Citrix 7.15 LTSR CU3 VDA Upgrade unpublishes and removes App-V packages

[Rastislav Kovac]

Hi, 

 

I have recently installed the newest CU3 VDA on Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2016 servers with App-V 5.1 client. 

We have applications published manually from a network share. When I installed the VDA, it removed all of the packages completely. 

Tried to re-install the App-V client and re-add the packages. After rebooting the server they are removed again. 

App-V client operational logs contain events with ID 1006 and 1007 to remove and unpublish package. 

We have already upgraded VDAs in the past and never encountered such an issue. I had to rollback to previous state. 

Any help would be appreciated. 

[Sandra Burke]

I see that no one has answered this...this is by design.  Probably someone can improve on the explanation. Modified from the notes of a closed case.  

The behavior noted is by design from 7.15 CU3 onward.  In 7.15 CU2 and previously, if a package published with Citrix was later removed, nothing was removed from VDA.  In CU3 the cleanup behaviour is changed.  Now, the service CtxAppVService checks registry key (ApplicationStartDetails) of AppV Application details after every restart. 

 

Without integrated MS AppV server, and if application is in the cache but it is not Citrix registry list, the service will remove the package.  This is because, as far as the Citrix AppV Service is concerned,  that package has been removed from Studio.  

 

==================

So as a workaround you can either,

* Disable the CtxAppVService

* Not install the App-V components packaged along with the VDA installation media 

[Tony Kelly]

On ‎11‎/‎16‎/‎2018 at 5:07 AM, Rastislav Kovac said:

Hi, 

 

I have recently installed the newest CU3 VDA on Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2016 servers with App-V 5.1 client. 

We have applications published manually from a network share. When I installed the VDA, it removed all of the packages completely. 

Tried to re-install the App-V client and re-add the packages. After rebooting the server they are removed again. 

App-V client operational logs contain events with ID 1006 and 1007 to remove and unpublish package. 

We have already upgraded VDAs in the past and never encountered such an issue. I had to rollback to previous state. 

Any help would be appreciated. 

 

I'm seeing the same behavior with VDA 1808 on our Windows 10 1709 image.  We are not seeing it in Windows 10 1607 or 2012 R2 images.

 

*EDIT* - Apparently I was wrong we are seeing on 2012 R2 as well.

Edited November 20, 2018 by tkelly
Update

[Rastislav Kovac]

Today I have tried completely uninstalling the VDA from the 2008 R2, also used VDA clean-up utility just in case. 

When you do select the App-v personalization component during the install, it causes the same problem, however, if you don't install it, then App-V packages are fine.

I have yet to test this more in depth and also on the Windows 2016. Strange thing is, it never happened during previous CU installations. 

[Peter Zinghini]

Same happens with CU4 update. What have you done citrix? Please provide a fix.

[Rastislav Kovac]

Thanks for the answer. It's still strange though that Citrix would do this. The mentioned packages were not published through Studio and not visible in the App-V Publishing tab there, so I wonder if this might have been a problem. Sure, I would understand if you published it from Studio and then removed it, but that's not the case. 

[Sandra Burke]

I think the problem is that there is no way to tell the difference between a package that is published by Citrix or a package that is published manually (reading between the lines). 

[Timothy Lee]

You'll have to uninstall App-V personalization before you upgrade to 7.15 CU4 as referenced in the following thread.  I tried to disable the CtxAppVService before upgrading but that didn't work - https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/381090-xa711-and-pzappv_vda_x64msi/

[Tony Rallo]

First of all.....i have to say that this is the dumbest 'enhancement' ever.....but there is a workaround - a real one that doesn't involve removing a necessary component (App-v Personalization). 

 

In my specific scenario, i use a pristine machine to do my PVS image updates.  No GPOs, no appv publishing server config, no ddc list, etc.  I pre-cache about 90 app-v packages into the image, so they are available to the various silos of servers that i have as targets.  When updating to CU4 (from CU2), i saw the issue that everyone is describing here - my appv cache was removed upon reboot.  Had i not noticed this, sealed the image, and deployed it - my targets would have crashed due to downloading the appv packages and running the cache disk out of space - my cache disks are fairly small due to the fact that i have everything in my pvs image. 

 

The "solution", or what i would consider a workaround to this ridiculousness is to create a GPO with dummy appv publishing server settings and apply it to the server that i use for image updates.  As long as you have something defined as an appv publishing server, even if it isn't valid, the CU4 update will leave your cache alone.  My targets already have a GPO that points to a real publishing server, so their cache remains intact as well. 

 

This solution was actually documented here:  https://docs.citrix.com/en-us/citrix-virtual-apps-desktops/install-configure/appv.html

 

Excerpt:

If you are not using a publishing server, but have packages on the VDA managed by another mechanism (such as SCCM, custom scripting, or a third party App-V management solution), the clean-up routines may remove packages which are still required. In this scenario, add a dummy App-V Management server registration to the VDA to prevent clean up being attempted.