Citrix for HelpDesk staff

There is an awful lot of technical documentation out there for engineers and admins but not a lot of you are first level IT support.

What I get asked for a lot is a run sheet for support staff to quickly troubleshoot the most common Citrix issues. Now Citrix has gotten a lot better over the years to the point where you may not even have issues on a day to day basis anymore.

But for those time that you do, here is a brain dump of links and some helpful tips that I’ve pulled together from existing Citrix documentation.

callflow

Sample Call Script

Steps Details
1 Name of Customer, particular site or location if possible.
2 Name of User, department, Logon ID and callback number.
3 Do any other users at the site experience the same issue?  Can they have a colleague logon from same and/or different workstation?  Helps to determine whether this is a workstation issue vs. user account issue.
4 Identify workstation name or Inventory ID.
5 Name of Application attempting to access.
6 Review high level steps taken to authenticate.  This validates that steps are performed correctly.
7 Can user see the Web Interface or authentication page?  Can users see other web pages, such as google.com?  This helps to identify and troubleshoot network issues.
8 Does user see the appropriate icon?  Helps to troubleshoot user access and group memberships.
9 Does application launch when icon is selected?  Does the application logon screen appear?  Helps to determine if a connection is made into Citrix architecture.
10 Can user authenticate into the application?  Does the issue occur after application authentication? Helps determine if this is a Citrix infrastructure vs. Application Issue.
11 What is the application error(s)?  Provide a screenshot.
  Question Answer
Personal
Information
 
Name
Organization
Contact Number /Email
Contact Preference (Phone/Mail)
Resident Office
Current Location
Current Time Zone
Incident
 
Severity of the incident
# of affected users
Name of affected application
Description of the incident <Provide Screenshot / Video when escalating>
Troubleshooting performed
  Question Answer
Environment
 
Client name
Client IP
Client hardware type
Client OS
Version Citrix Receiver
Name of XenApp Server / virtual desktop
Name of PubApp / PubDesktop
User’s issue See these suggestions:
Logon takes a long time or fails intermittently or repeatedly Diagnose user logon issues
Application is slow or won’t respond Resolve application failures
Connection failed Restore desktop connections
Session is slow or not responding Restore sessions
Video is slow or poor quality Run HDX channel system reports

Printing

  • Remember that Citrix Printing policies and Group Policy Objects can alter printing behavior.
  • Printer property changes are stored in the end-user profile on the Server OS machine.
  • Endpoints do not inherit changes until the end user logs off and back on.
  • The Citrix Universal Print Server uses auto-discovery to connect network printers when enabled.
  • The Universal print driver usage policy determines whether to use only the Windows-native driver or only the Universal print driver.
  • The Universal print driver can print to any client-side printing device.
  • Proximity printing defines the IP address range of connected end users in order to automatically provide them access to network printers in the same range.
  • Proximity printing is a form of session printing, restricting network printers enumerated during a session.

By default, end users can add network or client-defined printers using the Windows Add Printer wizard. Such printers are auto-retained and enumerated at the start of the next session, if the printing policy allows.

By default, end users of thin clients and non-Windows plug-ins cannot add printers to their sessions.

Common Issues and Resolutions

  • End users see or print to another end user’s autocreated client printer.
    • Verify the end-user’s membership to the Domain, Local Administrators, or Power Users group.
  • Print jobs are garbled or fail to print.
    • Verify the printer driver name for the client is the same as the one for the server. If not, map the driver names. Remove incompatible printer driver, restart the Citrix Print Manager service and use the Citrix Universal print driver instead.
  • Network printers are not available in the session.
    • Verify that you applied the Session printers policy rule to the session. Verify that a higher priority policy does not conflict with lower-level policies. Use the net use command from the end-user device to verify permissions to the print server.
  • Session appears to stop responding at startup when end users disconnect from the network.
    • Verify that network printers are attempting to autocreate for the end user and then set the Auto-create client printers policy rule to Auto-create local client printers only for mobile users.
  • The Universal Print Server does not appear.
    • Verify the Universal Print Server is enabled. Ensure the OS is Windows Server 2008 or later.
  • Printers no longer in use are still created in sessions.
    • Verify that you have uninstalled all unused drivers.

 

Hopefully by following these links it is enough to get your helpdesk staff up to speed on what Citrix is and how to troubleshoot the major issues they are likely to run in to. If you have any additional resources please let me know via the (moderated) comments.

Citrix XenApp/XenDesktop and MS SQL Compatibility recommendation

Looking at the XenDesktop 7.9 ISO they still haven’t included the Share Management Object library SharedManagementObjects installers from the SQL 2014 Feature Pack.
Given that the files are backwards compatible, I would recommend replacing them in your ISO/install folder for any future projects, as I’m seeing a lot more clients using SQL Server 2014 these days, or calling it out in upcoming designs.
Files can be found here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=42295 grab both x86 and x64 (save to different locations as they have the same name).
This will give you support for SQL 2008R2 up to 2014.
If you use an incompatible version when creating the Farm, you’ll get an error similar to “Cannot write Property Collation. This Property is not available on SQL Server 7.0”.
More info here (http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX132438)

Hardware Reserved RAM inside a Virtual Machine?

At a client site I came across something that I hadn’t seen before whereby Server 2008 R2 would reserve almost half of the available RAM for system devices and call it Hardware Reserved RAM.
Out of 46 Gig available, 20 was assigned to system devices of which 10 GB was assigned to a block of PCI-e ports.

Windows Server 2008 System Reserved RAMHaving never come across this before I decided to dig around a bit deeper.

Opening up the Device Manager and changing the view to be Resources by connection, it was then possible to see the different memory blocks that were allocated.

From this screenshot we can see the PCI bus has about 10GB of RAM allocated.

Device Manager RAM usageExactly why it’s doing this or how to fix it is something I’ve yet to work out.

This article goes into detail about how to see what’s using your memory, but doesn’t explain why this would happen on a 64bit operating system. More research is required, I’ll post back any findings.

Citrix XenApp 6.5 Links

I’ve been doing a heap of work with a new Citrix XenApp 6.5 deployment using single sign on, here are a bunch of links that helped me get everything up and running.

Citrix XenApp 6.5 from HiMikeBrown.comConfigure Pass-through Authentication for Citrix XenApp 6.5
http://www.virtuallyimpossible.co.uk/configure-pass-through-authentication-for-citrix-xenapp-6-5/

Citrix Profile Management and VDI – Doing it Right!
Some useful stuff about getting folder redirection working.
http://blogs.citrix.com/2012/02/11/citrix-profile-management-and-vdi-doing-it-right/
Configure URLs for online plugin
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX112674

A Field Guide to XenApp 6.5 Session Pre-Launch
This gives a great explination of what pre-launch is too.
http://blogs.citrix.com/2012/02/10/a-field-guide-to-xenapp-session-pre-launch/

XenApp applications won’t launch in a PVS environment with multiple network interfaces
http://www.jasonsamuel.com/2012/10/08/xenapp-applications-wont-launch-in-a-pvs-environment-with-multiple-network-interfaces/

Removing hidden or ghosted devices from a Windows virtual machine (2010145)
Useful if you’ve cloned or P2Ved a machine.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2010145

How to Set Up Session Sharing Precedence Over Load Balancing in a XenApp Farm
Useful for prelaunch and when you have non concurrent licensing.
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX126839

Automatic creation of user folders for home, roaming profile and redirected folders
Why you would try to do this manually I don’t know.
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2008/06/30/automatic-creation-of-user-folders-for-home-roaming-profile-and-redirected-folders.aspx

Security Recommendations for Roaming User Profiles Shared Folders
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc757013.aspx

Load balance XML brokers through Netscaler
http://www.thegenerationv.com/2009/07/how-to-resolve-xml-black-hole-in-xenapp.html
How to fix the latency issue with load balanced XML Brokers through netscaler (TL;DR enable UDP 137 to your virtual server IP)http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX118670

Understanding Citrix XML Broker
A good overview of how all the XML bits work
http://apttech.wordpress.com/2012/02/08/understanding-citrix-xml-broker-and-troubleshooting-one-xml-broker-issue/

How to Use the Command Line to Install the Version 11.2 Plug-in or Later
Pretty much required to get SSO working (unless you’re running the Enterprise version)
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX123448

Why You Shouldn’t Install Citrix Receiver on Citrix XenApp
Only true if you don’t use session pre-launch!
http://www.xenappblog.com/2011/why-you-shouldnt-install-citrix-receiver-on-citrix-xenapp/

Reduce application launch time with Session Pre Launch
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/receiver-windows-34/receiver-windows-session-pre-launch.html#receiver-windows-session-pre-launch

XenApp 6/6.5 Profile Optimization
http://www.citrixirc.com/?p=99

Customize the default local user profile when preparing an image of Windows
This seems like way more of a pain in the ass than it needs to be.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289

To specify a template or mandatory profile for Citrix User Profile Manager
http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/user-profile-manager-5-x/upm-template-profile-t.html#upm-template-profile-t

UPMConfigCheck Tool
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX132805