Any tips for configuring audio in XenApp 7.15?

[TOM MCKEOWN]

Hi,

We have an app that is hosted on our XenApp site that does inventory control. We have a number of hand scanners to check items in and out of inventory. The app gives us audio feedback on good and bad scans. The app worked fine on XenApp 6.5 but I've been having troubles in 7.15. The audio is often intermittent, distorted or missing altogether. It's just a simple wav file the does a chime or a buzzer for errors. It's pretty critical that the end user can hear if the scan was good or bad. Sometimes it sounds fine but probably 50% of the time there is some issue with the audio.

What's the best way to make sure that audio get some priority treatment? Do I set it up as a policy? Are there other options on how best do what I need to accomplish?

 

Thanks for the help.

[Neil McLoughlin]

Hi,  yes you can configure Audio using the Policy settings.  A good first port of call maybe to switch the Audio settings to TCP rather than UDP.  If you look in the policy settings there is a setting called "Audio over UDP real-time transport".  Set that to disabled to force over TCP.  I have attached a screenshot with these settings.  Have a play with the Audio quality also. 

 

For more info have a look here -https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/xenapp-and-xendesktop/7-15-ltsr/multimedia/audio.html

 

Let me know how you get on! 

[TOM MCKEOWN]

Thank you for the help. I really appreciate it. Disabling UDP did not have any effect on the problem. Here are the tests I made:

UDP, High = intermittent sound

TCP, High = intermittent sound

TCP, Medium = intermittent sound

UDP, Medium = less intermittent (I am testing further on this)

I wonder if there is a way to give priority to audio redirection to the client?

[Stephen Wagner1709160727]

Where you ever able to resolve this issue?  We do something very similar, barcode scanners, wav files, inventory... 

 

In our experience, we get sound in most cases.  Some it continues to work but others it just randomly stops...  Can't seem to find any reason. 

[TOM MCKEOWN]

We have not been able to get this working 100%. I think some of it may be due to network traffic but can't really say for sure. We recently upgraded our entire infrastructure and it did not seem to make it any better. I wouldn't mind if there were some latency if I could be guaranteed that the end users speakers would make a sound when scanning. 

[Stephen Wagner1709160727]

interesting.  thanks for the response.  by chance, have you happened to notice issues where specific hardware setups never have the issues where others always have the issue?  Also, are you still on LTSR 7.15?  If so, what release?

[TOM MCKEOWN]

yes, I am on 7.15 3000

I have not had any hardware that never shows the problem. Most people say they get about a 90% success rate. I do have one user that does something that completely stops it from working and the only recourse is to uninstall Citrix Receiver and reinstall it fresh. But, that's another story.

[Stephen Wagner1709160727]

I am not sure if this helps you, but it seems I have resolved our issue.

 

Most of our users are Windows 10, but some are Windows 7.  When the receiver first installs, many of our shop users do not have admin rights or even power user.  It seems in certain cases, there is a windows firewall rule added that blocks wfica32.exe on both TCP and UDP.  I have changed it from blocking to allow on the Domain policy and this has corrected the issue. Sound begins working immediately, no need to reconnect or anything of the sort.

 

For about 24 hours now it has been working.  We had not had a been able to pass an hour or two without a complaint during our rollout over the past week.

 

Hope you find your resolution, maybe this is it!