An issue has surfaced when using the VMware Horizon client for Windows on systems with an Intel graphics adapter. Users may find their Horizon Client crashes completely when in a session, without an apparent cause. Apparently, all versions of the Horizon Client have this same issue, it also doesn't seem to matter which protocol is being used, both Blast and PCoIP are affected. RDP however is not affected.
I've seen this happen with at least two of my customers, especially on HP laptops. The system admins have noticed increasing memory usage, before the Horizon Client crashes. This is not necessarily GPU memory usage in the logs, as most of these systems use a portion of the system RAM for GPU memory. When the client has crashed, it can be restarted and the user can log in again and work for a while.
The Horizon Client log logs will show errors like the ones in the exhibit:
2022-10-31T15:01:45.448Z Wa(03) windowThread-7 DX11Renderer: Present1 failed: (0x887A0005)
2022-10-31T15:01:46.446Z Wa(03) main VIEWWINCLIENT: Win32UpdateScreen:4496: DX11 Error hr=0x887A0005
2022-10-31T15:01:46.446Z Wa(03) main VIEWWINCLIENT: Device Removed Reason:0x887A0020
2022-10-3
1T15:01:46.446Z Wa(03) main VIEWWINCLIENT: Re-DX11Init.
2022-10-31T15:04:00.698Z Wa(03) main ----Win32 exception detected, exceptionCode 0xc0000005 (access violation)----
2022-10-31T15:04:00.698Z Wa(03) main ExceptionAddress 0x7ffb8429a59d eflags 0x00010206
The cause has been identified, the issue was found in the Intel graphics drivers. There is a specific range of versions that exhibits this problem: Intel driver versions tested:
31.0.101.3729 (no problem detected) (Latest)
31.0.101.3616 (problem)
31.0.101.3430 (problem)
31.0.101.3
413 (problem)
31.0.101.3222 (problem)
30.0.101.1994 (no problem detected)
30.0.101.1960 (no problem detected)
30.0.101.1631 (no problem detected)
30.0.101.1404 (no problem detected)
30.0.101.1340 (no problem detected)
30.0.101.1273 (no problem detected)
30.0.101.1191 (no problem detected)
Resolution
The resolution to the problem is quite simple, updating the Intel graphics driver to version 31.0.101.3729 will fix the issue permanently. It is worth noting that at the time of writing, the HP tools do not yet include this driver, so you will have to download it from the Intel site separately and deploy it.
If it is not possible to deploy the driver, there are two workarounds available.
Method 1 - Disable D3D11
Add viewClient.enableD3D11=FALSE to %AppData%\Roaming\VMware\config.ini
Make sure the filename extension is .ini and not .ini.txt.
Create the file if it does NOT exist already.
Note: Po
tential performance degradation could be observed as a side effect.
Method 2 - Use H264
From the ViewClient Blast UI options, select only H264 and disable other codec options.
Note: If HW H264 decode acceleration is available, you can use this option.
The VMware knowledge base article about this issue can be found here.