ICA Browser Dies on me

[soy4soy]

My environment: 2 identical servers running:
Windows NT 4.0 Terminal Server, Service Pack 6
Citrix Metaframe 1.8 (Upgraded from 1.0), No Service Pack
Hotfix(es): MF:ME100051
Load Balancing installed.

Problem #1: Every once in a while (seems to happen about 1 or 2 times a month), the ICA Browser service dies and users cannot connect to either server. I cannot simply cycle the ICA Browser service because it does not stop properly to allow me to start it again, claiming that the service is already started when I try to start it again. I would like to know either 1) Why is this happening to my servers? Or 2) How can I fix it to stop it from happening next month?

Problem #2:
It was my understanding that since I have the IP addresses for both servers in the config on each client and that since these servers were load balanced, if one server loses the ICA browser, the other server should take over. All the clients have the IP address for CITRIX1 listed first and the IP address for CITRIX2 listed second.

Any help pointing me in the correct direction would be much appreciated.

Thank you

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Problem #1: Install MetaFrame Service Pack 2. It contains fixes for the problem you describe. I would also recommend a weekly reboot cycle. One week is quite a long time for an NT4 terminal server to remain active and not suffer similar problems. Many admins reboot their NT terminal servers every night via an AT scheduled task.

Problem #2: I'm not too sure what you're asking here - if I have read incorrectly, please advise. It seems that you are under the impression that if one server dies, users are automatically switched to another server in a similar manner to clustered servers. This is not the case with load-balancing. It is not a fail-over mechanism, but a means whereby if one server becomes unavailable, a user can log on again and still maintain the same desktop/application access.

I hope this is useful.

 

[soy4soy]

Thank you for your help. I am planning on an upgrade ASAP.

Regarding the reboots: I will tentatively schedule a weekly reboot. However, before our upgrade to MF18, I would reboot those servers maybe 4 times a year and for the most part never had an issue which required a reboot other than service packs/hotfixes. Having a heavy programming background primarily on unix-based platforms, I do not understand the Microsoft community's compulsion to reboot servers. I have set up several NT servers. Most of these stay up for around a year before something happens to them that brings them down, but mostly I see no issues. It was only through misinformation that we went with the upgrade to MF18 (our vendor told us that we had to upgrade in order to maintain a higher level of availability, faster connections, and the ability to bypass the Citrix login without hard coding it into the client).

Anyhow, I'll start testing this system with reboots and see if I get any greater app availability. I'll also post my results to the web and place the link in this thread at a later date.

Thanks for all your help.

BTW - That vendor also misinformed me about the ability of the Load Balancing option. It is nice to know who you can trust. Thanks again!

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Quick note: I agree. With WinFrame I had servers up for 2 years at some sites.

My own theory is that Microsoft never seem to get their products right until version 3.

WinFrame was based on Windows NT 3.51, but the kernel was modified by Citrix. It worked.

MetaFrame is an add-on to Microsoft NT4 Terminal Server Edition. Read Terminal Server, version 1. Most sites I have worked on schedule a weekly reboot.

Things seem a lot more solid with Windows 2000, though, although Windows may never be as reliable as UNIX! Have you tried Metaframe for Unix?

 

[soy4soy]

I use Win2k on the side and believe it to be the exception to Microsoft's track record as far as stability goes (I will not delve deeper into this subject as it is off topic).

However, I have no plans to further upgrade this system to Win2k. At least not in the near future.

I am aware that Citrix makes Metaframe for Unix, but I have not yet tried it. It would seem to me that I would have to find a Unix application that I would want to publish to my users. Is this true?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Maybe we should start a new thread on MFU, if there are enough takers.

MFU is the same as MFW, only for UNIX(!). You don't have to publish applications - users can just logon to a Desktop. The value of this depends on your requirements, since there are applications such as Metascybe Connect OSI, which allow a windowed connection to a text-based terminal interface on a variety of "other" platforms, such as UNIX.

I hope this is useful.