A list containing the majority of Citrix Director support articles collated to make this page a one stop place for you to search for and find information regarding any issues you have with the product and its related dependencies.
The page is updated daily with new support articles and information. Articles will change from time and if information here is outdated or incorrect please let me know using the comments. Links may also expire or change so if you find broken links, please again let me know. For each issue, known product versions affected are recorded however that does not mean product versions that aren’t listed are not affected.
There is a search box that you can use if looking for a specific fault. For example if you have an error code or error message, use that to perform a search. You can also use your browsers search feature which will perform a search against the whole page based on the words you enter.
Citrix Director:
| wdt_ID | Brief Description of Issue | Brief Description of Fix | Applicable Product Versions Affected (if known) | Link to supplemental Support Article(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Custom Reports Tab is missing from Trends in Director. | You require Delivery Controllers running 7.12 or later and Platinum licenses. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX225891 | |
| 2 | Within Trends -> Sessions -> Session Details, sometimes information will not load when you explicitly select any Delivery Group. For example, if 500 sessions are connected, you may only see 3 and a "No data available for specified time period" message. | This issue is fixed in XenApp and XenDesktop 7.14.1. | XenApp and XenDesktop 7.13. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX225853 |
| 3 | Within the monitoring SQL database, the MonitorData.Session table shows a "NULL" value for all sessions and Director does not report Average Logon Duration for all sessions. | The Security Descriptor was customised on each VDA denying permission to the Network Service Account which runs UPMPlugin. This permission issue prevented the Desktop Ready event from being logged to Event Viewer. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX225857 | |
| 4 | You receive message "Unexpected error. Check your network connection or view Director server event logs for further information". | A private fix is available for Director versions 7.13 and 7.14 with a public fix expected to be integrated in the next release. | XenApp and XenDesktop 7.13, 7.14. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX225784 |
| 5 | When you point Director to a specific Delivery Controller you receive message "Cannot retrieve data". | A duplicate SPN is causing Kerberos authentication failures. Remove the duplicate SPN registered against affected Delivery Controller. | XenApp 7.6 LTSR CU4 to XenApp 7.14. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX225294 |
| 6 | The failed Desktop/Server OS counter on Director Dashboard does not change even after all of the desktops are registered. | You can perform a workaround by deleting the stale records from SQL however it is advised that you upgrade to XenDesktop 7.12 for a permanent fix. | XenDesktop 7.11 and lower. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX225139 |
| 7 | You are presented with a "HTTP 500 Internal Server Error" when browsing to the Director site. | Install ASP.NET 4.5 and validate all other Director system requirements. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX207694 | |
| 8 | Under Trends and when browsing to the Logon Performance or Single Application tabs, you get error "Cannot retrieve the data. Data source is unresponsive or reported an error". | It is advised that you contact Citrix Support to figure out which records in which Monitor Database table contain two dates with a gap larger than 596.5 hours. These records need removed manually to revoer the Director page. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX222824 | |
| 9 | When viewing Session Details, latency shows as "...". | You need to re-register the ICA and Windows performance counters. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX207897 | |
| 10 | Director may show incorrect data when compared to Studio for statistics such as the number of active sessions. | A hotfix is available. | XenApp and XenDesktop 7.11. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX223910 |
| 11 | Logon Duration metrics are not available in Director. | Start the Citrix Profile Management service. This allows UPM Event to run. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX223972 | |
| 12 | After upgrading Director from 7.6 to 7.7 the License Server section of the Director Dashboard displays "Cannot retrieve the data" and "Data source unresponsive due to configuration error". | Set the License Server address in Studio. | XenApp and XenDesktop 7.7. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX206346 |
| 13 | The Hosted Applications tab appears to be missing. | It is not missing but has rather been moved to the Trends view. | XenApp and XenDesktop 7.7 and above. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX223224 |
| 14 | The User Connection failure section does not display any data and displays message "Cannot retrieve the data. Data source unresponsive or reported an error. View Director server event logs for further information". | Record(s) containing a string of zeroes exist in the MonitorData.machine and MonitorData.DesktopGroup SQL tables. These records need removed. | XenDesktop 7.8 to 7.14. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX208206 |
| 15 | Under Policy and Session details, Director displays message "Cannot retrieve data" and the Event Logs contain Event ID 6 "Retrieving desktop policy details" and error "Data at the root level is invalid". | This may be a case of stale or corrupted policies. Try reloading Performance Counters and clearing caches. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX206472 | |
| 16 | When viewing current connections or other data under the Filters view, the message "Unexpected error. Check your network connection or view server event logs for further information" is displayed. The Event Log also contains error "Failed to connect to data source". | During an upgrade of XenDesktop 7.5 to 7.6 the Monitor.service.config file did not get updated. This file needed manually replaced and a number of commands run. | XenDesktop 7.6 to XenDesktop 7.9. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX208236 |
| 17 | When logging on you receive message "The system is currently unavailable. Please try again later or contact your administrator". | Open IIS, click Application Settings and make sure that each Delivery Controller value is defined by FQDN or IP address under Application Setting "Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses". | XenDesktop 7.6 to 7.13. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX223000 |
| 18 | Director does not show any metrics | This is due to stale data residing in the Monitoring database which needs removed via script. | Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.11. | https://robbeekmans.net/citrix/citrix-xendesktop-director-shows-no-metrics-perhaps-got-stale-data-need-clear/ |
| 19 | HDX Insight data from NetScaler Insight Center does not show within Director. | Check if "Secure access only" is enabled on Insight Center. If it is, configure Director to communicate over HTTPS or else disable "Secure access only". | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX217101 | |
| 20 | After searching for a user in Director no records show up. You can search for machines fine. Alternatively, searching for users takes a long time. | By default Director performs forest-wide searches for users and computers. It may not be desirable if only domain wide searches are required. Within IIS on each Director server, create an "Application Settings" entry under the "Director" virtual directory. Call this entry "Connector.ActiveDirectory.ForestSearch" and set the value to "False". | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX227664 | |
| 21 | User searches in Directory may be slow or inconsistent. | This is by design if you are taking your time to type the complete name in to the search box. Search queries from Director via LDAP are triggered every 500 milliseconds. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX228503 | |
| 22 | Users are reporting various application connectivity and authentication errors after installing KB4041693. | Uninstall KB4041693. There are currently known issues with this patch. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX229007 | |
| 23 | The Monitoring Director database does not receive any grooming if the dize of the database is too large. | This issue has been fixed in XenApp and XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU1. There is also a workaround as explained in the CTX article. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX230536 | |
| 24 | Some panes in Director may display the following error for certain users "Cannot retrieve the data. Unexpected server error. View Director server event logs for further information". | This is a known Microsoft issue due to users being in too many groups within Active Directory. Follow the CTX article to check the value of regsitry DWORD values on each Delivery Controller in your site. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX230653 | |
| 25 | You receive error "Cannot retrieve the data" beside "License Server" in the main Director dashboard. | This happens when the license server cannot connect to "cis.citrix.com". Log on to Citrix Licensing Manager and select "Do not send any data" under "Share usage statistics with Citrix". | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX231151 | |
| 26 | When viewing the "Network" tab in Director to view NetScaler MAS Insight data you receive error "Network unreachable. Check configuration, authentication, or service availability". | Check if "Secure access only" is configured on NetScaler MAS. If you want to use HTTP uncheck this, otherwise make sure Director trusts the MAS certificate for HTTPS communication. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX231463 | |
| 27 | When searching for a user that resides in another trusted domain, Director does not whos session details for that user. | Assign the user based Security Group of the second domain to the Delivery Group as a workaround. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX231664 | |
| 28 | The Top 10 Process table does not populate any data under Historical Machine Utilization. | When running "Get-MonitorConfiguration" some process utilisation values were set to false. Ran command "Set-MonitorConfiguration -EnableDayLevelGranularityProcessUtilization $true -EnableHourLevelGranularityProcessUtilization $true -EnableMinLevelGranularityProcessUtilization $true" | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX233555 | |
| 29 | When logging off a user for the second time via "Filters -> Sessions -> All Sessions" you receive error "Data source unresponsive or reported an error. View Director server event logs for further information". | Contact Citrix for private fix "LC8826". | Citrix Director 7.15. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX234014 |
| 30 | The Director dashboard shows that machines are powered off however Citrix Studio and PowerShell show them as powered on. | NULL entries exist in the "Failure End Date" column within your Monitoring database. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX234109 | |
| 31 | After logging on you receive message "The system is currently unavailable. Please try again later or contact your administrator". | Check the DNS suffix on the Director server is set correctly. Alternatively, run "Get-BrokerController" from a Delivery Controller and if there is a stale Delivery Controller name listed, remove it from the Site. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX234220 | |
| 32 | Director cannot retrieve machine details for some Server OS VDAs. | Reset performance counters on the non-working VDAs by running command "lodctr /r". | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX235802 | |
| 33 | Under the "Hosted Application Usage" tab (Platinum customers only), the column "Total Distinct Users" only shows data for the current week rather than 90 days. | Install Hotfixes Update 3 on each Delivery Controller. | Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.6. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX222676 |
| 34 | Director not working properly when embedded in an Intranet website using IFrame. | Files within "C:\inetpub\wwwroot\Director\dmc" contained old information and needed cleared out. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/397400-director-in-a-iframe-x-frame-options-in-header/ | |
| 35 | Director and NetScaler MAS fail on an SSL handshake and as a result HDX Insight integration does not work. | Verify and disable Secure Channel protocols (Schannel) that are not being used or matching between Director and MAS. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX237440 | |
| 36 | When logging on to Director sometimes you receive a "HTTP Error 503. The service is unavailable" message. | This could be due to broken permissions as explained in the CTX article. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX237964 | |
| 37 | When configuring the Citrix Application Probe Agent you receive error "Storefront was unreachable". | Enter the Receiver for Web URL in the "Storefront URL" field. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX237970 | |
| 38 | After logging on to Director you receive error "An exception occurred while processing your request" and Event Viewer shows error "MissingMethodException". | Take a snapshot of the Director server(s) and uninstall Microsoft patch "KB3098785". | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX238216 | |
| 39 | When sending a message to a user session you receive error "Message cannot be sent". | This issue is resolved in Director 7.17, and a private fix is available for 7.15 LTSR. | Citrix XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU2. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX238775 |
| 40 | When browsing to Director you receive error "403 - Forbidden: Access is denied". | Under IIS, enable "Default Document". | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX239727 | |
| 41 | Director does not show latency information for sessions running on particular VDAs. | Upgrading the VDA from 7.15 LTSR CU2 to 7.15 LTSR CU3 resolved the problem. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/398637-latency-shows-as-but-metrics-are-visible-via-procmon-and-hdx-monitor/ | |
| 42 | After a Group Policy update or Director server reboot, integration with Citrix ADM breaks and the "Network" tab shows "No details are available". If you reconfigure integration, it breaks again following a reboot of Group Policy update. | Citrix have a private fix for this issue. By default, Director uses a builtin local administrator account to encrypt/decrypt XML files related to Citrix ADM integration with Director. In this scenario a Group Policy was renaming the builtin administrator account which broke encryption/decryption. Going forward the Director machine account will be used for this operation. This is resolved in 7.15 LTSR CU4 and Virtual Apps & Desktops 7 1903. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX239926 | |
| 43 | Director reports low CPU usage under the "Load Evaluator" tab, whilst the VDA and Task Manager shows much higher CPU usage. This is causing issues with Load Index when you have configured Load Index to be calculated on CPU usage. | Disable the "CPU usage excluded process priority" Citrix policy (which is enabled by default) in Studio, which will cause background processes to be considered for load evaluation. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX239964 | |
| 44 | Logging on to Director takes one minute to complete. | This was caused by HDX Insight misconfiguration. A CDF trace showed error "HdxInsightForUDPluginConfig.xml failed with exception could not perform the logon operation". Running "DirectorConfig.exe /confignetscaler" from CMD to reconfigure HDX Insight is required. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX220613 | |
| 45 | When searching for a user, the search results field that auto-populates is too narrow and user names may be cut off. | Upgrade to 1808. In this release the search bar was made bigger and a tooltip has been added to show the full content when hovered over. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/401023-director-find-user-search-field-too-short/ | |
| 46 | After deleting a Hosting Connection, it still appears in Director. | Using commands "Get-BrokerHypervisorConnection" and "Remove-BrokerHypervisorConnectionid -Name" resolved the issue. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/401512-hypervisorconnection-remains-in-storefront-after-deletion/ | |
| 47 | Logging on to Director presents a spinning wheel but nothing else. | This happens if the 'X-Frame-Options' header has been enabled on IIS. Follow the CTX article to configure the Director web.config file. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX202564 | |
| 48 | Director does not show the latest "Average Logon Duration" or "Sessions Connected" details and Event Viewer shows Event ID 5 "Failed to connect to data source 'Unknown error'". | On a Delivery Controller, run cmdlet "Get-MonitorConfiguration" and check if the value of "DataCollectionEnabled" is set to False. If so, set to True. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX247801 | |
| 49 | On the Dashboard page of Director, the "Sessions Connected" counter remains at 0 and the graph freezes in time. | The issue resolved itself a day later. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/401928-director-not-auto-updating-every-minute/ | |
| 50 | Director fails to uninstall with error code "Removal of MSI Product 'DesktopDirector.msi' failed with code 'UnknownProduct' (1605)". | Uninstalling "MicrosoftProgram_Install_and_Uninstall.meta.diagcab" fixed the issue. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/401778-cant-uninstal-director-718/ | |
| 51 | When viewing Machine Utilization a "Cannot retrieve the data" error is presented. | Upgrading the VDAs to CU3 or resetting performance counters on the VDA resolved the issue. | Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU2. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/402485-director-715-doesnt-show-machine-utilization/ |
| 52 | Director does not report all user connection failures over the last hour, compared to PowerShell which shows a higher count. | Contact Citrix for a private fix, which will most likely be included in CU4. | Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU2 and CU3. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX249871 |
| 53 | When browsing to "Filters -> Machines -> All Machines" or "Filters -> Sessions -> All Sessions" you see only checkboxes. Refreshing the page sometimes fixes the issue. | Contact Citrix for a private fix. This is resolved in CU4. | Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU2 and CU3. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX249874 |
| 54 | Director does not show any details for Nutanix Hypervisors on the main Dashboard page under the "Infrastructure" section. | Nutanix will be releasing a fix for this issue. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/398878-nutanix-ahv-information-not-available-in-director/ | |
| 55 | Director does not use all of the screen real estate when viewing Machines or Sessions under "Filters". | Citrix is investigating. | Citrix XenApp & XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU4. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/402934-citrix-director-7154000-build-398-display-issue/ |
| 56 | If an administrator logging on to Director is assigned a custom scope from Studio, and an application is published to an Application Group, the scoped administrator may not see the application instance in Director. | This issue will be addressed in a future release of the product. For now there is no workaround. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX256001 | |
| 57 | After an upgrade to ADC 12.1.50.x or 13.x, reCAPTCHA authentication fails with error "Error for site owner: Invalid Site Key". | Use a "CAPTCHA" authentication action instead of "WEBAUTH". | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX256004 | |
| 58 | When sending a message through Director to a large number of users, you receive error "Message cannot be sent. Unexpected server error" when you are filtering by Delivery Group and Published Name. | A private fix LD1173 is available, and will be made part of a future release. | Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU3 or CU4. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX256895 |
| 59 | All entries under "Session" and "Machine" filters are not listed. For example, the Director Dashboard may show 500 active sessions but the "Filters -> Sessions" view shows only a few. | Contact Citrix support for a private fix. | Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU4. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX256893 |
| 60 | When sending a message through Director to a large number of users, you receive error "Message cannot be sent. Unexpected server error" when you are filtering by Published Name under "Application Instances". | A private fix LD1257 is available, and will be made part of a future release. | Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop 7.15 LTSR CU3 or CU4. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX256892 |
| 61 | After upgrading the VDA from 1906 to 1906.2, Director displays "Cannot Retrieve Data" error under the Logon Duration section for each user. | Reinstalling the VDA solved this. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/404209-after-upgrade-to-vda-7-19062-citrix-director-logon-duration-shows-cannot-retrieve-data/ | |
| 62 | For Linux VDAs, the Machine Details and Machine Utilization sections of Director show "Cannot retrieve the data", "n/a" or "No details available for connections through a VDA on a Linux OS machine". | This is expected as displaying this information is not currently supported. | https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/405223-director-linux-vda-no-details-are-available-for-connections-through-a-vda-on-a-linux-os-machine/ | |
| 63 | When attempting to view session details for a user from a different forest, you receive message "Cannot retrieve machines". | Log on to Director using an account from the same forest as users you want to view and manage sessions. Alternatively, you can edit the "web.config" file on the Director servers to include the credentials of a user account from that forest, but these will be stored in plain text. | ||
| 64 | With multiple Sites configured in Director, one Site in particular does not display when logging on to the Director console. | A service stuck on any of the Delivery Controllers can cause this. On each Delivery Controller, launch PowerShell and run cmdlet "Get-Command Get-*ServiceStatus" followed by running all of the returned cmdlets such as "Get-ConfigServiceStatus". Check the output of each cmdlet returns "OK". If any return "DBUnconfigured" then restart the Citrix related services on the affected Delivery Controller and recheck. | ||
| 65 | When attempting to shadow a session from Director the error 'Shadow Session Failure - Remote Assistance failed to start' appears. | This is a known issue. Contact Citrix Support referencing 'CVADHELP-20980' to receive an updated binary. | https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX465105/citrix-director-unable-to-shadow-session-on-vda-2206 |
Vikram Singh Chauhan
April 6, 2018Hi George,
I have two citrix directors in my environment.
Director 1 is with X domain and is working fine.
Director 2 which is with Y domain throws error while logging in “The system is currently unavailable. Please try again later or contact your administrator”.
Have checked DCs fqdn configured under “Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses in app setting correctly. Still it throws the same error.
Also ran get-configregisteredserviceinstance |measure
count is 240
Also reinstalled Director still the same error.
have also tried to configure DCs IP addresses under “Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses” still no luck
have tried with single DC FQDN and ip both under “Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses” – still no luck
In director event log it shows event id 7 with “No Sites could be accessed”
Please suggest?
George Spiers
April 6, 2018Can you ping/resolve the DDCs?
Does Domain Y have its own Citrix Site or is Director in Domain Y trying to contact the Site in Domain X?
Any firewall/connectivity issues blocking communication?
What version of DDCs/Director?
Vikram Singh Chauhan
April 6, 2018Yes I can ping ddcs domain y and domain x are under one forest. It’s xd 7.15 Ltsr
George Spiers
April 7, 2018If Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses is set correctly, then I would check to see if any traffic is being blocked. Turn off Windows Firewall on the DDCs/Director servers for a quick check. Failing that contact Citrix Support.
Scott Jones
July 25, 2018My DDC is running 7.15 CU2 and my Director server is running 7.15 CU2. I am getting the error Cannot retrieve the data error. I have checked the sql database for a null record to delete but it is not there. Any help with this would be helpful.
George Spiers
July 25, 2018In IIS under the Director virtual directory make sure the application setting “Service.AutoDiscoveryAddresses” contains the correct set of Delivery Controllers and nothing stale is in there. Otherwise contact Citrix support.
vinoth
July 25, 2019Hello George,
1. For xenapp application launch the SSO is not happening in chrome but its working fine in IE
2. In director, we are not getting a full graphic view on the report for one month and one year for 7.6 Cu5
George Spiers
July 26, 2019Is StoreFront in your local intranet zone? Check with IE by browsing to Receiver for Web and then on the web page in a blank space, right-click -> Properties.
Anonymous
September 9, 2019Sorry for the Late Reply
Yes storefront is in our Local intranet zone