VMs locking when Thin Client powered off

[jfmoots]

View 4.5 enviroment. Wyse C50LE is the Thin Client. Windows XPsp3 is the VM. My users are pressing the power button on the thin clients instead of logging out of the VM. As a result, the VM is locking and becomes unaccessible until manually reset. How can I stop this from happening. I'd rather the VM reset or logoff if they power off the thin client. Anything would be better than what it's doing. A couple hours in to the day in these labs and all the VMs are unusable. And... yes... I've asked them not to use the power button to logout. Some people can't follow instructions...

[mikebarnett]

Have you tried using the Automatic logoff after disconnect setting in the Desktop Pool settings? You can change this to immediately or you can set it to logoff after a predefined amount of time.

Hope this helps!

-Mike

[jfmoots]

Yes, that is set, but it is not working.

[mikebarnett]

Interesting. I wonder if the Client is properly detecting a Client disconnect. Can you gather a log bundle from the Agent on the virtual desktop they are connecting to and attach it to this case or get it to me somehow?

-Mike

[jfmoots]

I'm not sure have agent logging enabled. How do I do that or where would I locate that log file?

It's also interesting to note that my Connection Manager is not showing active sessions. I see in the event database that there are plenty of active sessions but View Manager would have you believe that all 168 clients are currently unused and available.

[mikebarnett]

Ah, interesting.

It could be that the agents are not able to communicate back to the broker. Can you confirm that the VMs can contact the Connection Broker on port 4001?

-Mike

[jfmoots]

How can I confirm that? There's no firewall running on the vm and no firewall running on the Connection Manager server.

[jfmoots]

Here's the logs. It happend right about 7:15am on 10/6. I simulated it on this particular machine.

[mikebarnett]

You're using PCoIP, correct?

-Mike

[mikebarnett]

It looks like you may have hit a known issue. I would file an SR with our support team. If you give me the SR number I can shoot a quick email to the TSE letting them know what the issue is.

-Mike

[jfmoots]

I'm on the phone with him now. 1579707001.

We have two SRs open. One for the disgraceful disconnect without reset, and one for the lack of any connected sessions showing up. But I'm thinking they're very closely related

[jfmoots]

1579707001

[mikebarnett]

Ok, great. I have contacted him to let him know what's going on.

Hopefully you can get the help you need!

-Mike

[jfmoots]

We figured it out. Our KBox Client was set up to be installed as a post syncronization task. It was overwriting a registry entry at HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogin. The key is Userinit. It should say "C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,”C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Agent\bin\wssm.exe"" but the Kbox client was replacing all that with something else. The WSSM.exe is necessary to communicate with the Connection Manager. We recomposed after removing the kbox client post sycronization install and everything is working as it's supposed to. The connection manager now shows the status of clients and a disgraceful disconnect gets logged off immediately, as it should.

Stupid KBox. Now I call them

[jnicpon]

jfmoots,

I am having the exact same problem due to the KBOX agents. Would you be able to share the Dell KACE solution for this?

[jfmoots]

Kace is aware of it and plans to fix their installer. For now you have to repair the registry entry manually.

[amahmood]

Going a bit off-topic here (i do apologise). I see that you using the Wyse c50LE terminal? we are currently evaluating this terminal and thinking of procuring. Could I ask your user experiences of using this terminal? does the firmware have to be upgraded often on the terminal? how how you found using the device with usb peripherals? performance experiences?

Thanks for your time, I hope you find the resolution for the problem you are experiencing due to the vm locking up and I will be keeping tabs on the discussion as no doubt may experience it soon.

Asam

[jfmoots]

Asam,

Thanks, we fixed it no problem. It was just figuring out what was going on. It's a hassle but with a little scripting we were able to replace the key.

The c50LE has not needed any firmware updates. Out of the box, with DHCP configured on our network to point to the WDM server, they picked up the view client and our configuration settings. Our users have NO IDEA they're not a regular PC in those locations. We're a K-12 school district and primarily have these in our labs and libraries. They do everything as a regular computer would do. I haven't even logged in to the View Administrator in several weeks. It just runs. My only need from the c50LE is to present the View Client. I don't care what else it has on it so the firmware has not needed any attention.

We don't have any experience with USB devices. That either means the users haven't used them, or they work just fine and we haven't heard from them. We did testing with USB memory sticks and they were fine. We've never tested a USB attached CD Rom or other peripherals. Mainly because we don't need them in those areas.