VMware Horizon VIEW: No desktops available after adding a new connection broker with the same name but different IP

For anyone working with Horizon View the following screen shouldn’t be to unfamiliar. “This desktop has no desktop sources available.”

It happens to all of us  and mostly the error is caused by common issues which are easily tracked and solved:

• We might have forgotten to create enough desktops for the amount of concurrent users.
• The View agent which has been installed might be having errors.
• There might be customization issues.
• Click the top link to see more examples in the VMware KB.

 

The VDI test environment:

To give you a better idea of my test environment, I have a master connection server, a replica server and a security server. The master connection server has been used to create a relation with the security server.

 

This week I was running some tests in my test environment and I have a new cause to add to the list of issues causes for the “This desktop has no desktop sources available” error.

I was adding a new connection server and accidentally gave it the name of an already existing test connecting server but with a different IP address. A typo, Not the most clever thing to do, but I assumed this would be easily solved.

1. I removed the new server and removed the windows host without deleting it from the domain. That is being done in step 2 on the original Windows host.
2. Removed the original connection server from the domain.
3. Added the original connection server back into the domain with the correct IP address.
4. Checked if the connection server was once again reachable.
5. Connected to a desktop in a desktop pool on that broker .
6. Connected to the security server and accessed another desktop (floating pool) from the same desktop pool.

All looked fine on first inspection.  I could connect to a desktop using the Horizon View Client both over the security server and directly over the Connection Broker (bypassing the security server).

 

But unfortunately I was still having problems.

Today however I found out that yes, desktops were available for 2 out of 3 test pools but not for the third one!

This was odd! I really didn’t get this at first… why would 2 desktop Pools still be reachable and the third one not?

On the surface it looked like:

• The desktop pools were in a good state:  unassigned desktops were available for all 3 pools.
• The Horizon agent was installed fine in all golden images.
• The assigned portgroup was the right one.
• The security server and connection servers were available: because they did their job for the other 2 pools.
• So how could I solve this?

In the end I figured that  adding and removing the original connection server again with the same name and same IP was causing issues. It definitely was not the connection between the connection broker and security server, because all worked flawlessly for the other 2 pools.

• I broke the relation between the security server and the connection broker and reestablished it again. Unfortunately the same issue persisted. Still the desktops from that 1 pool were unavailable.

 

The solution:

To solve the outage the solution was a simple one after all:

I removed the relation between the security server and the primary connection broker and established a relation between the replica server and security server. All desktops from all pools were available again!

 

Conclusion:

I haven’t really looked into the exact cause of this but I assume, it might be SID related and for a weird reason it only applied to 1 pool. I should actually try to figure this out but I lack the time at the moment.

The situation with that primary connection broker isn’t ideal either, I should decommission it and replace it with a new Windows host and Horizon View installation.  But that is for later..

 

Kim

 

Small tip for those going to VMworld Barcelona and interested in Horizon View: Checkout @LinusBourque VMworld sessions called #EUC8243 Troubleshooting 101 for Horizon and #EUC10008-EDU 10 Tips for Troubleshooting Horizon.

If not for the solid information than for sure because he is a funny and very entertaining presenter!