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justin_fisher
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Contributor

Unable to connect to the MKS: Could not connect to pipe \\.\pipe\vmware-authdpipe within retry period

I have a new install of vSphere and I am having trouble using the VMware Remote Console from Windows 10 clients.  I have done some research on this topic and almost all the recommendations suggest that DNS is often the cause of this error.  I have verified this is **not** the issue in my case.

All windows clients are on the same subnet as the vsphere appliance so there aren't any firewalls involved (firewalls on the clients are also wide open).

I am able to connect using a "stock" windows client install without issue but can not connect from clients that are "locked down" with Group Policy and Local Policy security being applied.  So this leads me to believe it's not a server side configuration but a client side issue.

When I review the vmware-vmrc.log files I see the following errors on the failing clients:

VMClientConnectSocketEx

CnxAuthdConnect: Returning false because CnxAuthdProtoReadResponse2 failed.

On the successful / working windows client the logs read:

VMClientConnectSocketEx

VMClient_ConnectMksClientEx - connecting the MKS client

VMClientConnectMksClientEx

I'm not sure where to go from here?  Is there a troubleshooting guide available for VMRC?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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berndweyand
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Expert

usually it is a dns problem. the client must be able to resolve the esxi-host, not only the vcsa

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justin_fisher
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the reply.

I thought this was the problem also after reviewing similar posts.   I am able to ping both the vsphere address and the ESXi addresses from all the hosts (working and failing).

I can also see in the VMRC logs that the address is being correctly resolved to an IP Address.

I am 99% that the problem isn't a DNS issue.

How would I verify this with absolute certainty?

Also any other ideas of what could be the problem.

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berndweyand
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Expert

is the web console working ?

what if you connect directly to a host and then start a vmrc-session? maybe it´s a missing trust to ssl

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justin_fisher
Contributor
Contributor

Yes the web console works fine everywhere.

I've also installed the certs vSphere on all the clients using the "Download trusted root CA certificates" link on the vSphere landing page.

Looking through the logs it would appear that SSL is working correctly on functioning and broken clients:

GVmomi: Certificate Accepted

When I attempt to launch VMRC directly I get the following error:

"This application must be launched from a vmrc url."

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