Clicking within embedded RDP session brings random window from back in front of RDM

i experience this issue as well, and have, randomly, for some time

windows 10 x64, build 1809
rdm 2019.1.25.0

Hello,

@Daniel

We had a customer that had an issue in Citrix because the Citrix Agent and the Citrix server were not updated to the latest version. Is your Citrix infrastructure updated to 7.18?


@ariehm


Are you also running on a Citrix or any Publish app infrastructure?
Is it a new issue and only related to you or your colleague too?

Best regards,

Hi David
Our Citrix environment is quite up to date:

But I remember the issue happening with older versions as well. (Receiver 4.x, VDA 7.x,...) I've not reported the issue for a long time because I thought it might have something to do with our "old" infrastructure where we had low performance and old software. But now our new environment works like a charm and is (more or less) up to date. So now I'm hunting down some reported issues that are still appearing:-)


Anything else I can help with to track down the origin of the issue?

Cheers, Daniel

Just had it again. I provide the description just to explain the circumstances a bit better.

In RDM only one RDP session (embedded) was opened. Within I had another RDP session opened where I clicked on a checkbox (eventlog procol filtering). Instead of ticking the checkbox my Google Chrome window from behind RDM appeared in front of RDM.

@everyone,

It seems we had a customer with the issue and some of them solve it by following the solution at https://forum.devolutions.net/topic28558-while-working-with-rdm-another-window-comes-to-foreground.aspx?Page=1

That being said, some other had to contact Citrix because the issue, for them, is on Citrix side. Some information at https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/351656-published-desktop-randomly-losing-focus/

Could you look if any solutions in the other thread solve the issue? And please continue the diagnostic in https://forum.devolutions.net/topic28558-while-working-with-rdm-another-window-comes-to-foreground.aspx?Page=1

Best regards,

I think there is a misunderstanding. Sorry I couldn't explain it better.:nosmile: Maybe a "graphical" explanation will help.

Example Setup:

Local Computer (Windows 10 1903)
---|-Firefox
---|-Slack
---|-Citrix Desktop (Citrix Workspace App 1509 connecting to VDI Windows 10 1903)
------|-File Explorer
------|-Google Chrome (jumps to front)
------|-Some MMC
------|-Remote Desktop Manager (2019.1.20.0)
---------|-RDP Session 1 (click)
---------|-RDP Session 2

Description:
Randomly, while clicking something in an opened Remote Desktop Manager session, an application behind Remote Desktop Manager jumps to the front. In my example here File Explorer or Google Chrome would jump to the front when clicking something in RDP Session 1.

The focus of the Ctrix Desktop itself is working just fine. (Btw. it's a full Citrix Desktop, no Citrix Published App of Remote Desktop Manager.)

This is happening to multiple colleagues of mine. Initially I heard it from 2 colleagues. I asked 2 others randomly and they confirmed the same behaviour. It's not new. We see this for months now. I was usually just to busy to report it here. (And I wanted to upgrade RDM first. Meanwhile Storefront, Citrix Workspace App, Windows 10 and other things were upgraded too. Still the same)

We know the issue described in https://discussions.citrix.com/topic/351656-published-desktop-randomly-losing-focus/?csrfKey=. That's something that happened to Citrix Desktops years ago when the storefront login logged the user off after a certain time and the browser window jumps in front of everything. That was quite annoying back then but it's not the same behaviour as here.

https://forum.devolutions.net/topic28558-while-working-with-rdm-another-window-comes-to-foreground.aspx?Page=1 is not really helping. The things Chriss Marreel did we have already set this way. (Except "we switched from offline-caching-methode". I don't know what that means.) And the following post from you David describes again the MS/Citrix Published App issue, not the focus issue within the Citrix Desktop. Or do these changes apply to our case as well?

Sorry for this long post:)

Hello,

I say what you mean. I will create a ticket to our QA department so that they can try to reproduce the behavior.

As a workaround, you can try to enable the Always on top option located in File -> Options -> User Interface.

Best regards,

Hello again,

The ticket opened to our QA department is QA-1013.

Best regards,

Thank you very much Jeff!
It will be hard to reproduce because it only happens 1-3 times a day. Still, it would be cool if we could fix it.

I just want to mention that I have the very same issue. Click sometimes goes through the RDMF Window and clicks at whatever is at that position behind the window. Maybe it helps you knowing that it happenes more often when I have 5 RDP session simultaneously open. All of them are connection to diffrent local windows users.

Good morning everyone! Is there any update on ticket QA-1013? Or will it be posted here as soon as there are news?

Hello,

The ticket QA-1013 is still opened to our QA department. They are still trying to reproduce the issue.

Sorry for the delay.

Best regards,

Hi foks. Just checkin' in. Is there an update on this issue? Cheers

Hello,

We are still trying to reproduce the issue. Since it's an issue that seem to be happening rarely, it's really hard to reproduce the issue.

Is the issue still happening with the latest version of RDM?

Best regards,

@Antoine Yes, it still happens with the newest version.

It happens for me as well. 10 times per day or even more. This is getting frustrated to the point I'm looking for alternatives.

Hello,

Which version of Windows are you running ( type winver in the command line )
What version of RDM is getting the problem? (Enterprise or Free and the version number )

Best regards,

Hi,

Windows 10 1909 (OS build 18363.535)
RDM Enterprise 2019.2.8.0 64bit


With regards,
Przemek

Here it is still happening. Meanwhile we've updated some software.


Local Computer (Windows 10 1909)
---|-Some Software
---|-Some Software
---|-Citrix Desktop (Citrix Workspace App 1911 connecting to VDI Windows 10 1906.1)
------|-Some Software
------|-Google Chrome (jumps to front)
------|-Some Software
------|-Remote Desktop Manager (2019.1.41.0)
---------|-RDP Session 1 (click)
---------|-RDP Session 2

I don't use Citrix btw. Standard Windows 10 with RDM open to jump to different RDP machines. I use MS Edge mostly (chromium) and it does show up. Not sure if it's related to only browser, but maybe.

Hello Neocid,

Unfortunately, we are unable to reproduce this issue with Citrix Workspace. If you have a subscription for their paid support, can you try to create a ticket with the support of Citrix to see if they can resolve this issue? We've talked with Citrix Support and they need more information about the issue since it looks like it's an issue that only happens with some specific environment.

We are trying really hard to see what can cause this issue with different setups and environment, and any additional information that Citrix can give us is crucial to resolve this issue.

@przemyslaw02

Does it happens randomly or it happens when you do something specific?

Best regards,

Dear Antoine
It seems odd to ask Citrix as przemyslaw02 seems to see the behaviour without Citrix.
If I see anything that could help reproduce, I will post it here. But it seems random at the moment.
Regards
Daniel

@neocid,

Some issue with focus can happen with and without Citrix, doesn't mean we're trying to pin this on Citrix. We've been trying to figure out for a while what those focus issues are coming from. We know, that 80% of these issues are reported by people who do have Citrix in their environment.

I've contacted Citrix via phone call and the only way that they can start helping us troubleshooting this issue is if we have a paid support license and Devolutions doesn't own one. So were trying to have a Citrix customer that has a paid license to contact them, so they can verify on their side.

We do have a Citrix environment on an old version of Citrix here, been using it to reproduce the issue with different type of OS and we've haven't encountered the issue so far.

We're still investigating for time to time when we have new ideas to troubleshoot it, but sadly it isn't our main focus since alot of time has been already put in the reproductions.

We've never had a recording of the steps it takes to reproduce it, only the effects. We would need to reproduce it 100% of the time to get it fixed else we can't monitor what happens in the code to fix it.

Any help is welcome, we just need clear steps to reproduce it 100%.

Best regards,

For me it's random, but it happens on an hourly basis - not every 2 weeks. Mostly on Windows 10/Windows 2016/Windows 2012/Windows 2012R2 being in RDP session, but I believe it happened with 2008 as well. I click in the RDP session and suddenly I see Microsoft Teams in front. I do use a 4k monitor and usually, RDM is taking just half of the screen.

I've had this happening to me from time to time over the past few months. Haven't been able to find any pattern to it though. Running on whatever is the newest version of RDM on whatever is the newest build of Windows 10 preview at the time. And no Citrix.

@przemyslaw02

Think you can time it see if its an hour for sure? If it is I could investigate what this 1hrs trigger could be related to.

Regards,

I'll try to investigate but really have no hope as it wasn't consistent with anything that I could pin it to and I don't use RDM all the time. I'm coding a lot so I can understand how hard it is to debug/find this and I always look for potential clues, but with this - zero. It started to happen months ago and continues to this day. Only thing that comes to my mind is some upgrade Windows 10 did that has this implication. I just wonder if other vendors have this similar issue.

Today I had it only once. Here's the description:

Opened Sessions in RDM
1 Windows 2012 R2 (focus)
2 pping 3389 (usually this macro is not opened)
3 Windows 2012 R2

Opened Windows on Citrix session (from "left to right" in task bar)
1 Google Chrome (Active Tab: Citrix Director + other 3 tabs)
2 msc (Active Directory and Computers)
3 Notepad++
4 RDM
5 Teamviewer (no connection opened)
6 IGEL UMS Console

My Action
- Rightclicked on Startmenu Button (RDM.1)
- This Brought me right to Google Chrome (Citrix.1)
- The click was executed in Google Chrome (Citrix.1)

It happened shortly after 11am (maybe 11:04 or 11:05)

It was not possible to reproduce. Citrix director does a content refresh every minute but never takes focus by force. But I will certainly keep that setting in mind.

Some other info: I use a laptop and have 2 external screens. I use Citrix on the external screen on the right (WQHD).

After getting the setup completed with Citrix IDA, on a virutal desktop I was able to reproduce the issue, see video linked below.

If this is exactly the behavior you are getting, please say so. Keep in mind the way I'm reproducing is a way I found to provoke the issue, I don't think this is related on how people work. It might just happen because of fast focus switching withing embeded window.

here's the setup:

Citrix\IDA > Windows Server 2012R2 > that has RDM installed on it, which has 2 session embedded running and a google chrome full screen window behind the RDM app.

I hope this is it.

Regards, 

Futher investigation showed me that this is not reproducible with RDCMan 2.7 from microsoft. So It didin't look good for RDM, even if Im unable to reproduce outside Citrix ICA VM. I went a little deeper and found out that when I use FreeRDP engine in my entry properties, this is not reproducible either.

So with this lead I found a temporary workaround and also might have the culprit, which would be the ActiveX version possibly.

Will come back with further news.

Best regards,

Hey Alexandre. Sorry for the late reply. I can reproduce it excactly as you did in your video. Though I have to click a bit more often than you. Good luck in finding the cause!

Hi folks. With VERSION 2020.1.19.0 (March 24th 2020) I can't seem to reproduce the issue anymore. Has it been officially fixed or do I have to try harder reproducing it? :-)

Hello,
It's a good news but it was not done on purpose. Perhaps I have merged some part of the code that was causing the problem. The final solution is supposed to be in RDM 2020.2. Let me know if it comes back.

Regards

Btw selecting FreeRDP as default RDP version for RDM breaks Copy/Paste functionality (for files). I know it's really not related to the issue but if someone tries to play with this setting keep this in mind.

Hello,

Right now, copy/paste for files isn't supported in FreeRDP mode. It's not an easy change. If you'd like us to support this feature, I suggest opening a feature request thread so we can gauge the community demand for this.

Regards,

It's not about FreeRDP not supporting copy/paste. It's about global change. If you set FreeRDP in options as default client, no matter what you have on connections it will not allow you to copy/paste which is a bug, a not lack of implementation on the free rdp side.

Hello,

Sorry to jump in! That being said, would it be possible fro you to open RDM and then go under Help -> Submit a Support Ticket to open a case with us? In the description of this ticket, just make sure to refer to this forum topic and I will be the one to take it.

That way we will be able to see what might cause this issue and ask you more questions about your current configuration. Once a solution is found, I will make sure to update this forum thread as well.

Best regards,

Hi James,

the same is happening for me for many months now! No Citrix is involved here, just up to date Windows (and RDM) on my PC and my laptop and various (more or less current) versions of Windows/Windows Server on the other end.
It happens a few times a day: I click somewhere in the embedded RemoteSessions and it brings a lokal Window from behind RemoteDesktopManager in front. As if I had clicked on a "hole" in the RemoteSession.
It happened again a few minutes ago: I tried to close a window on the remote PC. So I clicked the red close box and this brought a local window in front. I tried again and it happend again. The third time I tried not to click on the white "X" but somewhere on the red background of the closebox and now I stayed in the RemoteSession and the window on the remote PC closed. It feels sometimes that clicking of something white leads to this error. Is white considered a hole in the RemoteSession?

Just my 2ct,
Florian

Hello,

Would it be possible for you to create a portable installation of RDM and see if this issue still occurs? I would like to see if it does with the default configuration of RDM.

To do so, you will need to do the following:

1- Download the .zip file below, please select the Edition that you are currently using:
Enterprise
https://remotedesktopmanager.com/home/thankyou/rdmbin
Free
https://remotedesktopmanager.com/home/thankyou/rdmfreebin

2- Create a new folder on your Desktop

3- Extract the content of the .zip file into the folder created at #2

4- Go in this folder once the .zip file has been extracted and run remotedesktopmanager64.exe

5- Enter your current serial

6- Add and launch some of your connections to see if this issue still occurs.

If it do persist, could you please run the "Winver" command on your workstation and provide us the result?

Best regards,

Hello,

Would it be possible for you to create a portable installation of RDM and see if this issue still occurs? I would like to see if it does with the default configuration of RDM.

To do so, you will need to do the following:

1- Download the .zip file below, please select the Edition that you are currently using:
Enterprise
https://remotedesktopmanager.com/home/thankyou/rdmbin
Free
https://remotedesktopmanager.com/home/thankyou/rdmfreebin

2- Create a new folder on your Desktop

3- Extract the content of the .zip file into the folder created at #2

4- Go in this folder once the .zip file has been extracted and run remotedesktopmanager64.exe

5- Enter your current serial

6- Add and launch some of your connections to see if this issue still occurs.

If it do persist, could you please run the "Winver" command on your workstation and provide us the result?

Best regards,

I think I'll take up the torch on this thread. It has been bugging me for YEARS and I've tried and tried to look for resolutions only to FINALLY just find this thread.

I tried the portable install, it does not work. I CAN say that the OP mentioned he has three monitors - I do as well. I have a coworker who has the same laptop as me and he uses the software and has never had a problem but he only has two monitors. Not sure if that's the problem for sure but maybe it can help. I've had this problem for YEARS on Win 10 but my Winver now is:

Version 20H2 (OS Build 19042.1348).

I can also confirm that seemingly FreeRDP solves it but yeah, no copy/paste functionality makes that the no go for me. If you could solve this I would GREATLY appreciate it. I've even gone so far as to uninstall RDM because of this issue but I keep coming back to it (great product otherwise!).

No, it's not about the count of monitors. I have 2 - still happens. I had 1 huge one, still was happening. I switched to Royal TS and there's no such problem and I'm pretty sure they use the same RDP protocol. Either it's some setting, or just random.

No, it's not about the count of monitors. I have 2 - still happens. I had 1 huge one, still was happening. I switched to Royal TS and there's no such problem and I'm pretty sure they use the same RDP protocol. Either it's some setting, or just random.

Ok, was just a thought. It's obviously some kind of focus issue where you click, yes - randomly, and it clicks on the screen behind it instead. extremely annoying as I've had it it happened multiple times in a single minute even. Even if you remove all Windows from behind RDM it will click on the Desktop sometimes so it's not a problem of some particular button on a Window or something.

Thanks for the heads up on Royal TS, I'll give it a shot.

Hello,

Which edition of RDM are you both using? Also, which version of RDM and what type of Data Source you are currently using?

While we have received reports of this kind of issue, we haven't been able to find a common cause of a fix for it. Every tool I have used so far to troubleshoot has not provided any logs as to which application or process is stealing the focus.

Best regards,

I'm using 2021.2.23 64-bit, but I have been having this problem for more than 2 years, and with every update I was hoping it would magically fix itself, but nope. Currently on Windows 11.

I don't think it's any specific application - Royal TS doesn't have this problem of stealing focus. I understand that troubleshooting this issue is hard because even reproducing this is hard for me. It just happens randomly.

I'm on 2021.2.25.0 64-BIT. RDM Free. I'm unsure what you mean by Data Source

It is DEFINITIELY not a single application behind RDM that causes it. It can be ANY application - Edge, Teams, Paint, Telegram, I mean literally anything - even the Windows Desktop. It does not seem to be anything with WHAT you are clicking on either on the window behind - text, button, nothing at all, etc.

Some days I can have it happen just once or twice, other days it can happen to me multiple times a minute and then not happen again for hours. I've had the problem for years but have never been able to correlate it to anything else that is running.

Hello,

Thank you for your replies.

We will keep our eyes peeled for any new information we can gather on that matter and see if certain steps seem to trigger it more often. That being said, as you mention, it is possible that we might not update this thread soon since the issue of this issue happens at random.

Best regards,

Hi All,

I just wanted to mention that I have this issue as well.
I have been using the RDM Free for at least 1 now and it happens randomly for me too.
The current version of RDM I am using is 2021.2.28.0 64Bit on Windows 10 21H2

Kind Regards,
Daniel

Hello Daniel,

Thank you for letting us know! Have you been able to find any actions that seem to trigger this issue?

Best regards,