VMware Horizon Community
alelondon
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Screen / Display freeze - Application windows become invisible/transparent

Just wondering if anyone has seen this in their VDI/View environment. We have both Microsfot and VMware trying to fix this for weeks but so far no resolution has been found.

Problem: At no specific time and no specific VM pool, some applications (MS and non-MS) become invisible. In case you are wondering, this happens to full fat apps and also to Thinapp'd packages. Task Manager is always visible (which is weird) and you don't see any hang processes. Once it happens, all applications you launch will display the symptom (you see parts of the window but not the application menus and details) Better explained if you see the picture below

Workaround so far: Log off (not restart) and Logon. Obviously this is not practical when deploying VDI to thousands of users.

Server Infrastructure

ESX 3.5 Update 4 cluster

vCenter Update 4

View Manager 3.1 using Direct Connect

Desktop Pools

Nothing special, Windows XP SP3 VMs, with Office installed on the VMs. Most apps are Thinapp'd but Office is built in with the golden image.

Clients:

Interesting the issue happens on Thin clients (Wyse terminals), HP PCs with View client, XP Pro Fusion VM, Windows 7 connecting to the affected VM using RDP. In other words, it doesnt matter what client you use to connect. It happens anyway.

We have even created a Physical Desktop pool with XP SP3 machines and the issue still happens!

One thing we have discovered is that if we reboot the VMs every morning before the users logon, the issue goes away. Again, not practical if we are scaling this to thousands of users.

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17 Replies
alelondon
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Just an update to this...

We have upgraded to View 4 with PCoIP and the good news is that so far (knock on wood) we haven’t seen it happen on PCoIP connections.

The bad news is that even with the latest everything (we rebuilt the VMs with SP3, Office 2007, new View Agent 4.0.1, ESX 4.0 U1, latest Composer, etc.) it still happens but only on random RDP connections, at no specific time of the day, no specific applications open. This could be mean good news as there may be nothing wrong with our hardware/broker/clients.

The other thing was that Microsoft asked us to create a pool of physical desktops to see if the problem still occurred. And it did. But only if the View Agent was installed. PCs with no view Agent didn’t get the screen freeze at all for days without rebooting. This means the call is now still open with VMware and they have been able to replicate it on their side so hopefully they will come up with a fix for us.

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TShoun
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Have you adjusted the noexecute startup option in the Boot.INI file from optin to AlwaysOff?

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alelondon
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hiya, thaks for your note

No, we have the following setup:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

What does AlwaysOff actually do? I dont remember this being part of the VMware VDI XP deployment guide.

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TShoun
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I have seen similar problems surround this switch in the INI file. It has to do with some kind of software execution protection built into XP if I remember correctly, but it does not play nicely with a View setup. By switching the "optin" to "AlwaysOff" it disables the feature, resolving these types of problems. I believe that I found this in a document about recommended practices (ie, not in the View Admin guide). It was either another VMWare doc, or it may have been from Wyse. I would recommend just snapshoting a vm and try this fix. Worst case just restore the snapshot.

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Jakobwill
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

What version of RDP are you using? 5.x or 6.x?

Have you tried to update to 6.1?

RDC 6.1 (KB951616) for Windows XP SP3 and Vista SP1. The advantages of

RDC 6.1 are :

  • Distant signature Desktop Protocol (RDP)

  • EasyPrint des services Terminal Server

More details on

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TShoun
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

If you are going to upgrade the RDP, you might as well go to RDP version 7.

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alelondon
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

We're running 6.1. But I like the RDP 7 idea. Will give that a go and update this thread with my findings. Thanks

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TShoun
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Did you try the modification to the boot.ini file?

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alelondon
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Not yet. Will try that too.

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dconvery
Champion
Champion

Alex -

Was this issue resolved? If so how? I may have a similar issue.

Dave Convery, VCDX

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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alelondon
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Hi there Dave. No we are still seeing this but only on RDP conncetions so we are kinda "living with it" for the moment.

We do not see this with PCoIP at all.

I've tried RDP7 and seen the same result so that was a dead end for me.

What we haven't tried yet:

- Turn off DEP on the boot.ini as suggested a couple of posts ago.

Do you have a screenshot of the issue?

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dconvery
Champion
Champion

I do not have a screenshot yet. They don't have View Premier, so I don't think they have PCoIP. I suggested updating RDP and boot.ini. I will post here if it looks any better.

Dave Convery, VCDX

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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Linjo
Leadership
Leadership

PCoIP is available in all versions of View 4.x

Best regards,

Linjo

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

Best regards, Linjo Please follow me on twitter: @viewgeek If you find this information useful, please award points for "correct" or "helpful".
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dconvery
Champion
Champion

Thanks Joel. I have always used Premier, and I couldn't find anywhere on line that indicated it was a part of Enterprise.

Dave Convery, VCDX

VMware vExpert 2009

Careful. We don't want to learn from this.

Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"

Dave Convery, VCDX-DCV #20 ** http://www.tech-tap.com ** http://twitter.com/dconvery ** "Careful. We don't want to learn from this." -Bill Watterson, "Calvin and Hobbes"
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SimonLong
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

Did anyone ever find a fix for this? Other than using PCoIP?






Regards Simon

-


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

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alelondon
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Bit late but I thought I'd post an update to this. Even though we are and have been using PCoIP for almost a year now and don't see this anymore, VMware has found (Thanks Chris and support guys) to be a McAfee issue.

It's caused by the McAfee Framework Service which can modify the DACL (Discretionary Access Control List).

This reduces the number of permissions for other applications and results in display issues with Windows.

When working normally windows always open with maximum allowed access ( which corresponds to Access Mask 0x37f ).

For more information on Window Station Security and Access Rights see:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms687391%28v=VS.85%29.aspx

McAfee have fixed the problem in McAfee Agent 4.5 Patch 1

Hurray! :smileylaugh:

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Arvindhselvaraj
Contributor
Contributor

Looks like everyone in the world who uses RDP is having this issue Smiley Happy

regards,

arvindh

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