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The issue
Many people have encountered problems with clipboard (cut and paste) not working in Citrix XenApp ( formerly Presentation server/Metaframe) environment.
The cause
A not well behaving non-Citrix application can interfere with clipboard operation and cause problems with XenApp. A complete fix would require changes to the windows operating system.
Workaround exists but has limitations.
My colleague Dmitry Vostokov wrote a tool called RepairCBDChain to work around the issue. It works, but it is not easy to use, especially for end users.
A fix was incorporated in XenApp plugin (client)
Back in 2005 when I was still in Engineering department, I started tacking this problem. I found it a challenging but fun problem to solve since I can't modify bad third party applications nor the operating system. And the problem happens intermittently.
After quite some effort, I found a way to allow the XenApp Plugin to detect broken clipboard and fix it automatically. I was happy and thought my job was done.
Here is the detailed information about the fix. The fix has been included in XenApp plugin (client) since 2005 version 9.100.
Our internal tests showed that the fix was effective. Some people in our support forum and blog have also reported successful use of my fix.
http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=57670&tstart=0
http://forums.citrix.com/thread.jspa?threadID=88284&tstart=0
http://community.citrix.com/x/l4TeAQ
The fix is disabled by default unfortunately and was not well publicized.
The story didn't end though. To reduce potential side effects, the feature was disabled by default. I didn't agree with the decision but went alone. Unfortunately, the fix was buried in long release notes and not well publicized. As a result, not many people seem to know about the fix, including even XenApp experts. For example please see the comment section of this blog dated 2008 . And this blog. Another evidence is that RepairCBDChain is still one of the top downloaded knowledge base articles recently. I am disappointed that users haven't benefited as much from my hard work as they should have been.
Should it be enabled by default now?
I wonder if this fix should be enabled by default now. After all, what good is a fix if people don't know how to take advantage of it? In my opinion, the fix doesn't have much risk. If it does have bad side effects, after all these years, people would have reported problems with the fix already. What do you think?
Related articles.
Citrix KB articles about clipboard issues
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX104631
Articles about RepairCBDChain tool.
http://support.citrix.com/article/CTX106226
http://www.dumpanalysis.org/blog/index.php/2007/06/21/repair-clipboard-chain-201/
http://www.dumpanalysis.org/blog/index.php/2006/12/09/clipboard-issues-explained/
Jeff's blog about clipboard in general.
http://citrixblogger.org/2007/05/27/the-citrix-clipboard-part-i/
http://citrixblogger.org/2007/05/30/the-citrix-clipboard-part-ii/
Ray (Ruiguo) Yang
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Comments (7)
May 28
Shawn Bass says:
Yes it should be enabled by default. While you guys incorporated this into the ...Yes it should be enabled by default. While you guys incorporated this into the ICA 9.x client often times people don't know these things are sneaked in if the fix info isn't readily made available. And yes, I realize these are published with the release notes, but many times the ICA Clients and Server hotfixes have so many CPRs, etc. it's a PITA to read all of them. So I'm at fault as much as the next guy for not knowing these things are in there. As far as making the change, is the HKLM reg method an effective alternative to modifying the WFClient section of the AppSrv.ini? Because getting changes into a user profile's AppSrv.ini is a PITA.
Thanks.
Shawn
May 29
Ruiguo Yang says:
Hi Shawn, Thanks for your comment. I don't think it is users' fault for not kn...Hi Shawn,
Thanks for your comment.
I don't think it is users' fault for not knowing the fix can be turned on. It took me a bit of digging to find out the information myself and I created the fix!
HKLM reg method should work. But I haven't tried it myself. I looked it up in the admin guide but haven't found the relevant information. I will check with my engineering friends and get back to you. Maybe this will be another topic for my blog. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Regards,
Ray Yang
Anonymous replies:
Jun 08
Ruiguo Yang says:
Hi Shawn, My friend in Engineering confirmed that the Reg Key method should wor...Hi Shawn,
My friend in Engineering confirmed that the Reg Key method should work.
I am putting a request to enable this setting by default and add it to the adm template.
Regards,
Ray
May 29
Jim Moyle says:
Yep, definitely enable it by default, as long as you put a setting in the icacli...Yep, definitely enable it by default, as long as you put a setting in the icaclient.adm template to turn it off.
May 29
Ruiguo Yang says:
Jim, Thanks for the comment. I agree with your suggestion. Ray YangJim,
Thanks for the comment.
I agree with your suggestion.
Ray Yang
Jun 07
Alastair Cunningham says:
Amazing. I've been selling and supporting XenApp for years and I was totally una...Amazing. I've been selling and supporting XenApp for years and I was totally unaware of this. About 6 months ago I opened a support ticket with Citrix for a customer who had this very issue, and I was directed to download the RepairCBDChain tool by Citrix support to correct the issue, so it would appear that even Citrix support are unaware of this feature.
In the end I put together a solution based on ArsClip but it wasn't as tidy as I would have liked. I'll be informing the customer of this fix immediately.
Absolutly this should be enabled by default in the XenApp client on XP and below (I understand clipboard chain issues do not exist on Vista/2k8 and above). Or as a minimum, functionality should be exposed in the XenApp client GUI. If this feature had been visible as an option I could have resolved the customers issue within 5 minutes instead of having to dive into the world of clipboard chains and third party utils!
Jun 08
Ruiguo Yang says:
Alastair, Thanks for the comment! I've checked the client adm file. This setti...Alastair,
Thanks for the comment!
I've checked the client adm file. This setting is not exposed. I was told that engineering team is gradually adding settings to adm file.
Your comments help me build the case for exposing this setting more explicitly.
Regards,
Ray
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