Remote Desktop Services - Strange Display Issue

[Jay]

We have a strange issue that I can't get to the bottom of, some times the screen does not fully refresh eg if a user clicks a button and opens a new screen some times the top cm of the screen sort of just overlaps and does not actually properly refresh.

Has anyone else here got an idea what this could be?

[CWH]

Hi,
Does this Technet article help any?

Colin

[Jay]

thanks for looking mate but I think that is more about refreshing the connections

[Paul Adams]

What OS is the Terminal Server?

What version of the Remote Desktop Client are you using?

Can it happen for any window you open (e.g. Notepad, an Explorer window, IE) or is it a particular application?

If the user has this display quirk, does it refresh correctly if they drag the window?

What if an administrator shadows their session, do they see the glitch too?

I've not heard of this particular symptom (a screenshot might help in case I misunderstood, if there's no sensitive information in it), and I've handled a lot of TS/RDS cases.

[Jay]

What OS is the Terminal Server?

Server OS is Windows 2008 R2 x64 - We have a Cluster of servers (50% DL380s and 50% Dell 2950s) and a mixture of Dell and HP cients across 40 sites and it happens randomly on all of them.

What version of the Remote Desktop Client are you using?

its the newest version of RDP on the clients

Can it happen for any window you open (e.g. Notepad, an Explorer window, IE) or is it a particular application?

I havent really tried any other app, all our TS servers run a single app as a published remote app.

If the user has this display quirk, does it refresh correctly if they drag the window?

If I minimize and maximize the app, yes it fixes the issue

What if an administrator shadows their session, do they see the glitch too?

Yes

I've not heard of this particular symptom (a screenshot might help in case I misunderstood, if there's no sensitive information in it), and I've handled a lot of TS/RDS cases

As you can see here, its not the best picture (it is worse than this at times) but you can see the A has drawn incorrectly and the scroll bar has dubbled up at times its so bad entire parts of the screen don't render, this never happened on Citrix via 2000 RDP or 2003 RDP.

[Paul Adams]

Okay, so this occurs for 1 app when published as a RemoteApp - does it ever happen when running the app in a full Remote Desktop session?
(My guess is "no, it works fine" as I've seen a handful of apps have quirks when run as a RemoteApp, but work fine in a full desktop session.)

RAIL works seamlessly for a most apps, though there have been some oddities such as this.

I think some Visual Basic controls can sometimes throw a spanner in the works, and some processes make the assumption that explorer.exe is the shell or don't like the fact that there is no system tray

Minimizing & maximizing, resizing or dragging a window will often cause a repaint message to be sent to the application, which is why it fixes it - legacy apps are not aware that Vista and later renders windows off-screen and doesn't need to repaint when overlapped, so don't update their buffer unless explicitly told to.

[Jay]

I had a feeling it was this turd app. Thanks for your help.

I can actually see what is causing the issue, the app renders the screen then renders the top menu bar pushing the rest of the screen down. This quick draw then redraw is messing up the screen. Back to the devs for this app then.

[pallan75]

I had a feeling it was this turd app. Thanks for your help.

I can actually see what is causing the issue, the app renders the screen then renders the top menu bar pushing the rest of the screen down. This quick draw then redraw is messing up the screen. Back to the devs for this app then.

Hi Jay,

Did you ever get this display issue resolved? I notice from your screenshot that the app you are using is Gladstone MRM Plus2. We too are using this app with a near identical setup to you (Win 2008 R2 x64) and are getting the same screen refresh problem with this Remote App. Gladstone have been of little assistance to date. If you have a resolution to this I would be very keen to hear it!
Many Thanks,
Paul.