VMware Horizon Community
PeteJohns
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Horizon View 7.4 "USB Redirection is not available for this desktop"

Hey,

We've in the process of upgrading to Horizon View 7.4 but are having intermittent issues with USB Redirection not pulling through.

The error in the Horizon client just says "USB Redirection is not available for this desktop". Weirdly half the time it works and half of the time it does not, even from the same underlying client.
Impacts multiple users from multiple desktops.

Horizon client 4.7.0

Windows 7 underlying and VDI

GPO set to Automatically Connect on Startup and When Inserted

Never happens on older version of Horizon View (6.x), which is still our production environment. Not sure if relevant but another oddity we see is that if a USB device is plugged in during start up, and redirection is working, the USB device installs itself on every login even when drivers are available. This is another thing that never used to happen on older version of Horizon.

Any ideas?

Cheers,

Pete

28 Replies
BenFB
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Can you share what your architecture looks like? Typically that message is seen when TCP 32111 is blocked between the Horizon Client and the Horizon Agent (or UAG/Security Server if tunneling is enabled) which is required for USB redirection.

UAG? Security Servers? Connection Servers? Is tunneling enabled/disabled on the connection servers? Load balancer?

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PeteJohns
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi there. Thanks for your response.

There is no firewall between Client and Agent, so nothing stopping TCP32111 that I'm aware of. Other than the agent change, there is no architectural difference between our VDI Pool running on the older 6.x client and the VDI pool running on 7.4. It's also the same golden image, other than running on a different snapshot to install the newer agent.

Error occurs when on the LAN, which isn't using UAG.

3x Connection Servers (7.4.0-74004), all have tunnelling, load balanced via JetNexus. Load balancer seems to be only doing port 443 though it is the same rule for the old pools too.

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi PeteJohns,

Do you have VMware User Environment Manager deployed by any chance? There's an issue in Horizon agent 7.4 and 7.5 that might break USB redirection if UEM is installed.

If so, could you try again after creating a REG_DWORD registry value UemFlags in key HKLM\Software\VMware, Inc.\VMware VDM\Agent\USB, and setting it to 1?

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PeteJohns
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

UEMdev​ Yes we do! Thanks we'll give that one a try and I'll report back.

DavidTWynn
Contributor
Contributor

What happens if you do telnet "ip of your connection server" 32111 from your VDI?

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BenFB
Virtuoso
Virtuoso

Since you have tunneling enabled the requirement is a little different (Make sure HTTPS Secure Tunnel is enabled on the connection server).

In addition to allowing TCP 443 from the Horizon Client to the connection server which you are already doing you need to allow TCP 32111 from the connection servers to the Horizon Agent.

View TCP and UDP Ports

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PeteJohns
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Almost certain it isn't a firewall issue as we are getting this behaviour:

- USB Redirection not available on desktop

- If user disconnects session and reconnects on same physical machine, USB redirection then works


If we telnet to tcp32111 from a vdi desktop we just get Connection Refused. But we get this from both a working and failing machine.

It's also only failing 50% of the time from the same subnets to the same connections servers.

With regards to the UEM reg change - really weird behaviour we haven't seen before:

- Change made on golden image with new key added

- New snapshot taken

- Desktops recomposed

- login to recomposed desktop

- New reg key isn't there!

wtf!

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DEMdev
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Hi PeteJohns,

If user disconnects session and reconnects on same physical machine, USB redirection then works

That pretty much points to the Horizon agent issue.

New reg key isn't there!

Sorry, can't help you there – I know just enough about Horizon to build the UEM integration, but I have no clue about Horizon infrastructure topics.

Maybe a bit premature, as we don't know for certain yet whether the USB redirection is blocked because of that Horizon agent issue, but that particular issue has been fixed in Horizon 7.6 (and you'll need the corresponding UEM 9.5 release to enable that fix.)

janasrs
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Is it possible to get this registry setting into the configuration without having to modify the golden image? I'd like to test it before committing to a recompose of the pool. Thanks.

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agalliasistju
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

janasrs If you are using a test VDI pool you could set the pool to "Never" for the "Delete or Refresh Machine on Logoff" pool setting.  That will allow you to make a change to a VM in that pool and reboot it without it refreshing.  Alternatively you can try putting the VM in Maintenance Mode prior to logging into the console and then rebooting after your change, then take the VM out of MM so you can test the connection.  The first option is best, in my opinion.

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rabihmansour86
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hi did you check it ?

its working with you or now

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Not4Sure
Contributor
Contributor

Had the same issues. Disable the Agent Client Drive Redirection. You may also have to disable App Volumes as well.

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Not4Sure
Contributor
Contributor

Our Symantec Antivirus was causing the issue. This is what we had to do to resolve it.

Disable the Agent Client Drive Redirection. You may also have to disable App Volumes as well.

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rabihmansour86
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

hi

we disable it an we faced the same issue ,

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Not4Sure
Contributor
Contributor

Are you using Symantec? If so try disabling Symantec and see if it starts working.

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Oneboss302
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Are you using App Volumes? I have the same issue and found if I remove the App Volumes agent and recompose, I am able to use the USB each time without issue. I have a ticket open with VMware and am awaiting engineers to look at it.

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Not4Sure
Contributor
Contributor

We had to disable App volumes because of Symantec. We gave up trying to get it to work after several weeks with Symantec Tech support.

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dmtml
Contributor
Contributor

Another solution for anyone still having troubles with "USB Redirection is not available for this desktop".

On the VM side, open up the local machine certmgr.

There are two folder of VMWare certificates. 

Delete them all.

Reboot

See if it works after that.

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Oneboss302
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Tried that first. Did not make a difference.

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