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Category Archives: Enterprise Desktop

View Composer DiskFault: Disk customization failed due to an internal error

There’s a glitch some customers are encountering whereby a Linked Clone desktop is created on vCenter Ok, but is deleted soon after vCenter complains about either “disposable” or “internal” .vmdk files this desktop. Creating and recomposing linked clone desktops fails on VMware Horizon View 6.1.x and all older releases after you have applied an upgrade patch.

On View Administrator, recomposing of pool fails with the error:

View Composer DiskFault: Disk customization failed due to an internal error

This issue occurs when older versions of Horizon View Composer prior to VMware Horizon 6.2 attempt to communicate with VMware ESXi hosts, but SSL v3 is disabled beginning in VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 3b and 6.0 Update 1 hosts.

We’ve created a KB article to address this scenario here: Linked Clone pool creation and recompositon fails with VMware Horizon View 6.1.x and older releases (2133018)

Note: There is a workaround provided in the KB but it is not advised to use it. The workaround makes the VMware ESXi 5.5/ 6.0 hosts vulnerable to security threats reported for SSL v3

View desktop goes into Already Used state, or Agent Disabled state

In versions 4.6 through 5.0.x View desktops can also go into the Already Used state if a virtual machine is powered on in another ESXi host in the cluster in response to an HA event, or if it was shut down without reporting to the broker that the user had logged out.

This is due to a security feature which prevents any previous session data from being available during the next log in. If a desktop that is set to refresh or delete after log off is reset, the desktop goes into the Already Used state, or possibly the Agent Disabled state.

If you run into this situation we have a KB article that covers this scenario: The View virtual machine is not accessible and the View Administration console shows the virtual machine status as “Already Used” (1000590)

PCoIP connections suddenly failing?

There is an issue which may occur when you install or upgrade your VMware Tools after having installed your View Agent. The set of VGA drivers shipped with VMware Tools might sometimes be incompatible with VMware View and PCoIP, whereas the VMware View Agent software contains a supported VGA driver.

For this reason, today we’re highlighting the KB article we have written up for this issue: Error attaching to SVGADevTap, error 4000: EscapeFailed reported by PCoIP server (1029706)

To resolve this issue, you must update the drivers to the version supplied with VMware View Agent. The KB also includes a nice table of video drivers supplied with different VMware View Agent versions and operating systems.

Dealing with issues with View Event Database

We’d like to focus today on a KB article which tries to address all the issues encountered by the users with regard to View Event Database deployment. The article includes a list of basic steps that will help you address all the issues that might be encountered during or after your deployment.

Configuring VMware View Event database on an SQL server fails with the error: An error occurred while attempting to configure the database (1029537)

Users actions are recorded about View Manager events. If this database is not configured you would need to look in the log files to gather information about events, and the logs contain very limited information.

Configuration of the event database will fail if the user has not met the prerequisites required. Our KB article helps users meet all the required prerequisites needed, from network connectivity, to SQL server, to correct credentials for database accounts, ports and firewall status.

If you find your issue persists after validating all the 12 steps mentioned in the article, then the potential cause for the issue might be an older version of the JDBC driver. Newer versions have a number of bug fixes for SSL certificate issues. Following the steps to install new version of JDBC driver should address all the issue and completes the configuration of VMware View event database successfully. Of course, if you’re unsure or still struggling, by all means contact our support team.

Basic Troubleshooting Guide for View Composer

Today we’d like to highlight one specific KB article related to View Composer. You might consider it a first step in addressing composer problems. The KB we’re talking about is:

VMware View Composer resolution guide (2104915)

This guide includes basic troubleshooting steps, issues observed in the process of composer installation or composer uninstall process, and finally operational issues. At the bottom of the KB there is a long list of related KBs that are also of interest if View composer problems are encountered.

Basic Troubleshooting Questions
Install and Uninstall VMware View Composer
VMware View Composer Error Messages
VMware View Composer Customization Failures
Unknown VMware View Composer Failures

Issues creating Desktops in VDI, and what to do about it

We want to highlight some mitigation techniques and a handy KB article today for those of you managing Horizon View desktops. We’re talking about those occasions when no desktop can be created or recomposed in your vdi environment and no tasks submitted from Connection Brokers are acted upon by Virtual Center server.

Our Engineering team has been hard at work fixing many of the underlying causes of this happening and the latest release of View have all but eliminated these issues. However, if these issues show up in latest View releases, then we ask everyone to follow the specific steps in this KB: Pool settings are not saved, new pools cannot be created, and vCenter Server tasks are not processed in a Horizon View environment (2082413)

This KB contains several main steps, the first one of which is collecting the bundled logs from all connection brokers in the vdi environment and recording the time this issue was first observed. Steps 2 to 6 are basic steps that can potentially help address the issue but if issues persist, then step 7 requests opening a support case and submitting the collected bundle logs in step 1 alongside the recorded time when the issue was first observed. You might also include any other useful information, such as whether any recent changes were made to the environment.

When opening your support case, please note this KB article number in the description the case. That helps us get right on point ASAP.

Step 8 is what should address this issue without any connection broker reboot as it causes the stoppage of all View services in all View connection brokers and then restarting them.

If step 8 does not resolve your issue, then the last step (9) involves reboot of all connection serves and this has always addressed the issue in our experience.

ALERT: Linked Clone pool creation and recompose failure

Before upgrading to vSphere 6 update 1, VMware would like everyone to read the following KB article for important information.

Creating and recomposing linked clone desktops will fail on Horizon view 6.1.x and all older releases after upgrading to vSphere 6.0 Update 1.

The Linked Clone desktop appears to be created on vCenter, but it will be deleted soon after vCenter complains about either “disposable” or “internal” vmdk files this desktop.

All older versions of Horizon View Composer prior to Horizon 6.2 require SSL v3 to communicate with ESXi hosts, however the SSL v3 has been disabled in ESX6i Update 1 hosts.

Please read this KB article for further information: Upgrading to vSphere 6 update 1 will cause Linked Clone pool creation and recompose failure with Horizon View 6.1.x and older releases (2133018)

Any updates to this information will be made in the KB article itself.

Disk is already managed by View

Today we will highlight one of our KB articles that is getting some traction with our Horizon View customers. The issue can occur if the ADAM database contains an invalid entry for a persistent disk.

Symptoms:

Attempting to import the disk from vCenter Server fails with the error:

This disk is already managed by View

Cannot detach a Persistent User Data Disk in View Manager.
Cannot import a Persistent Disk from vCenter Server for a virtual machine that was deleted in View Administrator.
The Persistent disk is visible when the option to show incompatible files is selected.

If you are encountering any of these symptoms in your environment, please refer to KB article: Cannot detach a Persistent Disk in View Manager 4.5 and later (2007076). This article has a 5 star customer rating.

Note: This KB contains two Warnings. Be sure you completely understand the article, and as always check that your backups are working and are valid.

Invalid Linked Clones – revisited

Back in July we had a post about using the ViewDbChk command to remove invalid linked clone entries, which applied to Horizon View 5.3 and later. Apparently a similar situation can arise in earlier versions of the product as well, but the steps to fix it are different.

For users of View 5.2 or earlier, we have created KB article: Manually deleting linked clones or stale virtual desktop entries from the View Composer database in VMware View Manager and VMware Horizon View.

Symptoms include:

You cannot provision or recompose a linked clone desktop pool
You see the error:

Desktop Composer Fault: Virtual Machine with Input Specification already exists

Provisioning a linked clone desktop pool fails with the error:

Virtual machine with Input Specification already exists

The Connection Server shows that linked clone virtual machines are stuck in a deleting state
You cannot delete a pool from the View Administrator page
You are unable to delete linked clone virtual machines
When viewing a pools Inventory tab, the status of one or more virtual machines may be shown as missing

So remember, if you have 6.1 or later, you want to use KB article: Removing invalid linked clone entries automatically using the ViewDBChk tool in VMware Horizon View 5.3 and later versions (2118050)

If you have 5.2 or earlier, use: Manually deleting linked clones or stale virtual desktop entries from the View Composer database in VMware View Manager and VMware Horizon View (2015112)