Terminal Server losing Profiles of users!!! Please help!

[tekkid]

Hey Guys,

Last week we experienced a problem with one of our 7 Terminal Servers. When someone would log into Terminal Server #7, it would give them "Welcome to Terminal Server" Screen and their profile would be lost. I would have to set their desktop back up the way it was before.

Today, the same thing is happening to Terminal Server #5. When a user logs into the server its as if they are logging into the server for the very first time. All the icons the user had setup are no longer there. Basically, terminal server is NOT loading the roaming profile for the users.

TS #5 had about 20 users logged in already ( with no problems with their profiles ) before this started happening this morning. All subsequent logins do not load the roaming profile.

When we reboot the server it resolves the issue. But with users already logged in this is a last resort method and doesnt take care of the issue permanantly.

We are using Microsoft Terminal Server NT 4.0, Service pack 6 > Citrix Metaframe 1.8, Service pack 3 > Clients are running multiple windows OS

Please help if you can.


kidd

dglidewell@magmgt.com

 

[mberni]

Hi,
we experienced loads of problems with MF 1.8. In the meantime we have upgraded to WIN2000 and Metaframe XP and are not having any major problems. Very nice solution.

Maybe you should do an upgrade.

 

[BeerGood]

Most likely this is being caused by a memory leak on the server (see

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;237706).

Monitor the memory usage and see if there's anything specific that's eating memory on your server(s). Otherwise you can always take the "cheat's" way out (;-)) and schedule regular reboots.....

Cheers

 

[CitrixEngineer]

I don't think it's cheating to reboot regularly - especially with NT4 TSE. I have a weekly cycle on all my W2k Terminal Servers. With TSE, two cycles may be necessary - depending on what applications you're running.

I agree that this is far more likely to be a Terminal Services issue with Roaming profiles than a Citrix-related issue - upgrading would not necessarily clear the problem, since roaming profiles are not an inherent part of the functions of MetaFrame.

It may be to do with the MaxWorkItem setting on the server that holds the roaming profiles - there's a good article on TheThin.net about this setting.

I hope this helps

 

[BeerGood]

I know it's not really the cheat's way out - or at least not for the system administrator. ;-) I've recommended it to many people over the years, and (of course) have also done it myself many times. It's more of a "cheat's way out" as far as making it a solution for a problem rather than resolving the actual issue itself. Obviously it's better to find the cause of the problem so that a reboot is not necessary, and (more importantly) in case the problem gets worse or potentially causes other issues, but sometimes it's just so hard to do it's simply not worth the effort.

It just causes me a bit of pain when I have to suggest it, when I've had netware/unix/linux servers that have literally been running for years without requiring a reboot.... Sits back in the rocker, starts whitling a stick, and talks about the Netware server that had been running for three years and only was rebooted when the dust on it got so thick it caught fire.... (true story, actually)

Of course the whole aversion to rebooting equipment regularly did have a historic reason - as devices such as hard drives initially power up they used to cause a major strain on resources such as power supplies. Many old boxes would be running quite happily until a restart at which point power supplies would fail or hard drives "stick" or something else unpleasant would happen. (I remember one mini computer that had to have the banks of hard drives started up in sequence manually because if they were all started at the same time, the circuit breakers to the computer room would cut out). This is of course less of an issue with equipment now, so sometimes a scheduled "precautionary reboot" is perfectly acceptable!

Anyhow, I agree with CitrixEngineer in that it's likely to be a Terminal Services issue. Definitely track the memory usage and MaxWorkItem and, for the moment, perhaps look at scheduling that reboot! Long term, maybe think about migrating to Win2k (or even 2003 if you can afford the licenses etc).

Cheers