VM View 5.0 - 404 - Http Error

[John_Getzke]

Hello,

My Win7 64bit laptop started to display the following message when I tried to click the connect button on my View client:

"The view connection server connection failed. A http error occured.  Status code = 404"

This error message only happens on a wireless broadband connection.  The exact same setup works when directly connected to the corporate LAN.  When the problem happens I noticed that I also recieve a 404 error message from the View Server when trying to view the Admin/configuration page.

I tried redownloading and installing the client from my View server but was not able to make any progress.  Looking in my Windows firewall logs has revealed that the traffic is not getting stopped on my local machine.   I tried two different wireless broadband access points and was not able to complete my connection.

Any ideas on what could be the problem or where to continue my troubleshooting?

[mittim12]

Welcome to the forums.  When this is happening do you have any problems pinging the View url?    What about any other sites? 

[John_Getzke]

Thanks for the warm welcome : )

We cannot ping the View server.  ICMP is disabled by design.

However I can navigate to the View server's IIS/Tomcat home page.  Its only when I try to access the /admin site that I recieve a 404 error.  Other sites (non-view, public, intranet) do not appear to have a problem.

Attached are some screenshots of the various error messages I am recieving.  The IIS site is what I see when trying to access the view URL from a browser.

[mittim12]

If your connecting from outside the network through a security server than the /admin site wouldn't be available. 

[leaffan]

Just curious, I see that you are using http:// have to tried https://

[John_Getzke]

I'm not concerned about the admin site. While connected via broadband we use a Java port forwarding applet to allow us onto the corporate network.  When the port forwarder is engaged the admin site is normally available from an external location.

The real problem is that the View client is displaying the 404 error message when I try to click Connect.  I cant even get to the point where I can enter my credentials to view the pools.

[mittim12]

Sorry, I only brought up the admin site because it was mentioned in the previous post.    So this java port forwarder is always used to bring a connection from external to internal network?    Do you have a means of testing the broadband card with View without the java port fowarder such as a Security server?    Is there another device you can test the exact setup with to see if it works for them? 

[John_Getzke]

If there is a way to test the connection from an external connection without the port forwarder I am not aware of it.  I'd have to do some digging and get back to you on that one.

I have tested the same scenario/credentials on different Win7 64bit and WinXP machines.  From what I have seen this issue appears to be isolated to the one Win7 machine.  All other clients/users appear to be connecting fine.

[leaffan]

Try logging into that machine with a different user, could be a profile issue if it's only one user.

[mittim12]

Also try reinstalling any software required for the connector.  

[John_Getzke]

I tried logging in as the local Admin account (which is different than before) but had no luck.  Same 404 error message when trying to connect from the View client.

[John_Getzke]

I had tried rolling back Java and reupdating it yesterday but saw no improvement.  One thing I have not tried is running the port forwarder with a basic Java install.  I'll give that one a shot later today.  I also tried connecting over an ethernet cable at one of my access points but noticed no difference.

On another note, the View Server page is behaving differently on this Win7 machine then my other machines on the corporate LAN.  When I try to access the URL from a browser on the bad computer I get the IIS7 splash screen.  When I try to access the URL on a browser from a good computer I get a page that says my View Client is not installed with options to install it.  Looking into my Programs and Features I cannot see any VM software on my Win7 machine, yet I am not getting prompted to download or install anything.

This problem feels like its security related, yet the same credentials work fine on a different connection.  Its as if the View Server is responding to my requests but its not validating me or approving of me.  I have been trying to run traces from MS Network Monitor on the View Server to inspect the packets/frames from the Win7 machine. NetMon appears to be showing me that communication from the Win7 machine is sending incomplete HTTP payloads.  Not that the payloads look much different from a good computer connection, I suspect what I'm looking at is encrypted by RDP or some other protocol.

Is there any other way to validate that my connection is good enough?  Perhaps I can send some test communication over the different ports to confirm that everything is open that needs to be?

[mittim12]

The IIS splash screen concerns me because a View Connection broker doesn't utilize IIS.   I know you can't ping but does your DNS queries return the correct informaton for your connection broker? 

[John_Getzke]

I remembered that I had been using this Win7 machine for IIS development in the past week or two.  After opening the IIS console and shutting the service off I tried connecting to View again.  This time around I was able to recieve a different error message.  See the attached.

Perhaps this is a simple routing problem afterall.  IIS had been interfering with my requests to access the View Server and that would explain why I was continueing to recieve 404 error messages both from the client and on browsers.  A server was responding, but it was the local IIS service and not the actual View Server like I intended.

Tracert was not helpful.  All I can see is one hop which is to 127.0.0.3.  Our port forwarder is to blaime for that.  I also tried a Whois for our View Server and was able to retrieve some information about our company.  If there is another DNS lookup tool that you would like me to try then let me know.

[dvhorvath]

I agree with that. Can you try connecting to the Connection Server by IP address rather than host name and see if that works on the problem laptop? It sounds like there's either a stale entry in that machine's DNS cache or an entry in that machines HOSTS file that's directing it to a machine with IIS installed, but not configured.

Also, if you enable the telnet client on that Win7 machine, you could try opening a telnet session to the Connection Server over ports 443 and 4172 to see if the path is clear from the endpoint to the server. If you get a black screen, it's successful. Otherwise, you'll get an error.

Dave

[John_Getzke]

Unfortunetly connecting to the IP from this machine on a broadband connection is unsuccessful.  The port forwarder needs to grab the requests and send them back to the corporate network.  All I can see from my machine is 127.0.0.1 as the IP of the view server, which is actually a loopback address of the Win7 machine.  Looking in the host file I can see that the View Server is listed as 127.0.0.3.  I'm told this is normal, but I can check some other machines to confirm.

When I enabled Telnet and tried opening a connection to the view server I was recieving errors.  I was not able to open the conneciton on port 80 (which is what our forwarder should be doing), port 23, port 443 or port 4172.  This was no different than when I tried to telnet to the view server on a good computer.  We most likely are blocking telnet requests to this server.

[John_Getzke]

All of the sudden everything is working!

I tried signing back into the View client after lunch today and noticed right away that the port forwarder application was displaying the actual domain name for the View Server.  It had previously been displaying an IP Address of 127.0.0.3 as the connection information for the View Server.  Somehow the problem seems to have resolved itself.

Thanks to all those who contributed.  I think between exposing the routing problem and disabling IIS on the computer we were able to patch everything up.

[mittim12]

Glad it's working.