Attempting to launch XenApp 7.x application throws the error: Cannot start app “Outlook 2013”

Problem

You have received reports from a select few users that they receive the following error message when they attempt to launch an application from the StoreFront portal:

Cannot start App “Outlook 2013”

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Logging onto the Citrix Delivery Controller and reviewing the application logs show the following warnings:

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Log Name: Application

Source: Citrix Broker Service

Event ID: 1102

Level: Warning

User: NETWORK SERVICE

Computer: Citrix Delivery Controller

The Citrix Broker Service failed to broker a connection for user ‘DOMAING0052014’ to resource ‘Outlook 2013’. The virtual machine ‘S30015-205-CX03.ad.domain.com’ rejected a request to prepare itself for a connection. This problem usually indicates that the virtual machine is engaged in an activity such as restarting, entering a suspended state, or processing a recent disconnection or logoff.

If this problem persists, please restart the virtual machine.

**Note that S30015-205-CX03 is the application server with the VDA agent

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Log Name: Application

Source: Citrix Broker Service

Event ID: 1101

Level: Warning

User: NETWORK SERVICE

Computer: Citrix Delivery Controller

The Citrix Broker Service failed to broker a connection for user ‘DomainG0052014′ to resource ‘Outlook 2013’. The Citrix Broker Service cannot find any available virtual machines.

Please add more virtual machines to the site. If the problem is due to existing virtual machines not becoming available, see Citrix Knowledge Base article CTX126992.

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Attempting to launch another application such as notepad logs a similar warning event:

Log Name: Application

Source: Citrix Broker Service

Event ID: 1102

Level: Warning

User: NETWORK SERVICE

Computer: Citrix Delivery Controller

The Citrix Broker Service failed to broker a connection for user ‘DOMAING0052014’ to resource ‘Notepad’. The virtual machine ‘S30015-205-CX03.ad.domain.com’ rejected a request to prepare itself for a connection. This problem usually indicates that the virtual machine is engaged in an activity such as restarting, entering a suspended state, or processing a recent disconnection or logoff.

If this problem persists, please restart the virtual machine.

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Logging onto the StoreFront server and reviewing the event logs show the entries:

Log Name: Citrix Delivery Services

Source: Citrix Store Service

Event ID: 28

Level: Warning

User: N/A

Computer: Citrix StoreFront

Failed to launch the resource ‘DR.Notepad’ using the Citrix XML Service at address ‘https://s30015-205-cx01.ad.domain.com:443/scripts/wpnbr.dll’. The XML service returned error: ‘connection-refused’.

**Note that S30015-205-cx01 is the delivery controller.

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Log Name: Citrix Delivery Services

Source: Citrix Store Service

Event ID: 28

Level: Warning

User: N/A

Computer: Citrix StoreFront

A request from the Citrix server to prepare for a connection was rejected while processing the initialization of desktop group Notepad for user DOMAING0052014. This message was reported from the XML Service at address https://s30015-205-cx01.ad.domain.com:443/scripts/wpnbr.dll [NFuseProtocol.TRequestAddress].

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Not all of the users are affected as there are many others who are able to launch applications without any issues.

Solution

What ended up being the cause of this was that the Citrix Remote Broker Provider service was stopped on the Delivery Controller and restarting the service corrected the issue.

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2 Responses

  1. Very much grateful that you have blogged on this one as we are close to tearing our hair out as to how all of a sudden this is going on. We are running XenApp 7.13 Enterprise, and have sparadic users getting this, since last week (13th July). Very frustrating, as I'm unable to give answers as to the cause at the moment, and most likely will have to get Citrix involved. The Citrix Cloud 'Smart Tools' has found nothing, and sees our infrastructure as issue free, and healthy. The same goes for Citrix Studio / Insight Services – all tests of Site, Machine Catalogs, Delivery groups pass 100%.

    I have applied a restart of the above service on all DCs, and will see what the outcome is from here on.

  2. Firstly many thnaks for your blog there's always so many things to help !

    I got same issue with few users on a 7.6 CU3 farm

    I've the issue with mainly the same application

    The "broker service" iwas up since the last reboot (every weekend) and at the time of the issue "broker service" was running"

    So I've decide to check other sources of issue it could be also a "trailing spaces" https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX203256

    As it's a prod env I can't apply it live

    I'll give an update about this case