‘Freezing’ (Terminal) Servers

At my job at RES Software Support more and more often issues concerning ‘freezing’ servers are reported. It’s always a challenge to get to the rootcause of such an issue. It could be anything, from hardware, a virusscanner or a bad printerdriver. This article references to a few articles (mostly Citrix and Microsoft related) to troubleshoot or solve those annoying freezing server issues.

• CTX128322: Windows 2008 R2 Server Becomes Unresponsive, Preventing RDP and ICA Connections, Requiring a Reboot.
  Under certain circumstances a Windows Server 2008 R2 based server running XenApp 6 becomes unresponsive after some time.
  After users disconnect or end their session, all current user sessions stop responding and no new RDP or ICA Sessions can be started to the server. If the server is rebooted, this behaviour is resolved for an unspecified time, the issue might reoccur.
• MSKB980568: A terminal server that is running Windows Server 2008 stops responding when lots of clients make terminal sessions to the server. You have the “Terminal Services” role installed on a computer that is running Windows Server 2008. If lots of clients make terminal sessions to the server, the increased load may cause the server to stop responding.
• MSKB956438: A Windows Server 2003-based or Windows Server 2008-based terminal server stops accepting new connections, and existing connections stop responding.
  You have a Windows Server 2003-based or Windows Server 2008-based terminal server that stops accepting new connections. Additionally, existing connections stop responding. When this issue occurs, one thread may run in an infinite loop on a processor.
• MSKB976674: The computer stops responding when you access some shared files from a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista. When you access some shared files from a computer that is running Windows Server 2008 or Windows Vista, the computer stops responding under a heavy stress situation. Additionally, the computer does not recover until you force the computer to restart.