XenApp and XenDesktop

Displays, messages, and troubleshooting

Monitor PvD through reports

You can use a diagnostic tool to monitor the changes made by users to both parts of their Personal vDisks (the user data and the application parts). These changes include applications that users have installed and files they have modified. The changes are stored in a set of reports.

  1. On the machine you want to monitor, run C:\Program Files\Citrix\personal vDisk\bin\CtxPvdDiag.exe.
  2. Browse to a location where you want to store the reports and logs, select the reports to generate, and then click OK. The available reports are listed below.

Software hive report: This report generates two files: Software.Dat.Report.txt and Software.Dat.delta.txt.

The Software.Dat.Report.txt file records the changes made by the user to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software hive. It contains the following sections:

  • List of Applications installed on the base—applications that were installed in Layer 0.
  • List of user installed software—applications the user installed on the application part of the personal vDisk.
  • List of software uninstalled by user—applications the user removed that were originally in Layer 0.

See the hive delta report for information about the Software.Dat.delta.txt.

System hive report: The generated SYSTEM.CurrentControlSet.DAT.Report.txt file records changes the user made to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System hive. It contains the following sections:

  • List of user installed services—services and drivers the user installed.
  • Startup of following services were changed—services and drivers whose start type the user modified.

Security hive report: The generated SECURITY.DAT.Report.txt file monitors all changes that the user makes in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security hive.

Security Account Manager (SAM) hive report: The generated SAM.DAT.Report.txt file monitors all changes that the user makes in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SAM hive.

Hive delta report: The generated Software.Dat.delta.txt file records all registry keys and values added or removed, and all values the user modified in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software hive.

Personal vDisk logs: The log files Pud-IvmSupervisor.log, PvDActivation.log, PvDSvc.log, PvDWMI.log, SysVol-IvmSupervisor.log, and vDeskService-[#].log are generated by default in P:\Users<user account>\AppData\Local\Temp\PVDLOGS, but are moved to the selected location.

Windows operating system logs:

  • EvtLog_App.xml and EvtLog_System.xml are the application and system event logs in XML format from the personal vDisk volume.
  • Setupapi.app.log and setuperr.log contain log messages from when msiexec.exe was run during personal vDisk installation.
  • Setupapi.dev.log contains device installation log messages.
  • Msinfo.txt contains the output of msinfo32.exe. For information, see the Microsoft documentation.

File system report: The generated FileSystemReport.txt file records changes the user made to the file system in the following sections:

  • Files Relocated—files in Layer 0 that the user moved to the vDisk. Layer 0 files are inherited from the master image by the machine to which the personal vDisk is attached.
  • Files Removed—files in Layer 0 that were hidden by a user’s action (for example, removing an application).
  • Files Added (MOF,INF,SYS)—files with .mof, .inf, or .sys extensions that the user added to the personal vDisk (for example, when they installed an application such as Visual Studio 2010 that registers a .mof file for autorecovery).
  • Files Added Other—other files that the user added to the vDisk (for example, when installing an application).
  • Base Files Modified But Not Relocated—files in Layer 0 that the user modified but that the personal vDisk Kernel-Mode drivers did not capture in the vDisk.

Image updates

In Studio, when you choose a PvD-enabled machine in a machine catalog, the “PvD” tab provides monitoring status during image updates, plus estimated completion time and progress. The possible state displays during an image update are: Ready, Preparing, Waiting, Failed, and Requested.

An image update can fail for different reasons, including lack of space or a desktop not finding the PvD in sufficient time. When Studio indicates that an image update failed, an error code with descriptive text is provided to help troubleshooting. Use the Personal vDisk Image Update Monitoring Tool or the personal-vdisk-poolstats.ps1 script to monitor image update progress and obtain error codes associated with the failure.

If an image update fails, the following log files can provide further troubleshooting information:

  • PvD service log—C:\ProgramData\Citrix\personal vDisk\Logs\PvDSvc.log.txt
  • PvD activation log i—P:\PVDLOGS\PvDActivation.log.txt

The most recent content is at the end of the log file.

Error messages: 7.6 and later

The following errors are valid for PvD version 7.6 and later:

  • An internal error occurred. Review the Personal vDisk logs for further details. Error code %d (%s)

    This is a catch-all for uncategorized errors, so it has no numeric value. All unexpected errors encountered during inventory creation or Personal vDisk update are indicated by this error code.

    • Collect logs and contact Citrix support.
    • If this error occurs during catalog update, roll back the catalog to the previous version of the master image.
  • There are syntax errors in the rule files. Review the logs for further details.

    Error code 2. The rule file contains syntax errors. The Personal vDisk log file contains the name of the rule file and line number where the syntax error was found. Fix the syntax error in the rule file and retry the operation.

  • The inventory stored in the Personal vDisk corresponding to the previous version of the master image is corrupt or unreadable.

    Error code 3. The last inventory is stored in \ProgramData\CitrixPvD\Settings\Inventory\VER-LAST\UserData.V2.vhd. Restore the inventory corresponding to the last version of the master image by importing the ‘VER-LAST’ folder from a known working PvD machine associated with the previous version of the master image.

  • The inventory stored in the Personal vDisk corresponding to the previous version of the master image is higher version.

    Error code 4. This is caused by personal vDisk version incompatibility between the last master image and the current master image. Retry updating the catalog after installing the latest version of personal vDisk in the master image.

  • Change journal overflow was detected.

    Error code 5. A USN journal overflow was caused by a large number of changes made to the master image while creating the inventory. If this continues to occur after multiple attempts, use procmon to determine if third party software is creating/deleting a large number of files during inventory creation.

  • The Personal vDisk could not find a disk attached to the system for storing user data.

    Error code 6. First, verify that the PvD disk is attached to the VM through the hypervisor console. This error typically happens due to “Data Leak Prevention” software preventing access to the PvD disk. If the PvD disk is attached to the VM, try adding an exception for “attached disk” in the “Data Leak Prevention” software configuration.

  • The system has not been rebooted post-installation. Reboot to implement the changes.

    Error code 7. Restart the desktop and retry the operation.

  • Corrupt installation. Try re-installing Personal vDisk.

    Error code 8. Install personal vDisk and try again.

  • Personal vDisk inventory is not up to date. Update the inventory in the master image, and then try again.

    Error code 9. The personal vDisk inventory was not updated in the master image before shutting down the desktop. Restart the master image and shut down the desktop through the “Update personal vDisk” option, and then create a new snapshot; use that snapshot to update the catalog.

  • An internal error occurred while starting the Personal vDisk. Review the Personal vDisk logs for further details.

    Error code 10. This could be caused by the PvD driver failing to start a virtualization session due to an internal error or personal vDisk corruption. Try restarting the desktop through the Controller. If the problem persists, collect the logs and contact Citrix Support.

  • The Personal vDisk timed out while trying to find a storage disk for users’ personalization settings.

    Error code 11. This error occurs when the PvD driver fails to find the PvD disk within 30 seconds after restart. This is usually caused by an unsupported SCSI controller type or storage latency. If this occurs with all desktops in the catalog, change the SCSI controller type associated with the “Template VM” / “Master VM” to a type supported by personal vDisk technology. If this occurs with only some desktops in the catalog, it might be due to spikes in storage latency due to a large number of desktops starting at the same time. Try limiting the maximum active power actions setting associated with the host connection.

  • The Personal vDisk has been de-activated because an unsafe system shutdown was detected. Restart the machine.

    Error code 12. This could be due to a desktop failing to complete the boot process with PvD enabled. Try restarting the desktop. If the problem persists, watch the desktop startup through the hypervisor console and check if the desktop is crashing. If a desktop crashes during startup, restore the PvD from backup (if you maintain one) or reset the PvD.

  • The drive letter specified for mounting the Personal vDisk is not available.

    Error code 13. This could be caused by PvD failing to mount the PvD disk at the mount specified by the administrator. The PvD disk will fail to mount if the drive letter is already used by other hardware. Select a different letter as the mount point for the personal vDisk.

  • Personal vDisk kernel mode drivers failed to install.

    Error code 14. Personal vDisk installs drivers during the first inventory update after installation. Some antivirus products prevent installation of the driver when attempted outside the context of an installer. Temporarily disable the antivirus real time scan or add exceptions in the antivirus for PvD drivers during the first time inventory creation.

  • Cannot create a snapshot of the system volume. Make sure that the Volume Shadow Copy service is enabled.

    Error code 15. This could occur because the Volume Shadow Copy service is disabled. Enable the Volume Shadow Copy service and retry taking an inventory.

  • The change journal failed to activate. Try again after waiting for few minutes.

    Error code 16. Personal vDisk uses change journal for tracking changes made to master image. During an inventory update, if PvD detects that the change journal is disabled, it attempts to enable it; this error occurs when that attempt fails. Wait for few minutes and retry.

  • There is not enough free space in the system volume.

    Error code 17. There is not enough free space available on the C drive of the desktop for the image update operation. Expand the system volume or remove unused files to free space in the system volume. The image update should begin again after the next restart.

  • There is not enough free space in the Personal vDisk storage. Expand Personal vDisk storage to provide more space.

    Error code 18. There is not enough free space available on the personal vDisk drive when performing an image update operation. Expand personal vDisk storage or remove unused files to free space in the personal vDisk storage. The image update should restart after next reboot.

  • Personal vDisk storage is over-committed. Expand Personal vDisk storage to provide more space.

    Error code 19. There is not enough free space available on the personal vDisk drive to fully accommodate thick provisioned “UserData.V2.vhd”. Expand the personal vDisk storage or remove unused files to free space in the personal vDisk storage.

  • Corrupt system registry.

    Error code 20. The system registry is corrupt, damaged, missing, or unreadable. Reset the personal vDisk or restore it from an earlier backup.

  • An internal error occurred while resetting the Personal vDisk. Check Personal vDisk logs for further details.

    Error code 21. This is a catch-all for all the errors encountered during a personal vDisk reset. Collect the logs and contact Citrix Support.

  • Failed to reset the Personal vDisk because there is not enough free space in the personal vDisk storage.

    Error code 22. There is not enough free space available on the Personal vDisk drive when performing a reset operation. Expand the personal vDisk storage or remove unused files to free space in the personal vDisk storage.

Error messages: earlier than 7.6

The following errors are valid for PvD 7.x versions earlier than 7.6:

  • Startup failed. Personal vDisk was unable to find a storage disk for user personalization settings.

    The PvD software could not find the Personal vDisk (by default, the P: drive) or could not mount it as the mount point selected by the administrator when they created the catalog.

    • Check the PvD service log for following entry: “PvD 1 status –> 18:183”.
    • If you are using a version of PvD earlier than Version 5.6.12, upgrading to the latest version resolves this issue.
    • If you are using Version 5.6.12 or later, use the disk management tool (diskmgmt.msc) to determine whether the P: drive is present as an unmounted volume. If present, run chkdsk on the volume to determine if it is corrupt, and try to recover it using chkdsk.
  • Startup failed. Citrix Personal vDisk failed to start. For further assistance …. Status code: 7, Error code: 0x70

    Status code 7 implies that an error was encountered while trying to update the PvD. The error could be one of the following:

    Error code Description
    0x20000001 Failed to save the diff package, most likely due to lack of free disk space inside the VHD.
    0x20000004 Failed to acquire required privileges for updating the PvD.
    0x20000006 Failed to load hive from the PvD image or from PvD inventory, most likely due to corrupt PvD image or inventory.
    0x20000007 Failed to load the file system inventory, most likely due to a corrupt PvD image or inventory.
    0x20000009 Failed to open the file containing file system inventory, most likely due to a corrupt PvD image or inventory.
    0x2000000B Failed to save the diff package, most likely due to lack of free disk space inside the VHD.
    0x20000010 Failed to load the diff package.
    0x20000011 Missing rule files.
    0x20000021 Corrupt PvD inventory.
    0x20000027 The catalog “MojoControl.dat” is corrupt.
    0x2000002B Corrupt or missing PvD inventory.
    0x2000002F Failed to register user installed MOF on image update, upgrade to 5.6.12 to fix the issue.
    0x20000032 Check the PvDactivation.log.txt for the last log entry with a Win32 error code.
    0x20 Failed to mount application container for image update, upgrade to 5.6.12 to fix the issue.
    0x70 There is not enough space on the disk.
  • Startup failed. Citrix Personal vDisk failed to start [or Personal vDisk encountered an internal error]. For further assistance … Status code: 20, Error code 0x20000028

    The personal vDisk was found but a PvD session could not be created.

    Collect the logs and check SysVol-IvmSupervisor.log for session creation failures:

    1. Check for the following log entry “ IvmpNativeSessionCreate: failed to create native session, status XXXXX”.
    2. If the status is 0xc00002cf, fix the problem by adding a new version of the master image to the catalog. This status code implies that the USN Journal overflowed due to a large number of changes after an inventory update.
    3. Restart the affected virtual desktop. If the problem persists, contact Citrix Technical Support.
  • Startup failed. Citrix Personal vDisk has been deactivated because an unsafe system shutdown was detected. To retry, select Try again. If the problem continues, contact your system administrator.

    The pooled VM cannot complete its startup with the PvD enabled. First determine why startup cannot be completed. Possible reasons are that a blue screen appears because:

    • An incompatible antivirus product is present, for example old versions of Trend Micro, in the master image.
    • The user has installed software that is incompatible with PvD. This is unlikely, but you can check it by adding a new machine to the catalog and seeing whether it restarts successfully.
    • The PvD image is corrupt. This has been observed in Version 5.6.5.

    To check if the pooled VM is displaying a blue screen, or is restarting prematurely:

    • Log on to the machine through the hypervisor console.
    • Click Try Again and wait for the machine to shut down.
    • Start the machine through Studio.
    • Use the hypervisor console to watch the machine console as it starts.

    Other troubleshooting:

    • Collect the memory dump from the machine displaying the blue screen, and send it for further analysis to Citrix Technical Support.
    • Check for errors in the event logs associated with the PvD:
      1. Mount UserData.V2.vhd from the root of the P: drive using DiskMgmt.msc by clicking Action > Attach VHD.
      2. Launch Eventvwr.msc.
      3. Open the system event log (Windows\System32\winevt\logs\system.evtx) from UserData.V2.vhd by clicking Action > Open saved logs.
      4. Open the application event log (Windows\System32\winevt\logs\application.evtx) from UserData.V2.vhd by clicking Action > Open saved logs.
  • The Personal vDisk cannot start. The Personal vDisk could not start because the inventory has not been updated. Update the inventory in the master image, then try again. Status code: 15, Error code: 0x0

    The administrator selected an incorrect snapshot while creating or updating the PvD catalog (that is, the master image was not shut down using Update Personal vDisk when creating the snapshot).

Events logged by Personal vDisk

If Personal vDisk is not enabled, you can view the following events in Windows Event Viewer. Select the Applications node in the left pane; the Source of the events in the right pane is Citrix Personal vDisk. If Personal vDisk is enabled, none of these events are displayed.

An Event ID of 1 signifies an information message, an ID of 2 signifies an error. Not all events may be used in every version of Personal vDisk.

Event ID Description
1 Personal vDisk Status: Update Inventory Started.
1 Personal vDisk Status: Update Inventory completed. GUID: %s.
1 Personal vDisk Status: Image Update Started.
1 Personal vDisk Status: Image Update completed.
1 Reset in progress.
1 OK.
2 Personal vDisk Status: Update Inventory Failed with: %s.
2 Personal vDisk Status: Image Update Failed with: %s.
2 Personal vDisk Status: Image Update Failed with Internal Error.
2 Personal vDisk Status: Update Inventory Failed with: Internal Error.
2 Personal vDisk has been disabled because of an improper shutdown.
2 Image update failed. Error code %d.
2 Personal vDisk encountered an internal error. Status code[%d] Error code[0x%X].
2 Personal vDisk reset failed.
2 Unable to find disk for storing user personalization settings.
2 There is not enough space available on the storage disk to create a Personal vDisk container.

Release-independent known issues

The following PvD issues have been identified:

  • When an application installed on a personal vDisk (PvD) is related to another application of the same version that is installed on the master image, the application on the PvD could stop working after an image update. This occurs if you uninstall the application from the master image or upgrade it to a later version, because that action removes the files needed by the application on the PvD from the master image. To prevent this, keep the application containing the files needed by the application on the PvD on the master image.

    For example, the master image contains Office 2007, and a user installs Visio 2007 on the PvD; the Office applications and Visio work correctly. Later, the administrator replaces Office 2007 with Office 2010 on the master image, and then updates all affected machines with the updated image. Visio 2007 no longer works. To avoid this, keep Office 2007 in the master image. [320915]

  • When deploying McAfee Virus Scan Enterprise (VSE), use version 8.8 Patch 4 or later on a master image if you use personal vDisk. [303472]
  • If a shortcut created to a file in the master image stops working (because the shortcut target is renamed within PvD), recreate the shortcut. [367602]
  • Do not use absolute/hard links in a master image. [368678]
  • The Windows 7 backup and restore feature is not supported on the personal vDisk. [360582]
  • After an updated master image is applied, the local user and group console becomes inaccessible or shows inconsistent data. To resolve the issue, reset the user accounts on the VM, which requires resetting the security hive. This issue was fixed in the 7.1.2 release (and works for VMs created in later releases), but the fix does not work for VMs that were created with an earlier version and then upgraded. [488044]
  • When using a pooled VM in an ESX hypervisor environment, users see a restart prompt if the selected SCSI controller type is “VMware Paravirtual.” For a workaround, use an LSI SCSI controller type. [394039]
  • After a PvD reset on a desktop created through Provisioning Services, users may receive a restart prompt after logging on to the VM. As a workaround, restart the desktop. [340186]
  • Windows 8.1 desktop users might be unable to log on to their PvD. An administrator might see message “PvD was disabled due to unsafe shutdown” and the PvDActivation log might contain the message “Failed to load reg hive [\Device\IvmVhdDisk00000001\CitrixPvD\Settings\RingCube.dat].” This occurs when a user’s VM shuts down unsafely. As a workaround, reset the personal vDisk. [474071]
Displays, messages, and troubleshooting