Virtual Machines Registering with the Wrong XenApp/XenDesktop Site

Citrix, Provisioning Services, XenApp, XenDesktop

Virtual Machines Registering with the Wrong XenApp/XenDesktop Site

Kyle Wise
August 3, 2018

Using the same image for multiple XenDesktop/XenApp sites.

Occasionally I have seen virtual machines attempt to register with the wrong site when doing a multi-site implementations and usually this is because the image has the ListOfDDCs incorrect. If you have already changed the ListOfDDCs and your virtual machines are still attempting to register with the wrong XenApp/XenDesktop site you will want to review and remove all items that refer to the previous site from your master image.

  1. In the Unfiltered policy or a new policy on both XenApp/XenDesktop sites you will want to set “disable auto-update, disable the Enable auto update of Controllers policy setting.”
  2. Create a maintenance version of the image.
  3. Power on image updater/Master virtual machine for the image you want to update.
  4. Log in to the Image Updater/Master virtual machine with a valid administrator account for the image
    Stop the “Citrix Desktop Service” service
    Edit the registry and update all pointers from XenDesktop Site A DDC’s to point to the XenDesktop Site B DDC’s.
  5. Registry Locations to check, only update if entries exist.
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\VirtualDesktopAgent\ListOfDDCs
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Citrix\VirtualDesktopAgent\ListOfDDCs
    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Policies\Citrix\VirtualDesktopAgent\ListOfDDCs
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\VirtualDesktopAgent\State] “RegisteredDdcFqdn”
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\VirtualDesktopAgent\Policy] “ListOfDDCs”
    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Citrix\VirtualDesktopAgent\PreviousState] “PreviousRegisteredDdcFqdn”
  6. Show Hidden Files and check the following locations.
  7. Delete C:\ProgramData\Citrix\GroupPolicy\
    Delete C:\ProgramData\CitrixCSECache\
    Delete C:\ProgramData\Citrix\PVSAgent\LocallyPersistedData\BrokerAgentInfo\SavedListOfDdcsSids.xml
    Delete C:\ProgramData\Citrix\PVSAgent\LocallyPersistedData\BrokerAgentInfo\GroupPolicyValues.xml
  8. Additional you will want to check the PVS Write Cache Disk to confirm the VDAState.ini files is removed if you still have issues with registering to the wrong site. You could run a PSexec command or a script to remove the file from your existing virtual machines.

WriteCache Drive (Drive Letter could be different for your environment) E:\pvsvm\VDAstate.ini

  1. Start the “Citrix Desktop Service” service
    Restart the virtual machine to ensure that the old or Site A DDC’s have not been re-injected into the registry.
    Check the event viewer for successful events for the “Citrix Desktop Service” with something similar to the following:
    The Citrix Desktop Service successfully registered with delivery controller DDCSiteB.Domain.com (IP Address 192.168.0.50).

The endpoint address of the controller is https://DeliveryControllerName.Domain.com:443/Citrix/CdsController/IRegistrar. The Citrix Desktop Service successfully registered with delivery controller

Shutdown the image update/virtual machine image and prepare for push to production.

 

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