Recomposing a VMware Horizon View virtual desktop fails with the error: “No network communication between the View Agent and Connection Server. Please verify that the virtual desktop can ping the Connection Server via the FQDN”

Problem

You attempt to recompose a VMware Horizon View virtual desktop but notice that it fails with the following error:

No network communication between the View Agent and Connection Server. Please verify that the virtual desktop can ping the Connection Server via the FQDN

Solution

There could be various causes for this error but one of the common ones I’ve come across is when there is a problem with the virtual desktop’s network adapter.  For this recent environment I worked on, I noticed that the Summary tab of the virtual desktop did not have a value for the IP Addresses field:

Logging into the virtual desktop allowed me to immediately recognize that Windows no longer recognized the network adapter and therefore none were displayed in the Network Connections console:

Device Manager also displayed the Ethernet Controller in the Other Devices node indicating it was not installed:

To correct the issue, I simply right clicked on the Ethernet Controller item, selected Update Driver Software…:

Selected Search automatically for updated driver software:

Allowed Windows to search and install the vmxnet3 driver:

Verified the ethernet adapter is now listed under Network Adapters:

Restart desktop now that it has network connectivity, verified that vCenter began displaying the tasks required for completing the recompose and that the View Administrator console indicated that customizations are being applied: