Troubleshooting network connectivity / lag / bad performance

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Symptoms

This is a generic article to help understand and troubleshoot performance and connectivity issues.

Read this article if you experience one of the following symptoms:

Cause

Determination will be needed to find the cause, as many factors could lead to this behavior.

 

Initial determination: Who is impacted and what is the behavior?

Try to pinpoint the main cause first by answering these questions:

  1. Are users complaining about a "Lost connection" message (or a translated version), and/or are application sessions on the right side of the Workspace suddenly disappearing?

    If no, get a clear indication of the issue.
    If yes, this indicates WebSocket issues.

    Under the hood, the Workspace makes use of WebSockets: An API WebSocket which is active as soon as the end user signs in to the Workspace; and an RDP WebSocket if the user has an application session open on the right side of the Workspace.

    Known causes:
    1. WebSocket timeouts.
      If all external users are affected, it's likely a timeout configuration on your end. Check the firewall - and if applicable load balancer, and/or reverse proxy - in front of the Workspace. 
      If however only users connecting from a certain physical location are affected: Do the same exercise on their end.
      Make sure there is no short timeout set for WebSockets. 
      See below for some product-specific recommendations.

       
    2. Inactivity.
      The user is not actively working in the Workspace. Instead, the user is using other applications or browser tabs.
      In this case, the browser (or a browser extension) may decide to put the tab to sleep. 
      The terminology of this functionality may differ. This is referred to as sleeping tabs, hibernating tabs, pausing tabs.

      Microsoft Edge: Look for "Never put these sites to sleep": Learn about performance features in Microsoft Edge - Microsoft Support .
      Google Chrome: Look for "Always keep these sites active": Personalize Chrome performance - Google Chrome Help .
       
    3. Network interruption.
      A common example is the end user's device being put to sleep/hibernation, and now being booted again.
       
  2. Are all the users affected in the same way, or are only a subset of users affected?

    If only a subset is affected: Do they have anything in common?
    • Are they using the same browser?
    • Are they using the same application in the Workspace.
      • Is it a graphics-intensive application?
        • Watching videos (for example: watching YouTube videos, surveillance videos, ... )
        • Using a mapping application (ArcGIS, QGIS, Google Maps, OpenStreetMap, ... )
        • Using a graphics application (Adobe Creative Suite, some 3D tool, ...)
        • Scrolling through image libraries
        • ...
      • If they only use another application (such as Microsoft Excel or Word): Are they facing the same symptoms?
    • Are they using the same antivirus solution on their end-user device.
    • Are they coming from the same IP / working from the same physical location (for example: an office).
    • ...
       
  3. Does it affect users who are connected strictly through the internal network only?
    When accessing the appliance as directly as possible from within the internal network: Are the users facing the same symptoms?

    If internal users are NOT affected: Consider anything between
     
    • Is there a firewall in place?
      If so, try to disable any form of deep packet inspection of traffic to/from the Workspace.
       
    • Is there a firewall, load balancer or reverse proxy in place?
      If so, make sure there is no timeout on WebSockets.


This way, any internal network components/configurations could already be ruled out or turn out to be causing the issues. 

Which factors are relevant?

Below is a checklist of important factors. 
Based on the answers you obtained from the question list above, you should be able to rule out a lot.

Organizational factors (these would impact all users):

End-user factors (these would impact a specific user or a small subset of users):

 

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