VMware Horizon Community
zuzei
Contributor
Contributor

Outlook 2016 - O365 freezes VM - but only on the second screen

Hi there

Very Strange problem. Horizon 7.12, Windows 20H2 (But also testet on 1903 / 1909). Fresh install... 

We can use Outlook normally on the primary Screen, but when i put Outlook on the right Screen, the VM Freezes randomly after go to the Calendar, go to the Contacts, or simple change from Mail X to Mail Y. 

The VM freezes completly for about 5 to 10 seconds.

If i put the Outlook back on the left Screen, there are absolutly no problems, runs like a charm. if i disable some Plugins, maybe this will happen not so often, but happens though. 
I have NO IDEA how to troubleshoot this. Have you ever seen something like that, or can you give me some Tipps what i can do? 

many thanks

regards

31 Replies
scythe944
Contributor
Contributor

That's correct, you're welcome!

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award9051
Contributor
Contributor

Is anyone testing with the 8.4 agent yet?  It apparently no longer has the SVGA driver included so only the Tools SVGA driver is used.  With that said, we're experiencing the lag issues with Outlook while using Tools 11.3.5 and agent 8.4.  

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scythe944
Contributor
Contributor

From what it says here: https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2078739, you're supposed to use the sVGA driver from VMware tools again.  If that's giving you problems, I'd open a case with vmware I guess.   I'm still on build 2103, so I haven't run into this problem yet.  I just learned that they're not bundling the sVGA driver with the agent today.

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award9051
Contributor
Contributor

I spent some more time on this and I think I've gotten to the bottom of it for anyone still fighting it.  We've been installing Tools without the SVGA driver for years so the Agent installed drivers have always been what we've used.  I had a case open with VMware on this when the 8.3 agent came out and the document you referenced - https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2078739 was not showing the correct SVGA driver versions.  From what I can see that is still the case.  I would urge anyone to go ahead and install a few various versions of the Horizon Agent in the absence of the SVGA driver from Tools and take a look for yourself.  With the Outlook hang up issue on the 8.3 agent we gave up after realizing that VMware's documents were inaccurate and just downgraded back to the 8.2 agent and never experienced the issue.  Clearly VMware is attentive to it since the new 8.4 agent does not include the SVGA driver so we're left to pick a Tools version that installs a SVGA driver that doesn't exhibit the issue.  I'm leaning toward thinking the Outlook hang up and related issues started with SVGA driver version 8.17.x.  I've been able to resolve this issue with the 8.4 Agent and older versions of Tools that install 8.16.X versions of the SVGA driver.  So far I've tested successfully with Tools 10.3.10 as suggested earlier in this thread as well as 11.1.1.  As far as I can tell, all Tools after 11.1.1 jump to the 8.17.X SVGA driver exhibiting the issue.  

Here's a list of versions I've noted.

- 8.2 Agent installs SVGA driver 8.16.7.8 and the Outlook hang issue does not happen.

- 8.3 Agent installs SVGA driver 8.17.2.14 and the Outlook hang issue DOES happen.

 

- Tools 10.3.10 installs SVGA 8.16.1.24 and the Outlook hang issue does not happen.

- Tools 11.1.1 installs SVGA 8.16.7.8 (same as Agent 8.2) and the Outlook hang issue does not happen.

- Tools 11.1.5 installs SVGA 8.17.1.1 and the Outlook hang issue DOES happen.

- Tools 11.2.5 installs SVGA 8.17.2.12 and the Outlook hang issue DOES happen.

 

Maybe someone from VMware can pick this up and run with it.  

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jpm60
Contributor
Contributor

@award9051 Thanks for all your research, i seem to have the same problem since updating my ESXi to 7.0.2 and therefore a recent version of Tools 11.3.0 ! I will rollback to 11.1.1 to test with the Agent 8.4 of Horizon.

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jpm60
Contributor
Contributor

I published but many users had strange problems...... I had to backtrack... frankly i wonder if VMware does any testing before releasing things. And making tickets or we're being led around in circles... it's just useless. We've already had major problems with vCenter 7.0.3 and now we're following up with this... at the price we're paying, it's really ridiculous.

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Bluebeeep
Contributor
Contributor

Not sure if anyone has figured out a solution to this but it started for us a couple of weeks ago for a number of users.

I have an interesting case here... One user that has the following configuration:

- Office Version: Office 2016 (16.0.4549.1000)
- VMware Tools: 10.3.10.12406962
- VMware Horizon Agent: 7.10.0
- SVGA Driver Installed: 8.16.1.24

Basically everything is outdated. Even Windows hasn't been updated in a year.

Unfortunately for us, none of the options in this thread have helped (I'm super thankful for those adding their tests and fixes).

I'm wondering since this particular user has had zero updates in forever, and it all of a sudden started a couple of weeks ago, should we be looking into the Exchange Server? Maybe since we're all talking about Outlook here? Maybe a recent update to Exchange?

This particular user is connected to Exchange 2013.

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award9051
Contributor
Contributor

I would look to the user's Horizon client.  If the issue happened all of a sudden with no change on the VDI, did the user update his/her client?

I'm not convinced the Outlook issue is Exchange related but possibly around MS Office hardware graphics acceleration so the client might be trying to do something the agent or svga driver can't.  

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jonathanjabez
Hot Shot
Hot Shot

Hi,

 

You may try disabling Hardware Acceleration feature in Outlook and check if this helps.

https://www.extendoffice.com/documents/outlook/4432-outlook-disable-hardware-graphics-acceleration.h...

Regards,

Jon

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iliketurbos
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

we have the same issue, hardware acceleration didn't fix it. seems to be some office apps, can replicate in outlook easily.

 

Windows 10 21H1, Horizon 8.4 agent 8.4, PCoIP wyse thin client, Tools 11.3.5.

Will try downgrading to tools 11.1.1 and report back. 

-----

Reporting back, Kept tools 11.3.5, but install svga from 11.1.1, issue is FIXED across 100+ desktops, used a ms tool called devcon to install the driver after extracting it from VMware tools 11.1.1

#Devcon.exe updateNI <INF file> <HW ID>
Devcon.exe updateNI "C:\Admin\Temp\VMware\VMware Tools\VMware\Drivers\video_wddm\Vista\vm3d.inf" PCI\VEN_15AD

Tags (3)
dylomc
Contributor
Contributor

Anyone try just using just the VMware Horizon Indirect Display Driver and disable the SVGA?  I ended up disabling or removing the SVGA on some VM's that experienced freezing and this seems to work well. Although, some reported that it resizes all their windows every time they connect.  The resize on reconnect doesn't seem to be the case for everyone that I've done this for, just some. We're on the latest 8.4 Agent and 11365 (11.3.5) for Tools.

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award9051
Contributor
Contributor

This worked for me as well and solves my problem for deploying Carbon Black as it requires Tools 11.2 or higher. 

An easier way to do this is to extract the 11.1.1 Tools installer by - "ToolsSetupFile.exe /A /P C:\Extract"  assuming you want to extract to C:\Extract and after you've created that folder.  Then, install Tools 11.3.5 and exclude the SVGA driver during install.  After the Tools install and a reboot, go to Device Manger and edit the MS Basic Display adapter and manually browse for a driver in C:\Extract and it's done!  

See https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/2032184 for the Tools extraction process.  

Thank you iliketurbos!

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