Azure windows VM shows full black screen in RDP

Question

I am having a php based webapp on azure windows server 2012 vm. Everything was fine till now. Since a day, whenever I try to connect through RDP, a full black screen get displayed, and after sometime the RDP window gets closed automatically. On Azure portal, the VM looks fine. I tried redeploying, restarting, still no success, and the vm is still working (the webapp is accessible and working) and the IP is static. What should I do to resolve this?

Solution 1

This is known to be an issue over screen resolutions or slow internet connections / client connectivity problems.

I'd suggest first to try to see if this is a problem with resolution on your client. Try the following:

1. Click on the black RDP windows (to select it) and press CTRL-ALT-END to bring up the Windows Security screen and select LOG OFF, then log back in (If you're using a RDP client like e.g. remote desktop manager, click the Send Ctrl-alt-delete so the keys are actually sent to the session).
2. Start a new rdp client on your desktop but before you click connect, click the show options link, click the display tab and set the DISPLAY CONFIGURATION to a low resolution like 640×480

When connection you can also try to disable Bitmap caching (click the experience tab and disable bitmap caching before connecting).

This is a known problem, check Microsoft knowledge base

If this doesn't work, I would investigate further too see if there's any network issues / firewall issues dropping your RDP packages.

Solution 2

I had this exact same issue. I started Task Manager (CTRL+ALT+END as explained in one of the other answers) and then started explorer.exe from File>Run new task to get the desktop.

Apparently explorer.exe had not started automatically when I first logged on, hence the blank screen.

Comments

[Ashwin B]

When I pressed CTRL-ALT-END, nothing happened, black screen stayed the same. lowest resolution also did nothing. I already tried disabling bitmap caching. Also, on other community forums (where similar problem is documented), people say that they get the 'welcome screen' of windows. But what I am getting is complete black, I enter the credentials, the session gets connected, and black screen appears.

[Ashwin B]

From your comment, I came to know about Remote Desktop Manager, so I gave it a shot, and remote connection started working normally after that. (Don't know how).

[Harald F.]

Glad that it got you on the track and fixed your problem. Guessing it's a display settings issue; perhaps remote desktop manager has some better built in handling for dealing with resolutions / screen issues and were able to fix the settings (it uses the same underlying rdp).

[scign]

Simply signing out and reconnecting solved the problem for me. I believe part of my problem was that I was using Windows on a low RAM VM so performance issues should be expected.