Advanced Troubleshooting Techniques For Computers That Are Not Polling Properly
In order for the Remote Desktop Commander Suite to collect (poll) data from your servers, workstations, and/or virtual desktop hosts, several prerequisites must be in place.
If polling is not functioning correctly:
- Computers may show “Never Polled” in the Add/Manage Servers or Add/Manage Workstations area of the Remote Desktop Commander Configuration Tool.
- Computers may poll more slowly than the polling interval (e.g. every 2 minutes).
- Computers may have a “Last Polled Time” several hours or even days prior to the current date and time.
The following prerequisites are required to poll both servers and workstations properly:
- 1.) The Remote Desktop Reporter service account must hold at least local Administrator rights on all the computers it polls, either directly or through it’s domain group memberships. The Remote Desktop Reporter service must also be a local Administrator on the VM or computer where it is installed.
- 2.) The monitored computers themselves must be able to be resolved properly using typical name resolution techniques like DNS. Try to ping them by the same name referenced in the Remote Desktop Commander Configuration Tool (Add/Manage Servers area). The Remote Desktop Commander Suite must also be installed on the same physical or virtual network as the rest of the hosts it monitors – it cannot poll servers across VPN links or across firewalls.
- 3.) The Remote Desktop Reporter Service requires that (4) Windows Firewall exceptions are turned on so it can access what it needs in a timely fashion. If these exceptions are not enabled, agent data may not be able to be polled, and/or polling may be extremely slow. These exceptions can be granted via Windows Group Policy. Those exceptions are: Remote Event Log Management, Remote Service Management, Windows Remote Management (WinRM), and WMI.
- 4.) The Remote Desktop Reporter Service must in fact be running. Please check that it is running properly in the Services MMC Applet (e.g. services.msc). If the service is stopped, try and restart it. If it fails to restart, review the local Application and System event logs to see if there is a licensing issue or a service login failure (e.g. expired password or changed password).
- 5.) Make sure that the SQL database that Remote Desktop Commander communicates with (default DB name RDPReporter) is online, available, and that the Remote Desktop Reporter service account has login rights to that database with at least db_datareader and db_datawriter permissions, or alternatively, full db_owner permissions. You can view the database that Remote Desktop Commander uses by opening up the Remote Desktop Commander Configuration Tool, going to Application Settings, and then selecting the Database Tab.
Testing Polling Connectivity Manually By Logging On as the Remote Desktop Reporter Service Interactively
If you would like to manually test the ability of the Remote Desktop Reporter service account to poll servers successfully, here are steps you can take:
- 1.) Make a note of the login credentials the Remote Desktop Reporter service runs under. You can find this in the Services MMC Applet (services.msc) by looking for the RDPSoft Remote Desktop Reporter Service.
- 2.) Log in interactively as that service account on the same VM or computer running the Remote Desktop Reporter Service.
- 3.) Raise a command prompt (cmd.exe). At the command prompt, type: QUSER /SERVER:MYRDSSERVER where MYRDSSERVER is the name of any one of your RDS or AVD hosts you are trying to poll for information. The QUSER command should then return a list of all user sessions on that system. If it does not, or returns an Access Denied error, then this account may not hold Administrator rights on that RDS/AVD machine or others, or you may have a name resolution issue DNS/NetBIOS/WINS that you need to correct.
- 4.) Now, go to the Run line, and type eventvwr. This will launch the Microsoft Event Viewer. Right mouse click on Event Viewer (local) and select “Connect to Another Computer…” Enter in the name of one of your remote RDS/AVD hosts. Make sure that Event Viewer can connect and retrieve event log data from this host. If it cannot, make sure the Remote Event Log Management Windows Firewall exception is added on that host/host(s) either manually or via Group Policy.
- 5.) Now, go to the Run line, and type services.msc. This will launch the Microsoft Services MMC Applet. Right mouse click on Services (local) and select “Connect to Another Computer…” Enter in the name of one of your remote RDS/AVD hosts. Make sure that the Services applet can connect and retrieve all services from this host. If it cannot, make sure the Remote Service Management Windows Firewall exception is added on that host/host(s) either manually or via Group Policy.
