be sure I did not have any remnants of old agents on my templates.

For those of you that are still having issues, have you tried a fresh template?

I have not yet updated my environment to 4.5. I will report any issues or tips I come across when I do so.

David

[DaIceMan]

In my case, I updated the agent then the tools. The XP VMs needed to have the tools reinstalled if I did it the other way around. I just tried a fresh Windows 7 64bit machine but still no luck connecting over PCoIP from an XP or W7 client. I'll keep digging.

[nnmansoori]

I have vSphere 4.1, View 4.5, and both RDP and PCoIP, working fine with both Windows 7 and XP.

[DaIceMan]

An update on my tests: everything works after following these steps:

Windows 7 32/64 VMs: install VM Tools first then VIEW 4.5 agent. Doing it the other way around results in black screen issue and disconnect. Repairing the VIEW agent (if installed after VM tools) also resolves the problem.

Windows XP 32 VMs: install VIEW 4.5 agent THEN tools. Doing it the other way around results in black screen issue and disconnect. Repairing/reinstalling the vm tools resolves the problem.

As a side note, uninstalling VM Tools will allow you to test the VM and see if you bypass the blank screen issue on windows 7.

Tested from XP 32 and Windows 7 64 bit clients.

More things to double check:

- be sure your VM is Hardware version 7 (the VMware VGA driver uses an interrupt which hardware version 4 does not consider)

- Check firewall(s) and if in doubt disable completely for testing

Have fun

[steverding]

Hm, sadly i can't reproduce this success. I installed as advised in DaIceMan's post and nothing changed for me. Still black screen and no connection via PCoIP from XP-32 client to XP-32 VM.

[DaIceMan]

What you report is rather awkward - you can connect from W7 clients but not from XP. Theoretically you should have the same behaviour if it were a VM side (VGA driver or some other issue on the VM) issue, but you don't. If you connect to the VM through the console and then connect from an XP client, do you see the logon session commence and the screen go blank on the console? If you enter from the console and set a low resolution (800 x 600) and logoff, when you attempt to connect from the client do you see it resize? It seems to me that the VM side is working (as it works connecting from windows 7 clients as you reported) but something is blocking the connection with your XP clients, maybe some GPO or firewall - please make sure that there is traffic between XP client and VM.

If when you attempt to connect from your XP client to your VM, you don't see any screen resize or activity from the console then the XP client is simply not reaching the VM so there must be something blocking PCoIP traffic (TCP/UDP port 50002) or something you have on the client XP machine is interfereing, I cannot think of anything else. Let me know what happens.

[crmstevew]

Is the session still starting on the vDesktop VM after the black screen? This says the session actually starts it just cannot be rendered at the client.

Also, I think I was told that VMware changed its default port number for PCoIP to UDP 4172 (View 4.5), so there should not be any screen opening if it is a port block issue.

[DaIceMan]

Yes, Steve is absolutely right, I forgot (again): Teradici registered port 4172 with IANA, 50002 is no longer used (but keeps popping up in my mind...)

[steverding]

Shame on me : It looks like i had a broken client. I used a fresh deployed XP-32 notebook with a new 4.5 view Client and now it works.

Thanks for all the help