[Closed] Home remote desktop-ing help (Citrix workspace)

mat ,

Cannot help with the citrix thing BUT i forgot to say.

On the other side of the hill - fiber has arrived...... check and see if you can get it yet - as you know its all the way along the north deeside....

oooh! the bottom half of the road down to NDR was shut last week, I didn't actually go and check what they were doing but fingers crossed there's some funcy cables being laid!

EDIT: nope, openreach still show us as 'Exploring Solutions'...

indeed , i spotted the big green boxes of internetty things appearing one morning - and then plugged my number into the openreach site and it said yes.....we have 40mbps now.

I'm not sure I understand Citrix before the connection provided by work.

For comparison ours goes.
Connect to home Wi-Fi
Launch web based logon webpage.
Enter credentials.
Then Citrix session opens with access to apps, network, etc.

slowoldman, I was trying to get across that the whole setup is dependent on quite a few aspects beyond work infrastructure that (cynically speaking) it would be easy for someone to blame for the remote desktop not working. I'd like to rule out issues with my end of the setup to give more weight when I go asking for improvements.

Do you only use the cloud-based solution, or have access to an internally hosted XenApp/XenDesktop server farm through a VPN or (*sigh*) NetScaler?

The latter should work and any problems become self-evident because of where and how they fail. The cloud stuff could be anything and, to be honest, I am not sure of how they deployed it to the cloud. Latency could be an issue if you have low bandwidth, but the self-hosted/on-prem stuff used to be ok over higher latency links.

I should mention that I used to work for them and don't like their technology or the company. You could try calling their support line, but I am not sure they have a UK team and it will probably cost you. The common solution seems to join the forums ( https://discussions.citrix.com/) and bitch about it until someone offers to help. I think some of the good Support staff are still there after the last round of lay-offs, but they may have left anyway.

For comparison ours goes.
Connect to home Wi-Fi
Launch web based logon webpage.
Enter credentials.
Then Citrix session opens with access to apps, network, etc.

this is my experience too. a lot of faff to get set up in the first place, and i always have to do a restart before logging on if ive gone from work connection to home wifi (it seems to want to hang on to last ip address), but now IT have explained all that it works faultlessly for me now.

doesnt take long to get logged on either.

Could be any of those things, TBH. Try a speedtest and post your results?
https://www.speedtest.net/

People still use Citrix? Is it still 2004?

Willard: I think it's NetScaler (I see some message mentioning NetScaler on one of the little spinny wheels).

I've not done a speed test in a while, but we generally get in excess of 10 MBps upload and slightly less download. It doesn't cause issues for other surely more data hungry things like streaming TV.

I'm not a fan of NetScaler, but if you treat it just like a VPN, it should work. That level of upload bandwidth should be fine as well, it's not like you are going to be uploading a tonne of stuff.

Two options: Either moan at your IT department and ask them what SLA they have for uptime* and connectivity for the cloud offering, or bitch on the support forums and hope that someone gives you a means of troubleshooting it.

* from memory, there was not one, but hey, the cloud is fault tolerant and should always be available, right?

People still use Citrix? Is it still 2004?

Late 90s, I worked for a US Corp who rolled out Citrix globally. Lasted less than a week as no one, outside the US, could actually connect in under 4 hours. NB This was in the days when ISDN dial up was considered super fast...

I had no idea it was still going.

You could try calling their support line, but I am not sure they have a UK team and it will probably cost you.

I'm a (very) lapsed Citrix engineer. I would be absolutely amazed if Citrix themselves offered any sort of direct end user support at all.

I’ve not done a speed test in a while, but we generally get in excess of 10 MBps upload and slightly less download.

What's your latency (ping times) like though?

Will check tonight, I thought fixed wireless was supposed to perform ok in terms of latency though.

Cougar, Citrix Cloud is a lot more consumer orientated (dear gods, I hate myself for getting drawn into this) and I think it is still possible to open support cases if you have the credit card. They are not proud, they'll take your money...

https://discussions.citrix.com/forum/1704-citrix-cloud/

That said, if you have a corporate solution, just get them to call their TRM or Support contact. Your company should have a base level of support tickets they can use.

In the 14 years I worked for them, they had three big sets of lay-offs. 10% each time with some recruiting in between. They are still going and earn about $3Bn a gear from memory. So yes, they are still going. Cloud is just the new thing and that's what they are trying to push people towards.

Citrix Cloud is a lot more consumer orientated

Ah, fair enough, I didn't know that. Last time I looked after Citrix estates in anger was PS4.5 so I'm "somewhat" out of date. That was at least ten years ago now.

Been on Citrix for 14 years, at home and in the office. I feel your pain. IME, Citrix seems to hate wireless connections, and is much, much more reliable if you plug in an internet cable. I moved our router to the desk where I work (luckily it hasn't affected coverage in the rest of the house). This was an easy fix which much improved things. YMMV of course.

Would much rather have my desktop wired but the router is in a different room, would like to run some cat5 at some point. Just ran a speed test and got 7MBps DL 6MBps UL and a latency of 44ms, this is from an iPad so not wired.

Have you asked around your colleagues to see what their experience of using it is like (especially in the evenings)? I've never done anything with Citrix Workspace (I work on a XenApp 4.5 and 6.5 farm for my sins) but multiple authentication requests doesn't sound like it's set up right either

4.5 and 6.5?? Dear gods. I started work on 4.0 when I joined and it was on 7.13 or something when I left.

Also, both of those are EOL now, so you really should plan on updating unless you have a decent risk assessment ( https://www.citrix.com/support/product-lifecycle/legacy-product-matrix.html)

Ok, 6.5 has extended support until 2020, but you're not going to get support unless you pay and do not expect security fixes.

Citrix? Kill kill it with fire.

Drac

Subscriber

Citrix? Kill kill it with fire.

I wish I could, have been using Shitrix since 2003 and its as hateful as ever

4.5 and 6.5?? Dear gods. I started work on 4.0 when I joined and it was on 7.13 or something when I left.

Back when I started looking after our estate, Metaframe XP had only just been released (replacing Winframe IIRC).

I wish I could, have been using Shitrix since 2003 and its as hateful as ever

Citrix is ace. A badly implemented Citrix farm is horrendous. We had no end of teething troubles with it (printing especially was an absolute trauma) but when it works it works very well indeed. IMHO, etc.

Loss of server could be down to everyone logging in as well. Not enough connection licences...

Citrix is ace. A badly implemented Citrix farm is horrendous. We had no end of teething troubles with it (printing especially was an absolute trauma) but when it works it works very well indeed. IMHO, etc.

But where is the need for it post RDS 2008? Serious question, I would be interested to hear what it offers over and above the Microsoft offering that Citrix has to sit on anyway.