Posted by Dave Thijssen Thursday 2 May 2013

One of our supliers initially reported this problem when they tried to log on remotely. Our admins, who were running the latest version of Citrix Receiver (3.4) because they're working on a new XenApp environment, could reproduce the problem. Therefore we first thought it was a general issue with the legacy farm. Fortunately this was not the case.

Symptoms:
  • Sessions seems slow, unresponsive. User input does not seem to be processed. This applies to seamless applications and desktops.
  • It seems like ICA screen updates are not received, although bytes are received when you check network traffic information in the Connection Manager.
  • After pressing Shift+F2 (toggle seamless mode) you will suddenly notice the screen updates that resulted from your input.

The Citrix Web Interface is enumerating applications normally. ICA sessions to the terminal server are succesfully established. This ruled out authentication, XML and STA related issues.

Cause:
Turns out this was simply an ICA client related problem. Citrix Receiver 3.4 seems incompatible with the Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 4.0 legacy farm. At least when using session reliability.

Update: the issue persists in Citrix Receiver 4.0.

Solution:
Use Citrix Receiver 3.3 or earlier.

... or (thanks to this post), you can set DeferredUpdateMode to False by editing your Windows registry.

On 32-bit systems
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Virtual Channels\Seamless Windows\

Download and import .reg key

On 64-bit systems
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Virtual Channels\Seamless Windows\

Download and import .reg key

A reboot is not required.

32 comments... read them below or respond.

  1. Good solution! thanks! this works

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  2. FYI, with the Receiver 4.0 the problem persists.

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  3. Just since I got past this topid during my search for a solution, I would better come back with my solution to the problem.
    - Have not testet 4.0 yet though.

    At the old metaframe platform --> Management Console -->
    Properties at the Farm --> ICA Settings.
    Removed the checkmark at "Discard redundant graphics operations"

    Solved the problem for me at 3.4 legacy PNA client

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  4. Thank you for your feedback. The problem indeed persists with Citrix Receiver 4.0. Disabling "Discard redundant graphics operations" at farm or server level does not resolve the problem for me. A reboot is pending. I'll check again afterwards. Note there will be a bandwidth penalty disabling this feature.

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  5. I've also run into this problem. When I roll the client backwards then I get "The network connection to your app was interrupted."

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    Replies
    1. I have seen the network connection interrupted error frequently with Receiver 3.0 and above connecting to Metaframe presentation server 4.0 on Unix. I opened a ticket with Citrix but they could not consistently reproduce it. I am able to consistently reproduce it by pressing the Enter key to reconnect to a session, when the reconnect pop up dialog appears. The work around is to wait 3-5 seconds and then "click" Reconnect. Not a great solution but nothing else works and no permanent fix yet.

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  6. I've previously had to roll multiple users back to Receiver 3.2 or 3.3 for this exact problem, but have run into one today that still runs into the refresh/display issue after rollback. Have to min/max the Citrix app window to display any inputs made. Anyone have any thoughts on a fix other than Receiver Versions?

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  7. Found this from a Citrix blog, the (deferred mode update) local machine registry tweak got citrix receiver 3.4 working again for us.

    "Rick

    on 1 month ago · Reply

    Is there any update to running the Citrix Receiver 13.4.0.25 with MPS 4.0 (XenApp 4.0 for Unix)? We recently were upgraded to Receiver 13.4 and it is completely unusable with Unix applications. Screen redraws for XTerms take 60 – 90 seconds. Weve tried changing the server configuration option for backingstore and timeouts, but had no luck. Weve also looked through the registry on the client, but didnt see anything out of sorts. We did notice that 13.4 uses 168 bit encryption, where as our last version (13.1) used 128 bit encryption. We turned off SSL encryption for a single application, but that didnt help either. Any advice for running 13.4 with XenApp 4.0 for Unix or is the recommendation still to stay at an earlier client version? Thanks.

    Rick

    on 1 day ago · Reply

    The fix for this is below. This fixes the issue in both Receiver 3.4 and 3.4.1 (Plugin 13.4 and 13.4.1). Thanks to the Citrix engineers that worked with us.

    Go to RegEdit and locate
    a. X86 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Virtual Channels\Seamless Windows\
    or
    b. X64 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Citrix\ICA Client\Engine\Lockdown Profiles\All Regions\Lockdown\Virtual Channels\Seamless Windows\
    Set DeferredUpdateMode to False (this is case sensitive)


    http://support.citrix.com/proddocs/topic/ica-settings/ica-settings-deferredupdatemode.html

    http://blogs.citrix.com/2012/12/28/receiver-for-windows-3-4-just-released/

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  8. This solution also works on Citrix Reciever 4.0.

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  9. Thank you!! Users are happy now.

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  10. Thanks. I can confirm this works. I'll update my post.

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  11. I'm using Reviever 3.3.0.17207 and i can confirm that i have no problem at all. Respect for mining the right minds in your quest.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYxLzKK2vsM

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  12. Thanks! Worked for me.
    I was already getting to the insanity point from this problem.

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  13. Any hint on how to activate this mode on MAC?
    I did not find any way to activate it on MAC

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  14. Great, it worked!! Now even my mother is happy again.

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  15. Many thanks for this. I was unable to use Citrix since I upgraded my machine to Windows 8.1 but this has now sorted it.

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  16. Thanks for your excellent Job.
    I have make a complement analysis and discover you can add in your ICA File
    DeferredUpdateMode=0 to avoid the issue.
    Ex:

    [Notepad-Mat]
    Address=Notepad-Virtuaprod
    InitialProgram=#Notepad-Virtuaprod
    DeferredUpdateMode=0

    With this method you dont need to patch you Desktop in registry.
    You can also customize your webinterface ( default.ica )
    I'll write a full article about it in my blog.
    Thanks

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    Replies
    1. Googling around and finally found this! Saved my day!

      Delete
  17. It works for me.

    Thanks for the solution, I can upgrade my Citrix receiver and IE

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  18. two days beating my head against a wall..... This fixed my issue...... You rock....

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  19. thank you very much. He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The change in the record has been 100% effective

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  20. The 32bit version of this fix works excellently, However, when applying to a 64bit registry and launching a PS4 Farm app under a 4x version of Receiver the setting reverts from False to *
    Has anyone else had this issue or can someone suggest what could be happening or how it could be resolved? Thanks

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  21. UPDATE: I've found that the most reliable method to set the Deferred screen update mode to FALSE on the client is to modify the Default.ica file on the WI Site or Service site. This eliminates the need to modify each connecting client (user might not have permissions to change registry values).

    Deferred screen update mode:

    The parameter Deferred screen update mode defers graphical updates to the screen so that several updates are done in one batch operation. This speeds up the updates especially on slow machines with a poor refresh rate. The effect is very noticeable when the screen contents refreshes rapidly, e.g. during scrolling.
    - PN/Webinterface: Add DeferredUpdateMode in the section [WFClient], values: True/False

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  22. THX!! worked when I changed the config on the Default.ica. No server reboot and no IIS or else restarted.

    Frank

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  23. Many thanks it works.

    Regards

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  24. Perfect !! Many Thanks

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  25. Thank you very very much, its so annoying.

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  26. Found this post accidentally, we have an ancient Metaframe XP Farm because of one very old, but still needed software. Thank this it's working even with Receiver 4.4!
    Many thanks!

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  27. Thanks so much for the posting the reg files, work like a charm with Citrix Workspace even in 2019.

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