Rd Client Not Connecting

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This article describes various symptoms for Remote Desktop Client connection failures.

Original product version: Windows Server 2012 R2
Original KB number: 186645

Summary

'Remote Desktop can't connect the remote computer for one of these reasons: 1) Remote access to server is not enabled. 2) The remote computer is turned off. 3) The remote computer is not available on the network. Make sure the remote commuter's turned on and connected to the network, and the remote access is enabled.' If you have recently configured Remote Desktop Licensing or receive the error: Because of a security error, the client could not connect to the remote computer. Verify that you are logged on to the network, and then try connecting again. Follow these steps below. When your Remote Desktop credentials are not matching, then the Windows 10 Remote Desktop not working error will occur if you try to connect to another remote computer. Therefore, you should try to reset your Remote Desktop credentials. Step 1: Type Remote Desktop connection in the search box and click the best match one. If that functionality is blocked, even if you allow Remote Desktop through Firewall, Remote Desktop connections would not work. To check that, do the following: Type ‘ Allow Remote Desktop Connections ’ in Start Menu. Then, click on the first selection. Externally available RDS gateway, connection is made from within the company network though; Client and RDS environment on different networks, connected via IPSec VPN; I've got this problem on four clients now, more than a 150 work fine; Problem. When I try to connect to the RDS environment, it fails.

This article summarizes the various causes for Terminal Server Client connection failures.

More information

Terminal Server Client (Remote Desktop Client) connection failures such as 'Unable to RDP, 'Remote Desktop Disconnected,' or 'Unable to Connect to Remote Desktop (Terminal server)' are common problems that we have seen in product support. This article summarizes the various causes for such failures.

The following are some of the commonly seen symptoms:

  • You may be limited in the number of users who can connect simultaneously to a Remote Desktop session or Remote Desktop Services session.
  • You may have a port assignment conflict.
  • You may have an incorrectly configured Authentication and Encryption setting.
  • You may have a certificate corruption.

All the steps are documented in these articles, based on the server operating system:

  • Server 2003: Remote Desktop disconnected or can't connect to remote computer or Remote Desktop server (Terminal Server) that is running Windows Server 2003
  • Server 2008: General Remote Desktop connection troubleshooting
  • Server 2008 R2: Troubleshoot 'Remote desktop disconnected' errors in Windows Server 2008 R2

Additionally, we have more symptoms documented in the following Microsoft TechNet article:

This week I’ve been working with a customer that is experiencing intermittent issues connecting into Windows Virtual Desktop from the RD Client installed on their corporate Windows 10 devices and was asked to formulate a list of troubleshooting steps that their IT team could follow to help find and resolve the root cause.

I reached out to Jim Moyle, our aligned WVD Global Black Belt for his thoughts, and in this post, I want to share those initial troubleshooting steps, along with the rationale for each, put them out to the wider WVD community for feedback and over the coming weeks update this article with the identified root cause and the steps taken to resolve the issue.

For info and early clarification, this customer is using the Fall 2019 release of Windows Virtual Desktop.

So, what is the problem?

As introduced, the customer is reporting that certain users, not all, are intermittently unable to connect to their WVD resource using the RD Client installed on their corporate Windows 10 device, furthermore, they never receive any errors (such as resources not available) nor have they indicated that the connection attempt times out (I’ll double-check this and update if required), it simply doesn’t connect.

The below screenshot was provided by an affected user, this shows the RD Client attempting to connect to a selected remote desktop.

Before delving any deeper and starting to define the tests to be undertaken lets quickly recap on how a user connects to WVD, that way once we do start defining a particular test we better understand the rationale behind it, that is, what are we trying to prove or disprove.

The diagram below shows the WVD connection flow.

Step 1 > The user launches the RD Client which connects to Azure AD, user signs in, and Azure AD returns token.
Step 2 > The RD Client uses the previously generated token and authenticates to Web Access, the Broker then queries the database to determine the resources (Remote Apps and Desktops) that the user is assigned to.
Step 3 > The user selects a resource (Remote App or Desktop) and the RD Client connects to the Gateway.
Step 4 > Finally, the Broker orchestrates the connection from the WVD instance (the Azure VM) to the Gateway (aka Reverse Connect).

Note, on start-up the RD Client will always refresh your feed, as below, this is the RD Client running through steps 1 and 2 in the above connection flow.

Now, let’s quickly cover some basic assumptions before we get into the testing, again I’ll update these as I speak with the customer IT team and understand more of the nuances of the issue.

Assumption 1 > WVD is a global service, as such, for resilience, it operates many instances of the WVD control plane (the backend services, such as Web Access, Broker and Gateway shown in the connection flow diagram) in each region, however, based on availability at the time the control plane managing your user’s connections into WVD may not be running in the same region as the WVD VM’s themselves. Azure use their Front Door (and Traffic Manager) service to provide a resilient and optimised connection to the control plane – let’s assume a control plane is always up and available.

However, if we wanted to clarify the control plane you’re using is healthy we could use the below Powershell commands.

The below shows the results of the script, note the service is reporting as healthy and more importantly the Region URL shows that actual control plane you’re using.

Assumption 2 > This is only affecting certain users, other users can successfully connect to the same WVD resource at the same time others cannot indicating that the WVD VM’s themselves are healthy.

Remmina Remote Desktop Client Not Connecting

Again, if we want to verify the health of the WVD session hosts within a given host pool we could use the below Powershell commands.

The results will be shown as below.

Assumption 3 > This is only affecting users on their corporate devices, I’ll double-check this with the customer IT team and update if needed.

Connecting

Rd Client Not Connecting Mac

Assumption 4 > The customer has all the WVD backend services opened and available through the corporate firewall and web proxies. I know they use Cisco Umbrella for web proxy services, so something to be mindful of.

Assumption 5 > The user sees the same issue if they are on their corporate LAN, VPN or connected to the open internet from their home broadband as the majority of their staff are working from home.

So, what tests are we going to run when a user reports they cannot connect and why?

Test 1 > Can the user access the same WVD resource from the HTML5 interface at https://aka.ms/wvdweb?

Why? We need to narrow down whether the issues is only with the connection initiated from the RD Client, testing from the WVD Web Interface should help prove this. If the user is able to authenticate to the web interface, see all of their assigned WVD resources and then successfully logon to a desktop it proves the issue is not with the control plane, their assignment or WVD session host.

Test 2 > Can the user resolve the WVD Global URL in DNS?

Why? I’m almost certain that whatever the route cause is it will be environmental, that is, something occurring at that exact time on that device that is hindering the connection attempt. This is a very simple test to ensure that the device is able to resolve the WVD Global URL that is used to forward to the regional control plane instance and initiate the connections.

Rd Client Can't Connect

We could build on that test slightly using the Test-NetConnection cmdlet to test connectivity to the Regional URL (from test 2) over HTTP.

Test 3 > Clear RD Client Subscriptions and Re-Subscribe

Why? As mentioned earlier, on start-up the RD Client performed a refresh of the feed, this then caches the subscription details in the registry. This test is looking at whether there could potentially be an issue either with the cached settings or the authentication token. You can unsubscribe from the RD Client itself by clicking the 3 dot menu next to the tenant name and selecting Unsubscribe or running the below from a command prompt.

Well, that’s it for now (16/05/20), if you have any suggestions please send them my way on Twitter, I’ll update this post as soon as I’ve had a chance to work with the customers IT team and investigate these issues closer.

Thanks.

Rd Client Not Connecting To Computer

Part 2 in this blog series is up now, click here.