Connections staying

[CICTech]

Here is our problem-

We have Metaframe 1.8 with Windows 2000 Server

When our users are connected if they close the window rather than logging off, the connection will stay idle indefinately until you reset the connection. It will also ask if you want to reconnect because the connection has been idle, but it will not continue with the same connection, it will open a new instance and leave the other one idle (inactive) I know it is confusing, but has anyone else seen this? Thank you in advance!

 

[pandomas]

Which processes are active inside your user session ?

 

[notauser]

There may be many reasons for this but consider:

1. The only way that the ICA client figures out that a connection is no longer valid is if the local machine changes the status of the connection. It does this when it receives a reset or when the ICA client attempts to use the connection and it fails. The ICA client is fairly passive.
2. At the same time, the Citrix Server will consider the connection 'idle' based on lack of traffic. It won't figure out disconnected unless it attempts to send traffic, see Keepalives.
3. Meanwhile, in the network path, some device or many devices, have idle timeouts for active connections (especially Firewalls). Some of these devices may timeout and send a reset but for the most part, they simply timeout and mark the connection invalid.
4. Now you move the mouse or somehow create traffic. The ICA client attempts to send the traffic on an established connection (ack bit set)and the timed out device refuses to let this 'unknown' established traffic pass. The ICA client has no choice but to back up and try to connect using new ports.
5. The Citrix server meanwhile, has your first connection as idle, so seeing a new connection request come in, creates a second connection for you.
6. You now have a valid connection and an 'idle' connection.
7. To avoid this, you can send ICA keepalives on a periodic basis to stop the network timeouts and to help the Citrix server determine a disconnected session from an idle session.
8. In addition, you can have the citrix server take action against idle or disconnected sessions, once it has figured out the difference.

 

[CICTech]

Wow that was a ton of help thank you very much!

 

[BeerGood]

FYI - You may want to go to

http://www.dabcc.com/ThinSol/Downloads/default.htm

and try the AppScape lockdown utility. "This is a killer little app that lets you turn off the X in the top right hand corner of an application. This forces your users to log out of application and desktops and helps prevent against disconnected sessions."

Cheers