How to troubleshoot Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops logon and logoff issues

Troubleshooting Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops logon and logoff issues #

Citrix troubleshooting

During Citrix VAD user logon, it is possible that one of the following issues occurs:

  • The user cannot open the Citrix Gateway or Storefront Receiver for Web HTML page or the user cannot connect to the Citrix Gateway or Storefront endpoint directly from the Citrix Workspace App client. In this case, basic network and name resolution (DNS) checks must be performed on the user’s endpoint. Also, checks must be made on the server side to validate that the Citrix Gateway and Citrix Storefront services are up and listening for user connections. It may also be needed to reset the end user’s Citrix Workspace App client by right clicking the client and choosing Advanced Preferences - Reset Citrix Workspace.
  • The user cannot authenticate to the Citrix Gateway vpn vserver or to the Citrix Storefront store and receives an error. Check the error code and search for a corresponding CTX article. Take a aaad.debug authentication trace in the Citrix Gateway. Also in this case refer to Citrix Tech Zone technical diagrams where a detailed explanation of the Citrix VAD user logon process flow is provided. It is critical to understand at which exact logon phase the error is thrown in order to properly isolate/eliminate the issue. The Citrix architecture diagrams describing the logon process flow are available at: https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/tech-zone/learn/diagrams-posters/virtual-apps-and-desktops.html (Citrix VAD on-prem) and https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/tech-zone/learn/diagrams-posters/virtual-apps-and-desktops-service.html (Citrix Cloud VAD service).
  • The user authenticates to the Citrix Gateway vpn vserver or to the Citrix Storefront store, but they cannot launch a virtual desktop or virtual app and receives an error. Check the error code and search for a corresponding CTX article. Also, as stated above, refer to the Citrix Tech Zone architectural diagrams for VAD. It is critical to understand at which exact logon phase the error is thrown in order to properly isolate/eliminate the issue. In this case you will need to determine the error messages received and you may also need to capture a network trace as described in the following article: https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235241.

During logoff, it is very rare that the user will encounter an application or operating system error. If this is the case however, you will need to track the error and search for a corresponding CTX article. The most usual issue with Citrix VAD user logoff however is that the local profile copy of the user is not properly deleted and there are leftovers in the C:\Users folder of the VDA server. In this case a graceful logoff and profile cleanup cycle must be performed for the user. Refer to the following article for more details: https://stefanos.cloud/kb/how-to-perform-graceful-fslogix-profile-cleanup/. This applies to both Citrix Profile Management (CPM) and to FsLogix profiles.

To logoff a user from a VDA machine, the following steps should be followed in the order provided:

  1. Logoff the user from the Citrix Director console.
  2. Logoff the user directly from the VDA server task manager or by using a Powershell script.
  3. Follow instructions in the following article to force-logoff a user: https://www.jgspiers.com/user-stuck-citrix-desktop-force-log-off/. This sets the hidden flag in a user session, thus forcing the user to logon to another VDA so that you don’t have to worry about logging all users from the VDA in question in order to reboot.

To cleanup any local profile leftovers in the C:\Users folder of the VDA server, make use of the Delprof user profile deletion tool.

You can find more detailed guidance and step-by-step procedures for analyzing and troubleshooting Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops organized by category in my Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Troubleshooting e-book.

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