Troubleshooting XenDesktop Service Startup Issues

Document ID: CTX119736 / Created On: Feb 9, 2009 / Updated On: Feb 9, 2009
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Summary

This document covers troubleshooting a number of issues that may be encountered in devices in a XenDesktop farm relating to starting up of services on those machines. These issues will typically be identified by the event log messages that are produced.

Background

This document is referred to by a number of event log messages, where the messages relate to problems encountered during the startup of one of the XenDesktop Windows services on a device in a XenDesktop farm.

Desktop Delivery Controller Services

A number of XenDesktop services run on a delivery controller device, but this document concentrates on two of them:

• Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller Service

• Citrix IMA Proxy Service

Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller Service

The startup sequence for this service is:

1. The system loads the service assemblies and starts running the service.

2. Check the identity of the user that the service is running as.

3. Establish communication with the Citrix Independent Management Architecture service (IMA).

4. Find and validate the Organizational Unit (OU) for the farm in Active Directory (AD).

• This step is not performed when the configuration is set such that an OU in AD is not required (see CTX118976 - How to Configure XenDesktop to Function Properly Without an Organizational Unit in Active Directory)

5. Purge the windows Kerberos cache of any possibly stale tickets.

6. Start the Web services offered by the controller service.

7. Update the Service Connection Point object in Active Directory for this controller machine is required.

• This step is not performed when the configuration is set such that an OU in AD is not required (see CTX118976 - How to Configure XenDesktop to Function Properly Without an Organizational Unit in Active Directory))

8. Determine the collection of settings values to be sent to each virtual desktop machine when they register with this controller.

• This actually happens asynchronously at some point after step 2, and the settings collection is re-evaluated whenever any settings are changed on the farm or the communication state to the IMA service changes.

9. Receive registrations from any virtual desktop machines.

At step 1, the service could fail to load and start if any of the binary files (EXE or DLL files) that go to make up the service are corrupt or missing. Another reason for failure at this stage is if the text configuration file CdsController.exe.config has been corrupted, for example by an attempt to edit the settings for the service. This second case is covered by CTX118881 - Error 1053: Could Not Start the Citrix Service on Local Computer, but in both cases the way to resolve this is to repair the installation or to re-install the service. To repair the installation, the msiexec tool must be used, specifying the /f command line switch (to select installation repair) and the path of the MSI install file that installed the controller service, which is on the install CD as “\w2k3\en\Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller\DDCServices.msi”.

A fatal exception encountered early during the start-up of the service results in an event log message 1102 being generated. The exception type or message provided in the Error details section of the event log message may provide some indication of the source of the problem, but problems of this type may indicate a systemic issue with the DDC machine, in which case a machine reboot may help, or a re-install of the DDC components may be required.

Step 2 detects if the service is configured to run as a user other than Network Service, and generates an event log message (event 1126) if this is not configured correctly.

A problem encountered at step 3 can be indicated by event log message 1100, where the exception specified in the Error Details section relates to IMA. Ensure that the IMA service is running, and if the problem persists re-install the DDC components.

A problem at step 4 is indicated by one of the following:

• Event 1128 – this indicates that the farm OU in active directory has not yet been set up or that the controller service is unable to obtain the OU setting from IMA. Ensure that the IMA service is running and if necessary run the AD setup wizard tool to select and configure an OU for the farm.

• Event 1111 – this indicates that a place in AD for the farm OU has been configured but that the OU cannot be found in that place. This may be due to problems communicating with the AD domain controller machine or machines, or possibly some outside agency has moved or removed the OU in AD. Ensure that the DDC machine is properly in the AD domain, and if necessary run the AD setup wizard tool to select and re-configure an OU for the farm.

• Event 1129 – this indicates that the farm OU has been located in AD, but that the contents of the OU are not properly formed. See CTX117262 for a description of the expected contents of the farm OU. Either re-run the AD setup wizard tool to fix the OU contents or manually make the required changes as defined in CTX117262.

A problem at step 6 is indicated by event log message 1113, and usually is because corruption of the configuration file for the service (see the description for issues at step 1) although in this case the corruption is not as severe as to cause the service to not start at all. As for issues at step 1, the resolution is to repair the installation (see CTX118881 - Error 1053: Could Not Start the Citrix Service on Local Computer).

A problem at step 7 is indicated by event log message 1115, and will usually be the result of permissions problems in accessing active directory. This may be due to permissions changes from security policy applied to AD objects. The DDC device identity must be allowed read/write access to its own Service Connection Point (SCP) object in the RegistrationServices container in the farm OU; the DDC computer’s own computer object GUID is used for the name of the SCP object. See CTX117262 - How to Manually Configure an Organizational Unit in Active Directory for use by XenDesktop for a description of the expected contents of the farm OU, and in particular the permissions required on the controller SCP objects.

Problems at step 8 are indicated by event log message 1125, and might be because of problems communicating with the IMA service or possibly problems reading configuration settings from the registry. Ensure that the IMA service is running properly, and if the problem persists, a repair or re-installation might be required.

Citrix IMA Proxy Service

The startup sequence for this service is

1. The system loads the service assemblies and starts running the service.

2. Check the identity of the user that the service is running as.

3. Establish communication with the Citrix Independent Management Architecture service (IMA).

4. Start the web services offered by the IMA proxy service.

At step 1, the service could fail to load and start if any of the binary files (EXE or DLL files) that go to make up the service are corrupt or missing. Another reason for failure at this stage is if the text configuration file CdsImaProxy.exe.config has been corrupted, for example by an attempt to edit the settings for the service. This second case is covered
by CTX118881 - Error 1053: Could Not Start the Citrix Service on Local Computer, but in both cases the way to resolve this is to repair the installation or to re-install the service. To repair the installation, the msiexec tool must be used, specifying the /f command line switch (to select installation repair) and the path of the MSI install file that installed the controller service, which is on the install CD as “\w2k3\en\Citrix Desktop Delivery Controller\DDCServices.msi”.

A fatal exception encountered early during the start-up of the service results in an event log message 0001 being generated. The exception type or message provided in the Error details section of the event log message may provide some indication of the source of the problem, but problems of this type may indicate a systemic issue with the DDC device, in which case a reboot might help, or a re-install of the DDC components might be required.

Step 2 detects if the service is configured to run as a user other than Network Service, and generates an event log message (event 0002) if this is not configured correctly.

A problem encountered at step 3 can be indicated by event log message 0003, where the exception specified in the Error Details section relates to IMA. Ensure that the IMA service is running, and if the problem persists re-install the DDC components.

A problem at step 4 is indicated by event log message 0004, and usually is because of corruption of the configuration file for the service (see the description for issues at step 1) although in this case the corruption is not as severe as to cause the service to not start at all. As for issues at step 1, the resolution is to repair the installation (see CTX118881 - Error 1053: Could Not Start the Citrix Service on Local Computer).

Virtual Desktop Agent Services

A number of XenDesktop services run on a virtual desktop device, but this document concentrates only on the Citrix Desktop Service.

The startup sequence for this service is:

1. The system loads the service assemblies and starts running the service.

2. Check the identity of the user that the service is running as.

3. Find and validate the Organizational Unit (OU) for the farm in Active Directory (AD).

• This step is not performed when the configuration is set such that an OU in AD is not required (see CTX118976 - How to Configure XenDesktop to Function Properly Without an Organizational Unit in Active Directory).

4. Start the web services offered by the agent service.

5. Register with a DDC controller server.

At step 1, the service could fail to load and start if any of the binary files ( EXE or DLL files) that go to make up the service are corrupt or missing. Another reason for failure at this stage is if the text configuration file WorkstationAgent.exe.config has been corrupted, for example by an attempt to edit the settings for the service. This second case is covered by CTX118881 - Error 1053: Could Not Start the Citrix Service on Local Computer, but in both cases the way to resolve this is to repair the installation or to re-install the service. To repair the installation, the repair option can be used on the install dialog that is shown when the Change button of the Citrix Virtual Desktop Agent item in the Add or Remove Programs control panel. Alternatively, the msiexec tool can be used, specifying the /f command line switch (to select installation repair) and the path of the MSI install file that installed the controller service, which is on the install CD as “\w2k3\en\VirtualDesktop\XdsAgent.msi”.

A fatal exception encountered early during the start-up of the service results in an event log message 1200 being generated. The exception type or message provided in the Error details section of the event log message might provide some indication of the source of the problem, but problems of this type might indicate a systemic issue with the VDA device, in which case a reboot might help, or a re-install of the VDA components might be required.

Step 2 detects if the service is configured to run as a user other than Network Service, and generate an event log message (event 1230) if this is not configured correctly.

A problem at step 3 is indicated by one of the following:

• Event 1211 – this indicates that an error was encountered while attempting to access the registry entry that should contain the identity of the farm OU and AD. This might be because of permissions on registry keys, for example set by a security policy (through a GPO).

• Event 1232 – this indicates that the farm OU identity has not been found in the registry settings on the VDA. This may be because of a delay in a GPO containing the settings being applied to the VDA device, but if the farm that the VDA is a member of was not selected when the VDA components were installed (for example because the farm was not set up at that point) then the Modify install action can be used to configure the farm to be used (by configuring the OU in AD to use). See CTX117248 - Troubleshooting Virtual Desktop Agent Registration with Controllers in XenDesktop.

• Event 1233 – this indicates that a place in AD for the farm OU has been configured but that the OU cannot be found in that place. This might be because of problems communicating with the AD domain controller device or devices, or possibly some outside agency has moved or removed the OU in AD. Ensure that the DDC machine is properly in the AD domain, and if necessary run the AD setup wizard tool to select and re-configure an OU for the farm.

A problem at step 4 is indicated by event log message 1215, and usually caused by corruption of the configuration file for the service (see the description for issues at step 1) although in this case the corruption is not as severe as to cause the service to not start at all. As for issues at step 1, the resolution is to repair the installation (see CTX118881).

A problem at step 5 can have one or more sources, and problems encountered at this stage are covered by CTX117248 - Troubleshooting Virtual Desktop Agent Registration with Controllers in XenDesktop. Event log messages indicating problems at this stage are:

• Event 1217 – this indicates a problem communicating with the Active Directory domain controller server. Check AD domain membership of the VDA.

• Event 1219 – this indicates a problem performing a name lookup of a DDC device. Check that the DNS server has a correct entry for the DDC device.

• Event 1221 – this indicates a problem performing a name lookup of a DDC machine. Check that the DNS server has a correct entry for the DDC device.

• Event 1223 – this indicates that communication to the selected DDC server has failed. Check UTC times are in sync between the VDA, DDC and domain DC devices. The communication failure can also be caused by other issues; see CTX117248 - Troubleshooting Virtual Desktop Agent Registration with Controllers in XenDesktop for a more complete troubleshooting description.

• Event 1236 – this indicates that the DDC server has actively refused the registration request from the VDA as it is already fully loaded with registered VDAs. Add more DDC servers to your farm.

• Event 1237 – this indicates that the VDA registration was rejected because the VDA is not yet a member of a defined desktop group in the farm. Add the VDA device to a desktop group configured on the farm. Note that this problem should not happen when registering with a XenDesktop 3.0 DDC server, only when a XenDesktop 2.0 or 2.1 server is found.

• Event 1242 – this indicates that a connection from an unauthorized DDC server was received. If the DDC server is a valid one, this is caused by either:

o The DDC server not being a member of the Controllers security group in the farm OU.

o The DDC server identity is not being included in the ListOfSIDs registry entry if the configuration is set such that an OU in AD is not required (see
CTX118976 - How to Configure XenDesktop to Function Properly Without an Organizational Unit in Active Directory).

• Event 1246 – this indicates a permission problem encountered by the DDC server when trying to contact the VDA. The most likely reason for this is that a security policy has been applied to the VDA device that denies the DDC device the Access this computer from the network right. If this is the case, add the DDC device(s) (or the Controllers’ security group from the farm OU) to the access list for this right on the VDA.

This document applies to:

XenDesktop 3.0 x32
XenDesktop 3.0 x64