Teams Optimization recommendations / experiences?

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

We are just starting to try Teams video/audio calls w/our Windows clients (using the latest Workspace app and 1912 VDA ) and having mixed results......In some cases it works just fine but in others audio calls sound robotic/choppy and video can be super grainy (like a webcam feed from the late 90s).   In those cases the pre-view of your own video feed looks perfect.....curious what others experience has been.   Also if anyone has best practice recommendation for Citrix policies, setups they've found help?  We currently arent using UDP for audio but looking into that in case that might help.

 

any advice here would be appreciated!  thank you

[Daniel Szomboti]

9 hours ago, Andrew Gresbach1709152664 said:

We are just starting to try Teams video/audio calls w/our Windows clients (using the latest Workspace app and 1912 VDA ) and having mixed results......In some cases it works just fine but in others audio calls sound robotic/choppy and video can be super grainy (like a webcam feed from the late 90s).   In those cases the pre-view of your own video feed looks perfect.....curious what others experience has been.   Also if anyone has best practice recommendation for Citrix policies, setups they've found help?  We currently arent using UDP for audio but looking into that in case that might help.

 

any advice here would be appreciated!  thank you

Differences in performance should not be observed, only some feature gaps listed at bottom here: https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/multimedia/opt-ms-teams.html

 

Maybe good to get familiar with this article as it has all the recommended steps. It could be related to CPU offloading not being supported for cameras. Given UDP is not an uption yet, are 100% native Teams on same endpoint does well? 

Regards,
Daniel 

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

thank you for your input here!  so to start yes if we run teams native on the windows client everything works perfect so i think the specs are not the issue here.   It doesn't sound like i'm alone w/ these weird sound/video issues w/ the teams optimization at least recently as i'm reading around on it.   I SHOULD have most everything in that article taken care of as far as the allusers install,  up to date workspace client and VDA .....and i can confirm it DOES show optimized.    Like i was saying when i start a video call the video preview looks great, its when the call actually starts it is starting to go south on us so just was curious how to even troubleshoot that (what end it could be at, what else is affecting it).    So is the UDP audio option not worth digging into for this specific issue ya think?  was just a thought as i've known that can help w/ some other voip situations

[Daniel Szomboti]

Ok, well in that case we can certainly take traces and have a look. Can you open a TS case to my attention?

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

On 5/7/2020 at 9:38 AM, Daniel Szomboti said:

Ok, well in that case we can certainly take traces and have a look. Can you open a TS case to my attention?

great thank you! i'll open a case this morning .....should i just add your name in the notes and it will get redirected to you ?

[Daniel Szomboti]

1 hour ago, Andrew Gresbach1709152664 said:

great thank you! i'll open a case this morning .....should i just add your name in the notes and it will get redirected to you ?

Depends what GEO you are located in, if Europe yes. Regardless I will be working with that engineer if it's Teams :) 

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

1 minute ago, Daniel Szomboti said:

Depends what GEO you are located in, if Europe yes. Regardless I will be working with that engineer if it's Teams :) 

thanks! i am on the phone w/ the tech now actually.  they are saying even though we are running the 1912 workspace for windows and 1912 VDA,  it may not work because our DDCs are still on 7.15.2000.....would that sound right?  we are planning a maintenance window to get those DDCs upgraded to 1912 soon but i thought just the VDA agent and Workspace were the critical pieces here?   i'm actually having inconsistent behavior now where my teams client doesnt even show optimized when it should nor does it always see the usb headset/mic (even though they are showing as redirected to the session

[Daniel Szomboti]

20 hours ago, Andrew Gresbach1709152664 said:

thanks! i am on the phone w/ the tech now actually.  they are saying even though we are running the 1912 workspace for windows and 1912 VDA,  it may not work because our DDCs are still on 7.15.2000.....would that sound right?  we are planning a maintenance window to get those DDCs upgraded to 1912 soon but i thought just the VDA agent and Workspace were the critical pieces here?   i'm actually having inconsistent behavior now where my teams client doesnt even show optimized when it should nor does it always see the usb headset/mic (even though they are showing as redirected to the session

 

DDC doesn't matter. The only think is you will have to create the regkey to activate the MS Teams optimization feature manually. 7.15 DDCs don't have the Studio policy. 

Regards,

Daniel

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

1 hour ago, Daniel Szomboti said:

 

DDC doesn't matter. The only think is you will have to create the regkey to activate the MS Teams optimization feature manually. 7.15 DDCs don't have the Studio policy. 

Regards,

Daniel

so in our case where the VDA is 1912, and DDC's are 7.15.2000 (upgrading this weekend to 1912 cu1) would we need to do anything?   we were told we cant get supports help w/out having the DDCs to 1912 so going to get that done first.   I sent you what my current ticket # is (i think it was archived now) so any help you might have would be  appreciated!

[Daniel Szomboti]

Tehnically you need that version of DDC so you get the Studio policy as I mentioned, else the UI doesn't have it. 

You can still enable the feature though by registry: 

 

Enable optimization of Microsoft Teams

To enable optimization for Microsoft Teams, use the Studio policy described in Microsoft Teams redirection policy (it is ON by default). In addition to this policy being enabled, HDX checks to verify that the version of Citrix Workspace app is equal to or greater than the minimum required version. If you enabled the policy and the Citrix Workspace app version is supported, the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Citrix\HDXMediaStream\MSTeamsRedirSupport registry key is set to 1 automatically on the VDA. The Microsoft Teams application reads the key to load in VDI mode.

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/multimedia/opt-ms-teams.html

Daniel

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

yup w/out having the DDCs upgraded yet we already have had that HKCU  key in place w/ the 1912 VDA so that makes sense.  so what do we do when we have that key in place and Teams still doesn't show "optimized" or show the USB. webcam/headset even though it shows as redirected and optimized in the Citrix toolbar? (and works in other apps) just so we know the next troubleshooting steps other than just the usual cdf traces and wait for results?  

 

on a similar note, when it DOES work, is it expected behavior right now to show a HD preview of myself but the other side see's a pretty rough looking video ? (ie. my side see's what looks like 720p and the other side 320p).  curious if thats just how it works right now w/ WebRC since if i. get a call from a physical laptop w/ Teams it doesnt seem to degrade the video like that

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

On 5/15/2020 at 11:00 AM, Daniel Szomboti said:

Tehnically you need that version of DDC so you get the Studio policy as I mentioned, else the UI doesn't have it. 

You can still enable the feature though by registry: 

 

Enable optimization of Microsoft Teams

To enable optimization for Microsoft Teams, use the Studio policy described in Microsoft Teams redirection policy (it is ON by default). In addition to this policy being enabled, HDX checks to verify that the version of Citrix Workspace app is equal to or greater than the minimum required version. If you enabled the policy and the Citrix Workspace app version is supported, the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Citrix\HDXMediaStream\MSTeamsRedirSupport registry key is set to 1 automatically on the VDA. The Microsoft Teams application reads the key to load in VDI mode.

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/multimedia/opt-ms-teams.html

Daniel

Hey Daniel,  alright so we have our DDCs upgraded to 1912 cu1 and still having horribly inconsistent results in getting Teams to run in optimized mode.  I reopened the case # i sent you a PM on and had client/vda & DDC logs.  They sent me a citrix link w/ the teams optimization troubleshooting which was very helpful.  However I was told that they are unable to send the logs to the dev team  unless it happens again.  I sometimes can fix it by rebooting my desktop but not always and right now i cant get it working at all (one time ran in non-vdi mode and the rest not connected mode and cannot get it to trigger the hdxteams.exe process on the client.  I took more logs and asked to please send both sets of logs off asap if possible but not sure where it will lead.  would you be able to help? we're on a pretty tight time frame here before we have execs looking to test this on Friday/ Monday so hoping you can .  If so let me know what you need and i'm happy to help.  thank you!

[Daniel Szomboti]

We are very interested in these issues as we can't repro them ourselves. What's the case ID and I'll reach out tohave a live debug session.

 

(long shot that I noticed at some customers. Disable de default audio devices on endpoint, especially if they run on a default Microsoft driver)

 

Regards,

Daniel

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

3 hours ago, Daniel Szomboti said:

We are very interested in these issues as we can't repro them ourselves. What's the case ID and I'll reach out tohave a live debug session.

 

(long shot that I noticed at some customers. Disable de default audio devices on endpoint, especially if they run on a default Microsoft driver)

 

Regards,

Daniel

thanks!  i'll shoot you a PM on here now w/ the case ID and contact #.  I have it acting up right now if you get any time just let me know!

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

one other update on the topic of quality on the video i found this helped quite a bit setting the override key on the client.  is there a reason it might dumb it down when it seems to be clearly capable of handling the higher resolutions (like when we set the override?) .  either way great to have that control

 

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-workspace-app-for-windows/configure.html#endpoint-encoder-performance-estimator-on-microsoft-teams

[Daniel Szomboti]

17 hours ago, Andrew Gresbach1709152664 said:

one other update on the topic of quality on the video i found this helped quite a bit setting the override key on the client.  is there a reason it might dumb it down when it seems to be clearly capable of handling the higher resolutions (like when we set the override?) .  either way great to have that control

 

https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-workspace-app-for-windows/configure.html#endpoint-encoder-performance-estimator-on-microsoft-teams

Sorry was away yesterday for most day. It's because VP9 can be very CPU demanding. Until a bit more field testing is done we took the safe approach. This is being fine tunned in every release. Same as in RTOP it took a while to find the perfect point. 

Daniel 

[Andrew Gresbach1709152664]

That makes sense......so if we have a standard 10zig Windows 10 thin client that we are going to be deploying to everyone where we're seeing the scaled back resolution with Teams and  found that by ONLY adding the OverridePerformance key (to say a value of 3) that it dramatically improves the video resolution in Teams, would that be safe to add to the image for those devices for now?  thought process here would be that its a client that seems to handle that resolution fine .  I'd be concerned that having that there for a user at home w/ a bad internet connection might have performance issues since we're forcing it to 720p rather than letting auto determine what it should be (but it sounds like VP9 should be lower on bandwidth so maybe ok?

[Daniel Szomboti]

On 5/23/2020 at 4:31 AM, Andrew Gresbach1709152664 said:

That makes sense......so if we have a standard 10zig Windows 10 thin client that we are going to be deploying to everyone where we're seeing the scaled back resolution with Teams and  found that by ONLY adding the OverridePerformance key (to say a value of 3) that it dramatically improves the video resolution in Teams, would that be safe to add to the image for those devices for now?  thought process here would be that its a client that seems to handle that resolution fine .  I'd be concerned that having that there for a user at home w/ a bad internet connection might have performance issues since we're forcing it to 720p rather than letting auto determine what it should be (but it sounds like VP9 should be lower on bandwidth so maybe ok?

 

Well VP9 does a better job at compressing the data but that comes at the cost of CPU to decompress all that. H264 is around for a long time and extensively used by Skype, etc. If the endpoint do well with Skype I would turn off VP9. To a normal user the bandwidth saving between VP9 and H264 aren't that significant, let's be honest he will not be receiving 4K for sure. As well H264 SVC is very good at adapting to lower bandwidth scenarios. I would go H264 and high performance. 

[Pete Liebermann]

Just to add an experience/issue we have had with teams and using Citrix HDX Optimization...

 

if two Citrix users have teams HDX Optimization running  and try and screen share, neither screens will show. 
 

if one person has team HDX Optimization working and screen shares to a user without Optimization, the screenshare works. And vice versa.
 

if two Citrix users with Optimization running and a 3rd user without Optimization running, and then they can all see the screenshare. 
 

not got to the bottom of this so if anyone has had similar issues and found a resolution that would be appreciated. 
 

We are CVAD 2003, 

VDAs are server 2016

tried with teams machine wide installer versions v1.3.00.4461 and v1.3.00.13565

 

thanks

 

pete

[Daniel Szomboti]

2 hours ago, Pete Liebermann said:

Just to add an experience/issue we have had with teams and using Citrix HDX Optimization...

 

if two Citrix users have teams HDX Optimization running  and try and screen share, neither screens will show. 
 

if one person has team HDX Optimization working and screen shares to a user without Optimization, the screenshare works. And vice versa.
 

if two Citrix users with Optimization running and a 3rd user without Optimization running, and then they can all see the screenshare. 
 

not got to the bottom of this so if anyone has had similar issues and found a resolution that would be appreciated. 
 

We are CVAD 2003, 

VDAs are server 2016

tried with teams machine wide installer versions v1.3.00.4461 and v1.3.00.13565

 

thanks

 

pete

Hi Pete. 

 

We identified an issue in latest build of Teams. Could you tell me that when you can;t see the screenshare if you minimize it by clicking on chat or other Teams, basicaly it goes to top corner. Does it start showing? 

Regards,

Daniel 

[Pete Liebermann]

 

22 minutes ago, Daniel Szomboti said:

Hi Pete. 

 

We identified an issue in latest build of Teams. Could you tell me that when you can;t see the screenshare if you minimize it by clicking on chat or other Teams, basicaly it goes to top corner. Does it start showing? 

Regards,

Daniel 

Hi Daniel

 

I have just tried this on v 1.3.00.4461 and still no joy. I will test with a 1.3.00.13565 later. 
 

but following your advice found something more strange. If I share my screen and then the other user clicks on the chat tab in teams the screen share works but only in the the small chat window...I’ve attached picture to make this a bit clearer to what I mean. 
 

as soon as you click on the small chat window to expand the chat, the screen share stops working again.

 

thanks

 

pete

[Daniel Szomboti]

35 minutes ago, Pete Liebermann said:

 

Hi Daniel

 

I have just tried this on v 1.3.00.4461 and still no joy. I will test with a 1.3.00.13565 later. 
 

but following your advice found something more strange. If I share my screen and then the other user clicks on the chat tab in teams the screen share works but only in the the small chat window...I’ve attached picture to make this a bit clearer to what I mean. 
 

as soon as you click on the small chat window to expand the chat, the screen share stops working again.

 

thanks

 

pete

Yep, that's the bug. Open a support case and reference me - will keep you posted. We are working with MS on it. 

Daniel 

[Pete Liebermann]

Thanks Daniel, will do!

 

Thanks

 

Pete