Slow Profile Creation and Logon Time with App Volumes 2.10 and Windows 10

[arosasoto]

My environment is vSphere 6.0 update 1, Horizon View 6.2, App Volumes 2.10, UEM 8.7 and Windows 10 x64 VDI. I am experiencing really slow first time profile creation and slow logon times when app stacks are attached. If I remove all app stacks logon times are normal. By slow I mean 5 minutes for initial profile creation and over 60 seconds logon time after subsequent logons. By normal I mean less than 30 seconds logon times and initial profile creation when no app stacks are attached.

[tdm666]

Hi,

We have the exact same setup and are experiencing similar behavior. Very long logon times with AppStacks, sub 20 seconds without any AppStacks.

[sappomannoz]

Hello,

with ESXi6U2 there should be a fix to cut down login times when appstacks are attached. No idea when this will be released.

[Ray_handels]

Not quite sure if this is the same issue as we are having sappomannoz.

The patch only resolves the issue that reconfigure of the machine takes up to 3 seconds to add 1 disk when the machine is turned on (so adding 6 appstacks takes up to 20 seconds to reconfigire the machine).

When you have a more than 3 minutes delay my guess is the infamous timeout occurs.

I would try and add the following key.

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurentControlSet\services\svservice\Parameters\VolWaitTimeout=X (which is a DWORD value and X is the time it will wait for appstacks to be attached, i would suggest starting with 5).

You could check and see if this is indeed the issue. If you look at the Appvolumes log file on the machine you would most likely see a gap of 180 seconds were the logging says it is waiting for all volumes to be attached although they are all attached apparently. I've set it top 1 now but it could be that applications wont function if it is set to low.

I also heard that U2 would indeed fix this issue as we have gotten the patch for ESX version 6 without an update. No idea when this will be released but for people using Horizon View 6.1 please be aware that upgrading to either U1 or U2 means you will need to also upgrade to View 6.2.

[sappomannoz]

hello arosasoto,

are you using persona management or writable volumes for your user profiles?

[Jason_Marshall]

Are you using a Writable volume or persistent desktop, or?

How many Appstacks?

There is a know issue with ESX6 and reconfigure times for VM's so that will likely explain the longer times on subsequent logins.

[arosasoto]

I would  try this registry settings in my environment and post the results.

[arosasoto]

At first I wasn't using either persona management of writable volumes. I then introduced writable volumes to the mix to see if it would speed things up but the results were the same.

[arosasoto]

I have three appstacks, floating desktop pools and at first there were no writable volumes but I introduced them to see if it would help but it did not.

[iforbes]

ESXi6.0U1 is compatible with View 6.1 and 6.11. So, you shouldn't have to upgrade to View 6.2.

[Ray_handels]

Hey i forbes,

I wasn't aware of this to be honest and VMware also said that we needed to upgrade to at least 6.2 to install ESX 6.0 U1.

But we are now testing the new U1 (and will be testing U2 in a few weeks hopefully ) with the new 6.2.2 Horizon view to upgrade to those versions in 1 go.

[iforbes]

Hi Ray. Makes sense. I just did a quick check of the interoperability matrix to see the supported versions and came across that.

[Chesky_Stossel]

@Ray_handels

Thanks, that registry worked for me, it went from 1.5 minutes to 12 seconds,

Can you tell which patch you are referring to? because I'm on View 6.2 and still have the issue(without the reg).

[Ray_handels]

Hey Chesky,

There is a patch for ESX 6.0 and ESX 6.0 U1 that fixes the slow reconfigure of the VDI when appstacks are being attached.

In the non patched ESX version it took VSphere 3 seconds to add 1 appstack. So if you have 8 appstacks it would take 24 seconds (and mostly even more) to reconfigure the machine. Because the reconfigure is done when the user logs on (at least when you attach appstacks to users) these 24 seconds amounted to the total logon time.

Version 6.0 U2 should have this fix build in. This version would be released in March so i'm eagerly awaiting it so we can actually test.

[jsinclair]

I see that 6.0 U2 was released yesterday...can anyone confirm this has the patch built in? I looked through the release notes and didn't see anything specific to App Volumes.

Thanks!

[sappomannoz]

From the release notes

Attempts to attach more than one Appstack takes a long time

When you attempt to attach more than one Appstack or writable volume to a virtual machine, there is a delay in the reconfiguration of the VM.

This issue is resolved in this release.

VMware ESXi 6.0 Update 2 Release Notes

[jsinclair]

Ah..there it is. I was looking for "App Volumes" which is probably why I missed that. Thanks!!

[ch4mp10n]

its very slow even with 1 AppStack, we shouldn't have to wait 45+ seconds to login... sub par 15-20 seconds should be the benchmark for user logins especially non-persistent.

[jsinclair]

Are you running ESXi 6 u2 ?

[Virtual_EZ]

Can anyone confirm if ESXi 6.0 Update 2 resolved this issue?