Connect with View Only not working (Blank Screen / Initializing Desktop)

Question

Suddenly, I am having trouble connecting from 2 different machines. The problem is not consistent across all hosts, but most of them do not connect properly as long as View Only is checked in Settings (for that host). One machine just shows a blank screen (and is not fully connected because the keyboard and view buttons on the toolbar are still disabled), the other says "Initializing Desktop..." in the status bar. If I disable View Only, then it works fine. This problem only started within the last month or two.

randomguy456 · Answer

I have been running into a similar problem. For us it only seems to be occurring on Windows 10 workstations. I didn't correlate it with having the "View Only" option selected, but now that you mention it - I think we do have that enabled for a large number of workstations that we have been deploying.

I have noticed that I usually run into 1 of 2 scenarios. When attempting to connect to a workstation that has been idle for some amount of time (for example after a weekend) the screen is as you described. A blank white screen that says "Initializing Desktop.." in the lower center portion of the window.

Scenario 1 - The keyboard button on the toolbar is available.

Disconnecting and re-connecting to the client does not seem to have any impact or effect on the client.  Each time you connect its the same white screen. Initially the only way we were able to re-connect to the target machine was by rebooting the system. It would then become available. Later we found that selecting the option "Refresh" from the "View tab would immediately refresh the screen and show you the target desktop. This doesn't seem to be happening if the workstation is in-use, or if the screen on the client-side is active.

Scenario 2 - The keyboard button on the toolbar is gray indicating that it is not available.

Disconnecting and re-connecting to the client does not seem to have any impact or effect on the client. The description is otherwise very similar to the workstation in scenario 1 except that the keyboard button on the toolbar is unavailable. The only way to regain connection to this workstation remotely is by rebooting the workstation or by having someone physically wake the device.

The power settings for these workstations are all set to the High Performance defaults.

Update

I found an existing thread (Stuck at initializing white screen ) where someone suggested turning off the option "Use MRC's Mirror Driver if available" option while using the "View Only" option enabled. After making these changes to my host system defaults - so far I haven't run into the problem again.