Terminal Services Manager

[pmidwest]

I have a small 2003 R2 server farm (7 app servers) and for some reason every morning this week I’ve had reports of users not being able to access applications. They will hit the server and it will just sit there waiting for a response from the server.

When I try to access the server via RDP I get the grey color of the desktop but no icons or start menu. If I let the RDP session sit there for about 15 minutes everything will load up. When I go into TSM there is a Yellow or Green question mark over the server name.

When I go to reboot the server so that it will take connections again it will sit at the “logging off” screen for upwards of 30 minutes before it says “Shutting down” and then after another 30 minutes I have to go in and manually shut the machine off.

Anyone out there know why this would be happening? It was just one server doing it at the first part of the week and this morning I had to reboot 4 of my servers.

Any info would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance.

P.

 

[dberg35]

Did you purchase terminal service CALS? I believe 2003 server has 5.

 

[pmidwest]

We are actually using a Citrix knock off called ProPalms TSE… we have 250 licenses for it and when this is happening there are usually between 10 and 20 people connected to the server.

Like I said it was just 1 server on Monday and its gotten worse as the week goes on… I had to reboot 2 servers before going to Lunch.

 

[tfg13]

Anything in the logs? Has perfmon been run on these servers to find out what could be happening hardware wise? Any processes taking up unneeded resources?

 

[pmidwest]

There is nothing out of the ordinary in the logs, and doesn’t seem to be anything taking up resources… haven’t run perfmon yet… I was thinking that this was happening around every 6 to 7 hours but I tried to remote in this morning at about 6am and reboot one of the servers that was doing this and I got a call at about 8:45 this morning saying that it was down again.

It will allow people who are already connected to continue working… it just wont allow anyone else to log in. and the load balancer keeps trying to drop people off on these servers so we start getting all kinds of calls about how people cant access there applications. Then I’m stuck trying to get the server to take connections with out kicking people who are working offline.

 

[tfg13]

Have there been any DNS issues lately? Can you verify on one of the callers that is having connection issues is able to ping the server? Any DNS issues/network issues the servers are having? Is there one "license" server that issues the licenses for the ProPalms TSE? If so, is that server having issues with the app? Does the ProPalms TSE app install services? If so, maybe a restart of the services on all the servers (or just the license server) might solve connection issues? Any answers from ProPalms TSE?

From their support website:

http://www.propalms.com/support/knowledge_base/ciq/kb/mergedProjects/Admin Guide/whskin_homepage.htm

Application launch hangs at Connecting to Application Server message
Issue

Client cannot launch applications.
Symptom

When launching an application, the client hangs at the message box stating “Connecting to Application Server…”
Cause

Sometime, the system directs an error message or information message to the desktop before an application launches. If the user is running Propalms TSE with seamless windows enabled for this application and an administrator has disabled the “Show Logon Dialog During Seamless Windows Launch” option from the Propalms TSE Management Console, the message will not be visible to the user and user’s application appears to hang.
Resolution

To test if a user is experiencing the described behavior, disable seamless windows for the application in question, and ask the user to attempt the application launch again. If the application launches successfully without seamless windows enabled, please do one of the following:

Re-enable the Show Logon Dialog During Seamless Windows Launch as one of the Launch Pad properties in the Propalms TSE Management Console. Do so by clicking the Manage>Connection Settings>Update Connection Options. Scroll down Seamless Windows drop-down list box and select Except During Logon for the Seamless Windows option. This action will cause an error or message dialog box to be visible to the user before an application launch and the application can still run in seamless windows mode.

If a user still receives an error message before an application launch, have the user correct the error, and launch again.

 

[pmidwest]

No DNS issues that would be related to this. The ProPalms licenses are on the database server and that server is having no problems. The users can ping the server they are actually connecting… and the bit you posted from the knowledge base seems to be spot on… the only difference in the problem we are having here is that you get the system hang even when you log in via RDP if I don’t connect to each server via RDP first thing in the morning, when this problem starts to happen I have to wait upwards of 30 minutes before my RDP connection will show me anything other than the background of the desktop.

30 minutes go by and the start bar and icons load up… everything works fine I can move around in the system with no problems… if I open TSM I get the yellow question mark over the server name and it will hang… when I get out of TSM and try to restart the system it will hang… when the system comes back up its good for a while and then it will start doing it again.

This has happened on almost all my app servers at least once. This morning I’ve had to reboot one server 3 times and its only 10am… I’m almost thinking that something on a remote PC maybe causing this?

 

[tfg13]

Are these terminal servers set up in terminal server mode or remote administration mode? I only ask for the RDP issue and the TSM yellow quesiton mark. Something that I noticed on one of my servers was that the yellow question mark came up temporarily when it tried to refresh the list of all the servers in the domain. Are the servers in a domain? If so, have you verified that the domain can recognize these servers (from the domain controller, using ADUC, see if the properties of the servers will come up).

 

[pmidwest]

They are in terminal server mode (I'm pretty sure)

Yes when the servers are operating properly the question mark comes up for a split second when first opening TSM. But when this starts to happen the question mark just sits there…

The servers are in a domain and are recognized. In TSM there is the “This Computer” and then “All Listed Servers” under all listed servers I see the domain and when I double click on that all the servers are under it.

When the question mark is there if I click on the server under the domain in all servers, the right tabbed side of TSM turns grey and says something about gathering information on the server and it just sits there.

 

[pmidwest]

The problem didn’t crop up at all this weekend. We don’t have as many users online during the weekends and since it was Memorial Day yesterday there were not many people online. I checked in on the servers multiple times the past 3 days and never had a problem.

It makes me wonder if there isn’t something on a users PC causing this, the problem with that is we have over 500 users so it’s going to take a while to pin point it. Unless there is a tool out there that I don’t know about.

It seems like the terminal services is slowing down big time. Because it will take the connection but it won’t load anything right away, like I said before you have to wait 15 to 30 minutes to get anything more than a grey background screen.

 

[pmidwest]

And were back to it... I've had one server go down at 9am this morning.