ThinOS 9.1.4234 RDP Reconnection mess

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #106910
    Andy
    Participant
    • Total Post: 12
    • Regular Joe
    • ★★

    This is a manually configured 3040. Nothing special at all, just a manual configuration of an RDP connection. The connection is set to auto connect in case of network failure etc. In all  the old versions of ThisOS (prior to 9) the connection dialog would just cycle round and round, waiting for 15 seconds (or whatever you chose) and eventually, when the other end is back, re-connect. We use 3040’s as industrial terminals. The “other end” could be offline for days, especially during maintenance. Nobody will touch the 3040 during this time. The trouble is, the v9 ThinOS leaves dialog boxes all over the screen. It doesn’t auto acknowledge them. The attached image is the screen, in the time it took me to walk away and make a cup of tea. Eventually, it’s going to run out of memory or some other resource.

    Is there any way to make this act sensibly – like the older versions? I’m not using WDM, because that is a ridiculous thing to have to use to manage one thin client! Pre v9, I had a small FTP server set up with all the configuration I wanted (completely locked down) ready to go. On a new installation, it took a couple of minutes to point the new thin client at the ftp server and hey presto – configured. Now I have to do this manually – and I have to document all the multiple steps that have to be done when you want to lock a client down manually. Sorry for the rant, but the dropping of the FTP option has really screwed us up.

    RDP dialogs

    #106911
    SWTH
    Participant
    • Total Post: 30
    • Frequent Flyer
    • ★★★

    Why do you need v9? I’ve stuck with 8.6 intentionally just in case I wanted to revert back to INI files (which I have, because even for my 20 odd mixed ThinOS and WES devices WMS makes everything harder).

    #106912
    Andy
    Participant
    • Total Post: 12
    • Regular Joe
    • ★★

    If it were that simple, I would. The problem is, the thin clients are used in two ways. The one I’m responsible for is used for the HMI of a process control system. It can’t me messed around with in any way. Anyone fiddling in the middle of the night (it’s always the night) and screws up the configuration will cause a) very expensive downtime and b) a phone call to me or other colleagues. Also, these control systems are installed all over the world, so it’s not as easy as walking up to it and fixing it. We also use a number of other thin clients that are connected to PC’s that are non-critical. If they screw those up, then tough. They can wait, and it won’t cause and massive problems. Normally, we don’t use any remote configuration for these, and also they are managed by another part of our organisation.

    This means that our customer will keep one spare, bought from us or, possibly, buy their own spare. I can’t easily ask the customer to downgrade to 8.6. They won’t want to do this. Also, they might not use the spare for a few years. They will never remember to downgrade it.

    So I have a few options – configure v9 and make a large document detailing the many configuration options and put up with the reconnection issue, hoping Dell will fix it, downgrade all the thin clients we supply to 8.6, which isn’t easy as I’m in the UK, and the hardware for our system is built and shipped from Italy or look for a different solution and see if I can convince our Italian office to go along with me.

    I’m not sure which option is best, to be honest.

    #106929
    SWTH
    Participant
    • Total Post: 30
    • Frequent Flyer
    • ★★★

    Sounds like something I do for remote support, but I don’t use thin clients. I would generally set up a router and support VPN (Mikrotik device, L2TP/IPSEC tunnel permanently connected  for us to connect over whenever) or have some sort of jump box on site, often just a Raspberry Pi would do again with a VPN back to us.

    #106930
    Andy
    Participant
    • Total Post: 12
    • Regular Joe
    • ★★

    I don’t think it’s the same at all. The thin client isn’t used for remote support. Everything is local, on it’s own internal network.

    For what it’s worth, we use TeamViewer for remote suppport, but a lot of our bigger customers won’t let us do that and provide their own VPN solution.

    #106936
    Jim Lathan
    Keymaster
    • Total Post: 314
    • Jacked into The Matrix
    • ★★★★★★

    I have passed along this issue to Dell PG, hopefully, we will get an answer.

    #106961
    Andy
    Participant
    • Total Post: 12
    • Regular Joe
    • ★★

    Thank you Jim.

Viewing 7 posts - 1 through 7 (of 7 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.