Citrix Workspace performance on MacOS 10.14

[Walter Hopgood]

Was finally forced to upgrade to Citrix Workspace a few days ago.  Ever since then, performance is HORRIFIC.  I can open a Cerner application, then immediately get the "spinning beach ball".  Click search, wait for beach ball.  Enter first term, wait for beach ball.  Enter second term, wait for beach ball.  Click search.  Wait for beachball.

 

Have NOT had this issue in the past at all.  At this point it's going to take me five times as long to do my job because Citrix is causing horrible performance issues.

 

Edit: I found Citrix Receiver 12.9.1 downloads, uninstalled Workspace, and installed Receiver, and no performance issues.  So it's not me, my network connection, or my computer.  It's Workspace.

Edited October 10, 2018 by walterhpdx
Updating with Receiver information

[Tejus Adiga M]

Can you try out setting a configuration on Mac. Type the following command on Terminal app of mac and press enter.

 

defaults write com.citrix.receiver.nomas PreferMetalRendering -bool NO

 

Then Launch the session again.

 

Tejus

[Tejus Adiga M]

Thank you for your comments. We will be addressing the issues in the next upcoming release. In the meantime here is an Early Access Release (EAR) of CWA for macOS. 

 

Tejus

 

 

 

[Forrest Blair]

18.12 fixes some of the issues but hangs from time to time.  Still best solution is to roll back to Receiver 12.9.

[Christoph Kolbicz1709156882]

This setting even fixed the blurry screens in the Citrix Sessions since i've upgraded to Workspace App! 

[ali nadi gulec]

i have same issue after upgrading macOS 10.14. After one click mouse pointer became progress icon for 10 secs and do nothing. It is look like application performance issue not internet connection problem or anything else.

 

Citrix Version 12.3. Other Citrix Receiver versions did not work neither before upgrading nor now.

 

defaults write com.citrix.receiver.nomas PreferMetalRendering -bool NO 

After running this command and restarting appliation, there is no effect.

 

Thanks for help

Ali Nadi

ReceiverLogs_2018_10_19-22_08_38.zip

Sample of Citrix Viewer.txt

[petri nyberg]

My problem with Mojave (latest) and Workspace (latest)  is that it seems to hog memory up till whopping 115 GB and then MacOS decideds this is too much and quits a number of programmes.

Never had this kind of problems with earlier versions and have been using these for years!

[Ben Wedlake]

On 29/01/2019 at 7:10 AM, petri nyberg said:

 

Makes me wonder if the reported amount of memory is even real or is workspace somehow "fooling" MacOS here as everything is happening so fast?

 

I've watched this in Activity Monitor now and it seems to gain about 1gb/sec when it's in this mood which seems a "realistic" ascent.

 

I also managed to get it "stuck" yesterday, everytime I started a connection it immediately began consuming memory at this rate even after rebooting the host system. It had always been intermittent before, but Citrix was completely unusable most of yesterday until it for some reason decided to snap out of its funk. Of course as soon as I turned on logging it decided to be fine.

[Tejus Adiga M]

Hi walterhpdx,

 

Please attach the Full Logs of Workspace app.

Also Please open the Activity Monitor, Sample the Citrix Viewer process and attach the Sampled report. 

With this information, we will be able to resolve your issues with the Workspace app for mac.

 

Regards,

Tejus

[Sultan Shakir]

12 hours ago, Tejus Adiga M said:

Can you try out setting a configuration on Mac. Type the following command on Terminal app of mac and press enter.

 

defaults write com.citrix.receiver.nomas PreferMetalRendering -bool NO

 

Then Launch the session again.

 

Tejus

 

This worked perfectly!  Thank you Tejus.

[Walter Hopgood]

Yes!  That worked for me as well.  Thanks!!!

[Christoph Kolbicz1709156882]

Spoken too soon - this fixes the issues for published apps, but breaks full desktops completely. im using a 5k mac and the remote desktop does not scale anymore after using defaults write com.citrix.receiver.nomas PreferMetalRendering -bool NO

[Seth Grubman]

Tejus

 

Appreciate your help.  While the Terminal command you suggested allowed my application (Bloomberg) to open using Workspace App, it its incredibly slow and the windows do not refresh or render correctly.  

 

Hopefully, there will be a fix in the near future.

 

[Dean Miller1709160267]

6 hours ago, Christoph Kolbicz1709156882 said:

Spoken too soon - this fixes the issues for published apps, but breaks full desktops completely. im using a 5k mac and the remote desktop does not scale anymore after using defaults write com.citrix.receiver.nomas PreferMetalRendering -bool NO

I am experiencing the same issue after running the command line script. I tried restarting my MacBook and still experience the same. 

 

[Walter Hopgood]

And while performance for me has gotten much better (and an annoying issue that's plagued Citrix based Cerner on the Mac for 10+ years has finally been resolved), if you are logged in for a few hours, performance does degrade.  Not as horrible as before I set the PreferMetalRendering to NO, but still, there is a noticeable delay.  I'm wondering if it's a memory leak or something that only comes up after a few (3-5) hours.

[Steven Klemow]

I’ve tried the terminal command listed above, and I still prefer the user experience on Mac OSX 10.14 with the old Receiver app than Workspace, which I use to remotely access our hospital EMR (EPIC)—unsupported or no. Workspace drags, hangs, and has an interface that is reminiscent of a Windows emulator like the Parallels Access Virtual Machine. Citrix Receiver wasn’t perfect by any means, but it still reproduces my desktop experience from our hospital intranet much more seamlessly than Workspace, and I’m hoping Receiver will remain functional on Mojave until Workspace is substantially improved. 

[Walter Hopgood]

@Tejus Adiga M I don't know if it's just my hopefulness or if it's the fact that I've got my laptop docked, but the early release certainly is faster when it comes to screen painting of Citrix hosted applications.  Just a quick run through of our Citrix based MSFT Office and Cerner applications and none of the lag is there.  There's still a small lag when clicking open some menus (like the system doesn't register where your mouse is, so when you click there's nothing that opens because it didn't think your mouse was in the correct spot to click), but I can deal with that by waiting an extra half second.  If the screen painting issue is finally resolved as it appears to be, then I'll be happy.

 

FYI, I haven't used Podio, but signed up so I can leave you feedback - but I have no access to that space.

[Nian LIU]

@TejusAdigaM

 

thanks your help 

 

in fact after running your command and restarting application, 

 

"defaults write com.citrix.receiver.nomas PreferMetalRendering -bool NO"

 

the black screen is gone, but the screen and icon is getting huge..   i can not see the screen complete 

 

do you have any ideal to resolve it ? 

 

[Seth Grubman]

I followed Tejus suggestion to download the early release of the new Citrix Workspace to run Bloomberg on my Mac.  While the data loads faster, the main issue of incredibly long delays to actually type something on the screen persists.  The delays range from 5 minutes plus to never.  

 

Has anyone else experienced these long lag times when trying to type? 

[Richard Scianni]

On 11/14/2018 at 11:40 AM, Seth Grubman said:

I followed Tejus suggestion to download the early release of the new Citrix Workspace to run Bloomberg on my Mac.  While the data loads faster, the main issue of incredibly long delays to actually type something on the screen persists.  The delays range from 5 minutes plus to never.  

 

Has anyone else experienced these long lag times when trying to type? 

I have several users that are experiencing the same problems with the early release installed...spinning color wheel. 

[Matt Lax]

I have users experiencing this problem and have applied to the Early Release Program, but not yet heard back. I would very much appreciate anything for testing that aliveates some of these issues.

 

Thank you

[Walter Hopgood]

1 minute ago, Matt Lax said:

I have users experiencing this problem and have applied to the Early Release Program, but not yet heard back. I would very much appreciate anything for testing that aliveates some of these issues.

 

Thank you

Unfortunately, no.  Even though the spinning beachball issue is gone, there is still a severe lag between pointing and clicking, and an overall horrible performance in screen painting.  I abandoned the early release and went back to Receiver.

[Walter Hopgood]

11 hours ago, Forrest Blair said:

18.12 fixes some of the issues but hangs from time to time.  Still best solution is to roll back to Receiver 12.9.

 

Indeed.  I've provided debug data to Citrix for 18.12.  Hopefully they can get it right, and SOON.

[Forrest Blair]

Worse than I thought.  Using Mojave, composing emails in Outlook through Citrix hangs from time to time regardless of using 12.9 or 18.12.  Starting to look like Mojave is off limits entirely for use with Citrix for now.

[Bryon Rubery]

I just tried Workspace  18.12.0.12 (1812).  Pleased to see it now uses native resolution for Mac retina display - no more "blurry" screen.

 

Unfortunately, I still had to uninstall and go back to Receiver 12.9 again.  Curently Workspace 1812 is still unusable for me in Mojave.

 

I wasn't able to check every possible function, but the dealbreaker for me was this:  I use the Epic EMR.  A critical function is the ability to click on a link within a patient's chart and have a PDF "pop up".  In Receiver 12.9, I am able to load this PDF and view it in a second monitor (also a high priority for me).  

 

Workspace 1812 doesn't show the PDF at all - not in a secondary monitor, and not even in the primary monitor.  The PDF just can't be loaded at all.   I still get the message "Loading File" but then nothing else happens.  I've already checked, and no it is not loading behind other windows, etc.  It just isn't loading, or at least it is not displaying.  

 

Until this is corrected, Workspace is completely unusable for me.  

 

I am using Mac OS 10.14.2

 

[Ben Wedlake]

On 23/01/2019 at 9:22 AM, petri nyberg said:

My problem with Mojave (latest) and Workspace (latest)  is that it seems to hog memory up till whopping 115 GB and then MacOS decideds this is too much and quits a number of programmes.

 

I'm seeing the exact same thing (well, except my Mac starts killing applications around 58GB)

 

It seems to occur when I leave the Workspace window alone for a while, and it occurs very suddenly - the computer goes from perfectly fine to a complete stand still in seconds.