Metaframe XP Problem 1

[NikeGuy23]

Hi all, we have just finished migrating all of our 1.8 servers to Metaframe XP. We are currently still running in mixed mode and have no other 1.8 servers on the farm or network. Ever since bringing 2 other servers onto the farm (also running Metaframe XPE) we have been having all sorts of problems. For instance at some points people can get on other times they recieve the message Cannot connect to the Citrix Server: Transport Driver Error. There does not seem to be any pattern to this. We have removed the other two servers that were on the farm and have them powered off and the one server that was working fine is now acting the same way. Is this because we have not switched to Native mode yet? We have been told not to do so by a consultant ( I have no idea why not) or are we missing something! Any help would be appreciated!
Thanks

 

[gbiello]

Are these users inside the network or outside? If you're going through a firewall or proxy server, you may have to check the 'firewalls' button in Program Neighborhood.

-gbiello

 

[NikeGuy23]

they are all inside and not going through a firewall! We have looked at that but thanks for the response! Anyone Using Metaframe XP and publish a desktop and only be able to get it in 800x600 when it is set on the server to run % of screen ?

 

[CitrixEngineer]

There should be no issues running in mixed mode with 1.8 servers - I have had a few setups like this. One thing I did was to ensure that none of the 1.8 servers could become Master Browser.

Quite often, IME, if a connection cannot be made to a Citrix server, it is because of a name resolution issue, generally in DNS. This is always worth taking a look at.

Also, check the Server Location field in the clients. This should at least point to the Master Browser, if there are connectivity issues.

I have never tried using the % of screen option, but that does seem odd. Are there any restrictions at all on the server?

Hope this helps CitrixEngineer@yahoo.co.uk

 

[cnorris517]

I have experienced a similar problem. With a XPa farm that was built to replcae a 1.8 farm. It is not running in mixed mode and never has been. Both the 1.8 servers are on a different subnet and have been disabled. I have found that I can resolve the server names using either fqdn or netbios names and I can also telnet to the servers and recieve the standard ICA prompt. However the client says it cannot connect. There is no packet loss on the network that I can discern and the latency is next to nothing. I have found that if I use the TS client I can connect and although my testing of it has been minimal Nfuse seems unaffected by the problems. I have upgraded to the latest client which caused more problems so got backed out. One thing I did find was that the problem only seems to affect published applications in the program neighbourhood. If I create a direct connection to an application it works fine

 

[NikeGuy23]

Here's a new twist for anyone! We are still having the same problems as above but now we have found that the Metaframe XP server allows people in every 5 min then it stops for 5 min or so! Is there any kind of restrictions on the TCP/IP listener? We can't seem to figure this one out!

 

[cnorris517]

During a period when the server is not accepting connections can you see if there are any idle sessions open. These will be sessions that only show up on the sessions tab and have no user name but the word idle in brackets as their name. Don't confuse these with sessions which are idle user sessions and have an idle period beside them. The purpose of the idle sessions is to maintain a session ready for users to connect so that when one of the protocol listeners (You should have two for each protocol, one ica and one rdp) recieves a connect response the background resources that handle this connection and ultimately the citrix users environment are already prepared and sitting, you guessed it, "Idle" waiting. Typically there are two idle sessions at anyone time each session can only handle one user. When and Idle session is used up another one is started, sometimes there can be a delay in starting these sessions and when this happens users cannot connect. You can increase the amount of idle sessions using the registry I believe the key is hklm\system\currentcontrolset\control\terminal server\idlewinstationpoolcount but I would double check this first. If you cannot see any idle sessions try connecting using the terminal services client. If this connects it will prove that the underlying terminal services is working and the problem lies with citrix not microsoft. Also if you can connect using the terminal services client try connecting across nfuse (if you have it) and also try performing the following
start a command prompt from the client machine
type &quot;telnet <server> 1494&quot; without the quotes where <server> is your citrix servers name or ip address
You should get back a prompt that says ICA it will continue to repeat the ICA prompt on the same line every few seconds until you close the dos box. If you get this prompt it shows that the server is up and accepting ica connections. Let me know if you have this situation then you are experiencing exactly what we are here. I'm currently talking to citrix about this so as soon as we resolve the issue I'll update this thread.
Cheers
Chris

 

[jpa69]

This is worrying!

This sounds exactly the same as the problems we were having on our metaframe 1.8. We are shortly creating a new seperate W2k domain and installing a new Metaframe XPe farm. I was hoping this problem was going to die when I pulled the plug on the old metaframe server.

CNORRIS is on the right track. Try these to see if you get the same results when you can't connect:

Right click an idle session and click reset, then try to connect and it should be fine (let us know). OR

Log out (or reset) any user, then try to connect and it should be fine (let us know).

The thread of my original problem was:


thread48-266276 We spent a long time on this, we tried hotfixes, investigated licensing, and pulled out a lot of hair.

My gut feeling was the problem was something to do with WINS and IP resolution. We had recently added some W2k DNS servers and they were now running WINS on a new subnet.

I tried cleaning WINS out, but it was getting bad addresses from a partner. So I uninstalled it, but the partners kept talking to it, so I surgically removed it from the registry. The Citrix problem remained, so I built a new WINS DB and did not partner it at all. The problem seemed to get better, but it returned.

As this was a production server and I needed a fix, i decided to do a temporary botch job. I setup an NT Workstation with a schedule to launch a citrix session every few minutes. I modified the startup folder of that account to log out immediately. This works as long as the NTPC does not crash and provides a bit of breathing space.

If this problem is in Citrix XP I will seriously consider dumping Citrix, TS seems better now and there is always Netilla.

Please update this thread, I am keen to know how you get on.