RDM for Linux 2026.3.0.5 – closing an embedded RDP tab leaves the TCP connection open; the server session stays Active and its processes stall
SUMMARY
When an embedded RDP session tab is closed in Remote Desktop Manager for Linux, RDM does not
close the TCP connection to the server. The socket stays ESTABLISHED and RDM stops reading it.
The server therefore never sees a disconnect: the session remains "Active". A few minutes later
every process in that session stops running until the session is really disconnected.
For us this pauses a 24/7 application that runs in the interactive session on the server.
ENVIRONMENT
- Remote Desktop Manager for Linux 2026.3.0.5 (deb, amd64)
- Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS, GNOME on Wayland, kernel 7.0.0-28-generic
- Session type: RDP, display mode: Embedded (tabbed)
- Server: Windows Server 2016 Standard (10.0.14393), direct connection to port 3389, no gateway
- Version 2025.3.0.8 was installed until 25 Sep 2026; we suspect the same behaviour there
(similar incidents, not measured)
STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Open an RDP session to a Windows server in an embedded tab and log on.
2. Close the tab (do not log off, do not use Start > Disconnect).
3. On the client: ss -tnpi '( dport = :3389 )'
4. On the server, from another session: quser
ACTUAL RESULT
Client:
- The socket is still owned by RemoteDesktopManager and stays in ESTAB.
- Recv-Q only grows, so RDM no longer reads it. One connection sampled after the tab was closed:
Recv-Q 0 -> 2322 -> 2475 -> 2577 -> 2730 -> ... -> 5025 -> 7983 -> 8136, state ESTAB all the time.
- When the server side is disconnected later, the socket goes to CLOSE-WAIT and stays there:
RDM never closes its end.
Server:
- quser keeps showing the session as Active, not Disc. No disconnect is logged.
- 2 to 4.5 minutes after the tab was closed (2:00, about 2:30, 3:25 and 4:27 in four runs; in a
fifth run nothing happened within 5:47) all processes of that session stop: their CPU time no
longer increases, GUI and console processes alike. About every 2 minutes they run for a moment
and stop again. Processes in session 0 are not affected.
- It also happens in a freshly created session.
- The stall ends within a second when the session is really disconnected: "tsdiscon <id>" from
another session, or the "time limit for active but idle sessions" policy, or a reconnect.
The same processes simply continue.
EXPECTED RESULT
Closing the tab disconnects the RDP session and closes the TCP connection, as closing the window
of mstsc or xfreerdp does. The server then shows the session as Disc.
IMPACT
After an administrator closes an RDM tab, the application running in that server session is
frozen for minutes, until somebody reconnects. On servers where that application must run around
the clock this is an outage.
WORKAROUNDS WE USE
- Start > Disconnect inside the session before closing the tab.
- Server side: the idle-session limit policy, which disconnects the stuck session after the limit.
QUESTIONS
1. Is this a known issue in RDM for Linux?
2. Is closing an embedded RDP tab meant to disconnect the session and close the socket?
3. Is there a setting that influences this?
4. Which logs would help? We can provide full "ss -tnpi" snapshots over time, the server-side
session events, and RDM logs if you tell us how to enable the relevant ones.
Hello,
Thank you for your report about closing an embedded RDP tab in Remote Desktop Manager for Linux.
The same issue was also posted on our forum, so we will continue there to keep everything in one place:
https://forum.devolutions.net/topics/56800/2026305--closing-an-embedded-rdp-tab-leaves-the-tcp-connection-open-th
All updates, questions and log requests about this issue will be posted in that thread. We will close this case to avoid duplicate tracking.
Best regards,
Carl Marien