Frequent permanent freezing of Windows 10 while using Citrix Workspace

Question

I have recently rebuilt my PC with the following specifications, but am seeing frequent freezing requiring a hard reset. I have been investigating for quite some time but not able to pinpoint the root cause.

• AMD Ryzen 3600
• MSI B450 TOMAHAWK MAX
• Patriot Viper Steel 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200
• Asus GeForce GT710
• Corsair PSU CX550M
• Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB
• Windows 10 Professional

I have updated everything to the latest – BIOS, chipset, drivers etc. And there are no issues with any hardware overheating.

I originally had a friend's MSI GeForce GTX 970 4 GB Video Card and suspected there was a hardware problem and when I swapped it for the GT710 it appeared to resolve the issue for a while. (See Citrix Workspace crashing - Windows 10 GeForce GTX 970)

I use my PC to use Citrix to connect to work remotely and I typically see the issue when on Citrix or when switching between my host PC and the Citrix session (running in full screen mode).

However I have been seeing my PC freeze again in increasing frequency – maybe once per day. The interesting thing is that I have Zoom running on my host PC and my PC crashed today when in my Citrix session. However, Zoom was still working (I could hear people and they could hear me), which was a bit weird, but I couldn't press any key or do anything. I don't get a BSOD or anything.

The biggest problem I have is that I have no idea what is causing it. I don't see anything in Event Viewer.

When I rebuilt my PC I used my existing HDDs to store my data but the OS is on a new SSD. Just today I have disconnected absolutely everything from my PC so that the new CPU, GPU, RAM, motherboard, SSD and PSU are the only things left. It is also a brand new Windows 10 clean reinstall. Doing this should hopefully rule in or out a HDD issue on my old HDDs (probably upwards of five years old).

I appreciate this is a bit of a weird problem but would appreciate some help with the following:

1. Can I identify a problem with my HDDs which could be causing this?
2. Other than Event Viewer, where else could I try and find some crash logs?
3. Could I run Citrix in a virtual machine to avoid it crashing my host PC (it would only crash the VM) or is it likely the root cause would take down the host PC also?
4. Is this more likely a hardware or software issue?
5. Is it possibly AHCI Power Management issue?

Solution

Do you know what version of Citrix is being used at the server? Citrix Workspaces doesn't work very well with older version of Citrix that used to use Citrix Receiver. You should only use the version of Receiver/Workspaces that is officially supported by the Citrix Server you are connecting to. If it is the latest version of Citrix on the server, and Workspaces is still causing you grief, you should be able to fallback to HTML5 using your web browser. You can also try downloading the Citrix cleanup utility to completely remove it from your PC then try downloading the Workspaces App from Windows Store. Make sure Windows is installed version 1909.

Comments

[Tetsujin]

I've only recently seen Citrix for the first time since lockdown, as I guess have many others. I find when it gets "halty/crashy" that if you look in Task Manager you find it's managed to launch several copies of itself. Getting that back down to one seems to be the fix for me.

[Admin]

Have you checked in Task Manager how many instances of your Citrix client are running simultaneously? This thing has a tendency not to clean up after itself when you close it, and at any given point, you can have up to a dozen Citrix processes running on your PC. It can cause a slew of issues.

[Ciaran Martin]

Which specific process are you referring to? I've used Citrix on my old build for years at home without issue.

[GlenRunciter]

Rather than using the full citrix workspace installed app can you hit your company's workspace storefront and work via web browser instead? The server address you plug in to the workspace app is usually the same as the web address, but beginning with https.... so https://<company>.cloud.com

[Admin]

@CiaranMartin: in Task Manager, under Processes, you should see one or several Citrix Receiver entries. Kill all but the one with the highest PID, and see if it helps.

[Ciaran Martin]

@JJC8008 Yes I am currently using the Citrix Workspace/Receiver app which allows full screen usage. I will continue to use it without my other components (primarily HDDs) connected and see if the issue persists. If it does I will uninstall Citrix and use the browser instead.

[Ciaran Martin]

@Didier I will keep an eye on that but only see one instance of Receiver.exe I see quite a few others: AuthManSrv, CDViewer, Concentr.exe, SelfService and SelfServicePlugin

[Admin]

You might want to restart CDViewer and Concentr.exe. The rest are just for identification purposes.

[Desi Pilla]

I have this EXACT same issue. And I have also noticed it's only when the Zoom app is open. Issue also happens when going from full-screen to window. I have not found a solution though....

[Ciaran Martin]

@DesiPilla I thought I had cracked this solution by uninstalling the unused AMD Drivers (given that I had an NVidia card) by using "Display Driver Uninstaller". I think that might have helped but I have recently seen it happen a few times almost always while using Zoom. So it might be a combination of both things: use DDU and then avoid flipping between Zoom and Citrix.

[Ciaran Martin]

So my final resolution to this is to run my Citrix session inside a virtual machine on Windows 10 using Hyper V. So when flicking between Citrix and Zoom I am just flipping between Remote Desktop Connection and my home PC which runs Zoon.