XenApp slow logon times, user get black screen for 20 seconds.

[Andy White1709154166]

Hello,

 

We use XenApp 7.6 with Windows 2012R2 on VMware 5.5.

 

Logon times have become slow recently for users, they get a black screen just before their XenApp desktop shows up for about 20 seconds.  How do we find out the cause of this?  Most profiles are under 100mb.

 

If I turn all the GPOs off apart from the UPM GPO it's still slow, if I turn it off logons are fast.

 

The first user logon on the VDAs everyday is always slow (we reboot every night) even with the Citrix Profile Manger service off and all GPOs.

 

Thanks

[Markus Lundberg1709157352]

Hi, 

We had this issue up with Citrix support a couple of weeks ago, the enviroment in that case are an 7.6 upgraded to 7.9 and then 7.11.The issue is still present even after upgrade to the latest version. 

 

The suggestions from Citrixsupport this time where:

1. Enable Legacy Graphic mode in Citrix policy, (workaround rather than a solution if you ask me) 

2.use Admin Approval Mode for the built-in Administrator account

 https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd851527(v=ws.11).aspx

 

No 2 at first seemed to help, but the error is still present. 

 

We also see that sometimes the login time decrease after a couple of successfull logins. 

[Joe Robinson]

I'm troubleshooting this in my environment.  I started removing "things" to eliminate them.  At this point, I have an RDP session, pointing to a UPM generated profile using RDS to handle the profile.  I'm able to reproduce my slowness issue in this scenario.

 

I found that removing HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ImmersiveShell\StateStore resolves the issue.  If I log off and back on, it's slow again -- the key is back.  Deleting it again allows me to log back in quickly.

 

If I reproduce the same test with UPM handing the profile - deleting this key doesn't fix it.

 

I'm still troubleshooting with Citrix, but I wanted to share this info to see if it helped anyone else.  I'll make sure to post our findings here, assuming they're related.  

[Andy White1709154166]

Hi Joe - I will try this too.

 

I know it's UPM related, if I go onto my test VDA and turn off the service called "Citrix Profile Management" and log in it's lightning fast.

 

What is still very where even with this service off is every night our VDAs are rebooted, but the first user on that VDA always gets the long black screen, users who log on after to the same VDA are much faster.

 

Weird.

 

I have a call open with Citrix, will keep you posted.

 

Andy

[Marco Zimmermann]

Hi Joe - I will try this too.

 

I know it's UPM related, if I go onto my test VDA and turn off the service called "Citrix Profile Management" and log in it's lightning fast.

 

What is still very where even with this service off is every night our VDAs are rebooted, but the first user on that VDA always gets the long black screen, users who log on after to the same VDA are much faster.

 

Weird.

 

I have a call open with Citrix, will keep you posted.

 

Andy

 

Thanks Andy and Joe

Just disabled UPM service, logon is much faster!

UPM profile is nearly empty so that shouldnt matter.

Please keep us updated.

 

Marco

[Andy White1709154166]

We restart our VDA's every night, but the first user logon to a VDA in the morning will always gets the 'black screen of death' (sorry).  

 

I just restarted a test VDA to simulate this and turned off the Citrix Profile Management services to see if this is also related, but the black screen is back and very long.  The second user is fine.

 

2 black screen issues then.

[Andy White1709154166]

Also if you reset the UPM profile the black screen is gone, but not for the first user of the day so 2 different issues.

 

Is there a way to compare profiles as I renamed a user profile that had the black screen and have his new one with loads in 20s?

[Kevin Scott1709153591]

I'm having the same issue. It seems to be really bad at first login then its shorter. Overall logins are around 30 seconds with a black screen, if anyone has any insight on how to resolve this, its much appreciated!

[Andy White1709154166]

Seems many of us get this.

 

I will chase Citrix tomorrow.

 

If the Citrix Profile Manager service is turned off on the VDA logons are almost instant or resetting the users UPM profile helps.

 

None of the above helps though on the first user logon of the day as the VDA's are rebooted at 2am.  We have 24 VDAs and the first user on each will get the back screen even with the Citrix Profile Manager turned off.

 

So 2 issues with the black screen.

 

What does that service do?  I guess it's all the little user settings are always available (Roaming profiles).  We redirect the desktop folder, IE favourites, Documents etc so most of their data roams anyway.

 

Hope to get this sorted as 100s of users complain about the slow logons.

[Kevin Scott1709153591]

All,

 

I engaged Citrix support and after some initial troubleshooting (Disable Status, Legacy Policy, Disable/Enable UPM), We then Disabled the following via GPO - Computer Configuration>administrative Templates>System>Logon and Disabled "Show first sign-in animation"

 

The 20 second black screen is now reduced to about 3 seconds, over-all logins took about 20 seconds.

[Andy White1709154166]

Will try this later! Is this for the black screen if a VDA is rebooted and the first user logs on? or the general black screen we are getting?

[Kevin Scott1709153591]

Andy,

 

I just tested this out after rebooting my server and I am still getting a 20 second black screen for the first login. After that the black screen its about 2 seconds. I'm still looking into this and will probably re-engage Citrix support. I'll post any updates as I hope everyone else will continue to do the same.

[Andy White1709154166]

Thanks, yes I will do the same, I have a goto meeting session with them tomorrow to do some more testing. I will keep you posted.

[Kevin Scott1709153591]

Just got off the phone for round 2 with Citrix support, after reviewing the login process getting 20 seconds of black screen at first login, then about 2 seconds for any login after that, we added the following exclusion to our UPM policy via Studio....

 

Profile Management

Exclusion List - Directories

Appdata\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Applications Shortcuts

 

We then rebooted our server, and tested first logon. The black screen appeared for about 4.5 seconds. I then logged off, logged back on and the black screen occurred for about 2 seconds. I rebooted the server again, first login took a total of 21 seconds (17 seconds for policies, 4 seconds black screen). 2nd login to the server took a total of 11 seconds (8 seconds for policies, 2 seconds of black screen).

[Andy White1709154166]

So could that be your fix? How did you know it was that?

[Kevin Scott1709153591]

So upon further testing this did NOT resolve my issue. It appears that during our troubleshooting steps, ,we temp. disabled UPM, which left my profile on the server and didn't remove it at log off. So when we re-enabled UPM, the profile on the server expedited the login process. I'm re-opening my case with Citrix, I'll update once I actually do find a solution. :)

[Andy White1709154166]

OK Kevin, I will let you know how I get on too.

[Kevin Scott1709153591]

Just as an update, Citrix recommended that I disable App Readiness service, which did not resolve the issue. I also upgraded my farm to XD 7.11 and UPM 5.5, still no resolution. First login took a total of 53 seconds (33 seconds for policies, 20 seconds black screen), 2nd login took 19 seconds (15 seconds for policies, 4 seconds black screen), man is this frustrating to figure out.

[Trond Eirik Haringvarstein]

Hi Andy, interesting thread.

 

Cut Director Interactive Session in half, add this registry key

 

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Serialize]

"StartupDelayInMSec"=dword:00000000

 

More details http://xenappblog.com/2016/optimize-logon-times/

 

UFH\SHC

 

As Carl said delete through GPP. I prefer to add Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\UFH\SHC to Citrix UPM exclusion list. More details http://xenappblog.com/2016/optimize-logon-times-os/

 

VDA Reboot

1st user logon/per server will always be slower (Shell Start in uberAgent) because everything is loaded into memory. That's why VDI have longer logon times compared to RDSH.

 

Disable UPM

Not a good idea, since Director logging will stop.

 

Eric

[Kevin Scott1709153591]

Eirik,

 

I've added all these items to my UPM policy and GPOs, still no luck with the 20 second black screen upon first login. Any login after that is under 20 seconds.

 

Kevin

[Andy White1709154166]

VDA Reboot

1st user logon/per server will always be slower (Shell Start in uberAgent) because everything is loaded into memory. That's why VDI have longer logon times compared to RDSH.

 

 

So does this mean there is no way to fix this?  Is there a way to get a fake user to log onto each VDA in the morning before a real user logs on  :)

[Kevin Scott1709153591]

Andy,

 

I was thinking he same thing, you could probably setup a session pre-launch to launch something like notepad, not sure if that would work or if you would have to actually launch a complete desktop. I'll test this out once I have more time as well.....

 

Kevin

[Trond Eirik Haringvarstein]

Hi Kevin & Andy.

 

The black screen shouldn't been there, but the fact is that the login times will be longer 1st user/1st user. Yes Andy, fake login could be scripted or done with something like Goliath Technologies, ControlUp or something custom.

 

In my mind everything below 15 sec for RDSH and 30 sec for VDI is awesome. From my blog post you'll see that I've got 5 second logon on Windows 2012 R2. The main Shell Start show stopper there is App-V & Turbo.net applications. If that is removed from the VM it's down to 3-4 seconds.

 

Eric

[Andy White1709154166]

Citrix really should of come up with something to take care of this though in my opinion. I will look at your blog.

[Andy White1709154166]

Eric#

 

So where is this key added, the VDA master image and pushed out?

 

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Serialize]

"StartupDelayInMSec"=dword:00000000

 

And is it to get the logon times closer to UberAgent as I know that seems more realistic rather than the first click from Receiver?

 

UberAgent any good, I can't seem to find a cost?

 

Thanks

[Trond Eirik Haringvarstein]

You could add that key to the Master Image or use (which I prefer) Group Policy Preferences.

 

Yes, the Director is off (because of Microsoft), Citrix even showed my blog post and my findings on their Partner Training Conference some time back.

 

uberAgent is awesome, you can use if for free, limited by Splunk data and trail license. Give it a spin.