Intermitent Black Screen on Logon up to 3 Minutes

[Scott Gilliland]

Hi All,

 

I am dealing with an internmitent issue where randoms users, across random servers logon and post windows logon screen (processing/apply policies etc) they are presented with a black screen varying from 0-3 minutes.

 

There is no correlation in users and black screen length, the same user can have it for as little as 15 seconds upon logon and then next logon it can last up to 3 minutes.  When it does not happens the logon process completes within 15 seconds.  On average it happens once per 3x logons.

 

- Users are ormaing profile with redirected folders

- VDA - Server 2012R2

- Version - 7.15 LTSR CU3

 

I see a few KB's recently about logon black screens for up to 15 seconds however these apply to server 2016.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks

 

[Scott Gilliland]

**SOLVED**

 

Finally we are to the bottom of this thanks to Microsoft, they came across this citrix article then noted it also as an issue of their own for legacy start menu/pinned icons which were used in old GPO's we had

 

https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX212905

 

Created a GPO for the above to delete on a user basis and at long last we no longer have the issue.

 

Hope this helps someone and resolves issue for those who experience it also on this thread.

[Eric Hendricks]

Putting this out here to see if anyone is still experiencing this issue. I am experiencing the black screen at login (10-15 seconds average), but on a Windows 10 Desktop OS. I've tried every solution in this post and others, to no avail. Once the desktop finally loads, everything works as expected. Here is my current configuration:

 

- XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU5

- Using Provisioning Services for image delivery

- Fresh image with Windows 10 1909 build

- No AV, graphics or other common trouble software installed

 

The issue occurs regardless of profile management or environment management solution used. I've run some basic tools to try to break down the logon events and it's clear that Explorer Initialization is the primary culprit, but I'm unable to get any more granular on where the delay is coming from. Event logs do not show any issues or delays. I'll entertain any ideas anyone has, as I am at a loss.

 

[Scott Gilliland]

UPDATE

 

After a considerable amount of time spent investigating this today we discovered this is being caused by folder redirection.

 

Despite what previous tests suggested, i.e. citrix componenets causing the issue it seems folder redirection on user profile folders is causing the black screen.  As of yet no error or even event logs indicating this.

 

We discovered it by removing the redirection settings, tested a number of times by putting back on and removing again to confir.

 

Summary of set up in case yours is like this; profile management is windows roaming profiles ONLY handling appdata folder, desktop;documents;videos;downloads etc are all redirected. 

 

Consulting the big online book I found this is widely documented in 2008R2 however I have not found anything pointing to Server 2012R2 as of yet.

 

Investigation and research in to the now cause continues, we may result in logging a call with Microsoft.

 

If anyone has any thought I am more than happy to test, for the moment stay tuned!

[Thomas Dooley1709157758]

We have a similar problem here on Server 2012r2 with 7.15 (release). Do you have GPO's with Logon Scripts or Citrix Policies applying to these machines?

 

I found that creating a test server 2012r2 machine and un-linking all GPO's and Citrix Policies the problem went away through the logon process. I think its something Citrix Policy side rather than GPO side tbh but not had chance to drill down yet. 

 

If you can move one of your server boxes to an OU with no GPO and remove all Citrix policies to that one machine let me know how you get on, i'd be interested to see if you see the problem disappear too. 

[Scott Gilliland]

We do have a test server and it is something we may have to do to rule things out.

 

When RDP'ing to the servers it does not have the same effect only going through citrix.

 

I have a scheduled call with Citrix support on this on Monday, will keep you posted .

[Thomas Dooley1709157758]

Great stuff, I look forward to hearing if anything came of the call.

 

 

[Scott Gilliland]

On 15/01/2019 at 0:33 PM, Thomas Dooley1709157758 said:

Great stuff, I look forward to hearing if anything came of the call.

 

 

Hi Tom,

 

Much the usual advise from Citrix so far, update to 7.15 LTSR CU3

 

On another note, they raised a good point about the version of VMtools installed on our VDA's.  They are quite a bit our of date and these contain much needed display adaptor drivers for the VM. 

 

Might be something worth looking at your side, I will know more after this weekend when I get everything upgraded.

 

FYI to upgrade vmtools you must uninstall the VDA first, it therefore goes hand in hand with upgrading the VDA while you do it.

 

 

[Thomas Dooley1709157758]

Hi, 

 

Thanks for coming back with the outcome of the call.

 

I will also give the VMWare Tools an update on the test boxes see what happens our side too, we have version 10.0.9.3917699 installed at the moment. How about yourself? 

[Scott Gilliland]

On 18/01/2019 at 1:42 PM, Thomas Dooley1709157758 said:

Hi, 

 

Thanks for coming back with the outcome of the call.

 

I will also give the VMWare Tools an update on the test boxes see what happens our side too, we have version 10.0.9.3917699 installed at the moment. How about yourself? 

 

Hi Tom,

 

No luck unfortunetly, updated to CU3 and vmtools 10.3.2 and if anything the black screen is getting longer now.

 

Previously only seen it for a max of 1 minute, now its up to 3 minutes and more users reporting it. Have pushed back on citrix support.

 

Interesingly we also see this on RDP.

 

Will keep you posted.

[Frank Nicosia1709160532]

My suggestion is to simplify the environment:

 

If the problem is occurring with RDP, validate if you are seeing the problem when just logging on the console of the VM in VMware.

Are you using roaming or mandatory profiles?

Do you experience the problem with logging on the VM with a local administrator account?

Move the VM to a OU that is blocking inheritance for the existing group policies.

Remove the VDA and Citrix Profile and test again to completely remove Citrix out of the picture.

Test the logon with antivirus disable.

Finally, run procmon and enable boot logging to see if there is an problem with an application.

 

 

[Thomas Dooley1709157758]

3 hours ago, Scott Gilliland said:

 

Hi Tom,

 

No luck unfortunetly, updated to CU3 and vmtools 10.3.2 and if anything the black screen is getting longer now.

 

Previously only seen it for a max of 1 minute, now its up to 3 minutes and more users reporting it. Have pushed back on citrix support.

 

Interesingly we also see this on RDP.

 

Will keep you posted.

 

Hi bud,

 

Sorry to hear its actually gone the opposite way for you guys!

 

I am do still have it on my list to dig further my side GPO/Citrix Policy side as we saw this disappear for us once we removed them all but time is against me at the moment. Out of curiosity do you have any logon scripts applying? via GPO or start up scheduled tasks?

 

Cheers

[Scott Gilliland]

On 22/01/2019 at 2:26 PM, Frank Nicosia1709160532 said:

My suggestion is to simplify the environment:

 

If the problem is occurring with RDP, validate if you are seeing the problem when just logging on the console of the VM in VMware.

Are you using roaming or mandatory profiles?

Do you experience the problem with logging on the VM with a local administrator account?

Move the VM to a OU that is blocking inheritance for the existing group policies.

Remove the VDA and Citrix Profile and test again to completely remove Citrix out of the picture.

Test the logon with antivirus disable.

Finally, run procmon and enable boot logging to see if there is an problem with an application.

 

 

 

Hi Guys,

 

Done some further testing, FYI this is a roaming profile which is cleared on log off.  summary of tests and results below:

 

5x logins to production environment (same server each time)

login times range from 28-50 seconds

18-21 seconds of that is black screen

1st login after servers restart takes approx. 2-3 minutes , 2min 25 of that is black screen

 

5x logins to the test server

Removed all GPO’s except 1x which manages profiles and redirection

login times range from 29-52 seconds

18-20 seconds were black screens

1st login to server was 2 minutes, black screen was 1min 19 seconds of this time

 

5x logins to production environment via RDP

In this test all normal GPO’s would have been applied

Login times range from 12-13 seconds

4-8 seconds of that was black screen

1st login to server after reboot was 19 seconds, black screen was 15 seconds of this time

 

5x logins to test server via RDP

Removed all GPO’s except 1x which manages profiles and redirection

Login times range from 26-28

9-10 seconds was black screen

1st login to server took 50 seconds, black screen was 15 seconds of this

 

5 x logins to the test server via RDP

Removed VDA

Left 1x GPO which manages profile and redirection

Login times range from 1-2-seconds

No black screen issues

 

- Have yet to test AV disabling and procmon

- also halfed the number of GPO's being applied to reduce logon overhead

 

Currently awaiting citrix to get back to me after gathering CDF Control logging

 

 

[Thomas Dooley1709157758]

Thanks for the update! still following with interest. 

[Ken Z]

Hi Guys

 

I've come across something similar to this on an 2012 R2 RDSH Farm, with folder redirection. It turned out to be File Screening policies on the file server. Check if you've got any set up on the file shares where your profiles are redirected to

 

regards

 

Ken Z

[Scott Gilliland]

11 hours ago, Ken Zygmunt said:

Hi Guys

 

I've come across something similar to this on an 2012 R2 RDSH Farm, with folder redirection. It turned out to be File Screening policies on the file server. Check if you've got any set up on the file shares where your profiles are redirected to

 

regards

 

Ken Z

Hi Ken,

 

There was indeed a file screen policy applied just to the redirected folders share, however it was to ALLOW the saving of .exe and system files.

 

I removed the policy and tested but to no avail. Its not something I must admit I am familar with, do any services or indeed a full restart need intiated after chaging this to apply them?

 

Thanks

[Stefan Klopp]

Does the file-share for the folder redirection resides on a windows-based file-server?

Did you identify, which folder-redirection does cause it? (disable one by one)

 

I had issues that go in this direction in the past with Windows Server 2008r2. It was not a black screen, but the logon was hanging quite a long time.

In my case it was a storage-issue. (3rd-party-storage) I did put the folder-redirection share on a windows-host for testing and the problem did not occure anymore

Maybe this would be something you could test too quite easily...

[Thomas Dooley1709157758]

Thanks for the update and glad you got this solved.....I will definitely look if this is whats causing our black screen delay also as I don't think we have anything set up around this already.

 

All the best.