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Remote Desktop crashes target computer

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Tuesday, January 8, 2019 12:56 AM | 1 vote

Hi there,

When using Remote Desktop in Windows 10 to connect to another Windows 10 computer, the target computer crashes within about 5 seconds. I do get a couple of seconds of successful connection and interaction, but the target computer then locks up with a blank screen and requires a reboot.

I looked at all the logs on the target computer and there is nothing except a critical error saying "The system has rebooted without cleanly shutting down..." and "The previous shutdown was unexpected".

I have tried updating the video driver but can't find the cause.

Is there some other log that I can look in that will give me a clue to what is causing the crash.

How do I diagnose this?

Thanks,
Ric

Ric Miller

All replies (15)

Friday, January 25, 2019 2:15 AM âś…Answered

Hi there,

Well, I am cautiously optimistic that I fixed the problem!

It seemed to me that the crashes had the symptoms of a hardware problem even though I could put my previous boot drive with Windows Server 2008 R2 in and remote desktop worked fine.

When I had the machine built at Puget Systems about 9 years ago, I had them install Windows Server 2008 R2.

They found that the supplied network adapters (one on mother board and one single port card) were not compatible with Win Server.

So they put an Intel dual port network card in that was compatible.

When I put a Samsung SSD in the machine and formatted for Windows 10, those 4 ethernet ports were fully functional, not that I really needed them.

I was thinking that remote desktop has a network component so I removed the two cards (3 ports). I had already moved the network cable to the on board port days ago so wasn't even using the network cards for my diagnostics that I have performed .

But I decided to remove them to see if it had any effect.

I was able to remote to the target machine with both versions of remote desktop and run any applications. I restored my services and startup programs and have been connected over 2 hours with no crash and have Adobe apps and MS Office apps running.

Seems like it is fixed!

Thank you all for your help!

Ric

Ric Miller

Tuesday, January 8, 2019 5:01 AM

Hello,

Please run SFC /SCANNOW command at administrative Command Prompt and see if that helps.

Also run Hardware and Devices troubleshooter from Control Panel > Troubleshooting > View all.

Hope this helps!

Microsoft MVP (Windows and Devices for IT)

Windows Insider MVP

Windows Help & Support [www.kapilarya.com]

Tuesday, January 8, 2019 6:50 AM

Hi there,

Thanks for your reply.

Ran SFC /SCANNOW on both host and target machine. 

"Windows Resources Protection did not find any integrity violations" on both.

Ran Hardware Devices troubleshooter on both host and target machine.

Target says "Troubleshooting couldn't identify the problem". I think this may mean no problem?

Host says "PCI Serial Port doesn't have drive" and "Mass Storage Controller doesn't have a driver".

This may be true but all seems to be functioning and I don't think this has anything to do with Remote Desktop, no?

Other suggestions?

Thanks,

Ric

Ric Miller

Tuesday, January 8, 2019 7:17 AM

One other note.

I can RDP to another Windows 8 machine on the same network and no crash - works fine.

Ric Miller

Tuesday, January 8, 2019 4:09 PM

HI,
Please check the symptom in a clean boot (refer to windows 10 steps) environment if it is possible on both window 10 client. Ensure the latest update has been installed to avoid known issue
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows

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Wednesday, January 23, 2019 8:34 PM

Hi there,

I finally carved out enough time to dive into this.

I followed instructions to do a clean boot.

I disabled all services except Microsoft using MSConfig.

I disabled all startup programs using the task manager.

I can connect to the target Windows 10 machine using remote desktop and it stays running for a period of time.

However if I run Adobe Bridge thru remote desktop on the target machine, sometimes, but not always it crashes same as before.

I am not sure if there are other apps that cause it to crash. Running Adobe Bridge on the target machine (stand alone - no remote desktop) does not cause it to crash.

Since the target machine crashes immediately if all services and all startup programs run, there must be something in there that causes that, but it is not exclusively the cause as it still crashes eventually under some conditions (like running Adobe Bridge over remote desktop).

I will try to figure out if it is something to do with the video driver, although it is current. It is an EVGA NVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti, which I think is pretty mainstream.

Also it crashes (under some conditions like running Adobe Bridge) when I remote to it from both my other Windows 10 machine and my Windows 8 Surface 2.

I don't need to run Adobe Bridge over remote desktop, I just happened to open it to see if the remote session was stable. It wasn't stable and there are probably other conditions that cause it to crash.

I have a boot drive with Windows Server 2008 R2 which was formerly used in the target machine.

I put that back in, booted up, and connected with remote desktop - no problem. And I can run Adobe Bridge and other programs with no crash.

Any other diagnostics that I can do to isolate the problem?

Thanks,

Ric

Ric Miller

Wednesday, January 23, 2019 8:55 PM

is a dump file being written when it crashes?
when yes: can you share it?

Wednesday, January 23, 2019 10:24 PM

There is no dump file.

In over 30 years of software development on Windows and DOS, I have never seen a crash like this.

The screen goes solid grey and just stops responding completely.

When I touch the power switch, it turns off. Normal behavior on this computer is that you have to hold the power button down for 2 seconds to make it cold reboot. Otherwise just touch the power switch shouldn't do anything.

As mentioned above, with all services and startup programs disabled, I am able to remote to the target machine. I tried opening Excel (instead of Adobe Bridge as per above) and immediate crash of target machine! 

Ric Miller

Thursday, January 24, 2019 3:43 AM

hi,
from your above description ,there are some problem for your target issue win10 system .
0 can you enter winver in command prompt and look the os version and version number ?

1 can you update the latest EVGA driver for NVidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti on your target issue win10 system ?
https://www.geforce.com/drivers

2 try to check and fix system file on your target issue win10 system,open command prompt as administrator then run below command.
dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth
dism /online /cleanup-image /checkhealth
dism /online /cleanup-image /restorehealth

3 "I am not sure if there are other apps that cause it to crash. Running Adobe Bridge on the target machine (stand alone - no remote desktop) does not cause it to crash."
I think this crash is related to remote session.There may be conflicts with other applications when reading or writing memory.

we can refer below website to create dump file on your target issue win10.

How to generate a complete memory dump on Windows 10
https://www.bitdefender.com/support/how-to-generate-a-complete-memory-dump-on-windows-10-1590.html

How to generate a crash dump file on windows 10
https://support.microsoft.com/en-sg/help/927069/how-to-generate-a-complete-crash-dump-file-or-a-kernel-crash-dump-file

4 what's size of memory on the target issue machine ?

5 what's difficult to clean install windows 10 on the target issue machine ?

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Thursday, January 24, 2019 4:38 AM

Hi there,

Thanks for your response.

0) Winver: Version 1803 (OS Build 17134.523)

1) Have removed and reinstalled several times including deleting downloaded drivers and reinstall. Just did it again to make sure. It is up to date. Last message when clicking on "update driver" in device manager is "the best drivers for your device are already installed."

2) Ran all three commands with the following results:

"No component store corruption detected. The operation completed successfully."

"No component store corruption detected. The operation completed successfully."

"The restore operation completed successfully.  The operation completed successfully."

I rebooted and tried remote desktop again. It connected, I clicked on the start menu a couple of time and this time it crashed with a black screen (not black screen of death) just black instead of grey.

I'll read the articles on generating memory and crash dumps tomorrow, perform, and reply with results.

3) Since my posting on "Adobe Bridge" causing a crash, I have selected several other apps to run to see if I can ascertain a cause, and there isn't one. Turns out that although I can now connect with remote desktop with services and startup disabled, just about any interaction with the target computer causes a crash - starting Word or Excel, clicking the start button, or actually just connecting. It connects but is unstable immediately. There doesn't seem to be any single cause. It is definitely because of the remote desktop session.

4) Memory on target system is 32 gb.

5) I can do clean install plus all the other application software, configuration, etc., etc. It's unfortunate that all that can be done on some of these problems is do a complete reinstall. Not the first time I've done it. It's a drag, but I can do it.

Thank you for your help.

Ric

Ric Miller

Thursday, January 24, 2019 5:07 AM

Hi there,

I think I found the problem.

Looks like there is more than one version of Remote Desktop that runs on Windows 10.

I have been using version 10.0.17134 on the machine that I am calling the host e.g. I am connecting to a target machine.

I went to the target machine to try to connect to the host just to see if I could crash the other machine from the target.

The target had a version of remote desktop from the "Windows Store". That connected successfully.

I went back to the host and found the "Windows Store" version of remote desktop. It connected successfully to the originally target and is staying up with no crash.

I don't even recall how I installed version 10.0.17134 of remote desktop on my host machine.

Can anyone elaborate on what is going on here?

Thanks,

Ric

Ric Miller

Thursday, January 24, 2019 5:40 AM

Hi there,

Well, that wasn't the problem at all. Worked great for about 10 minutes and now business as usual.

Remote desktop connection makes the target machine unstable regardless of which version is used. The Windows Store version at first seemed to work well. Now it doesn't work any better than version 10.0.17134 of remote desktop.

I guess I'll try to force it to do a memory or crash dump.

Very discouraging.

Thanks,

Ric

Ric Miller

Thursday, January 24, 2019 6:19 AM

hi,
host :computer A :win10 1803
target issue computer B:c win10 

1 can enter winver on both computer A and computer B ,look if they are the same os version ? do they all win10 professional version ?

2  from your decription ,if we use Microsoft remote desktop software which is downloaded from windows store,   
we can remote computer B on computer A and there is no crash on computer B. Is it true ?
It can solve your problem temporarily .

3"I don't even recall how I installed version 10.0.17134 of remote desktop on my host machine."
I think it's previsioned in the win10 operating system.look below picture.
RDP version number match win10 version number.
(1)The provision Remote desktop Connection software 
(2)Microsoft Remote Desktop App from windows app store 
I think the two remote software call memory registers are different .


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Thursday, January 24, 2019 11:17 PM

Hi there,

1) Both versions of Windows 10 are the same Version 1803 (OS Build 17134.523). This is Windows 10 Enterprise.

2) There are two version of Remote Desktop on computer A which is the one I am using to connect to what I am calling the "target"  - let's call it computer B. The version of Remote Desktop, which is the one you are showing is version 10.0.17134. The Windows Store version of Remote Desktop is version 10.1.1088.0.

At this point both of them cause the target machine, computer B to crash. The first time I tried the Windows store version, it worked for about 10 minutes. I thought that I had solved the problem. But it then crashed and now when I connect it immediately crashes.

3) I tried both versions of remote desktop from computer A and they both crash computer B consistently.

Thanks,

Ric

Ric Miller

Thursday, January 24, 2019 11:30 PM

Hi there,

I followed these instructions:

How to generate a complete memory dump on Windows 10
https://www.bitdefender.com/support/how-to-generate-a-complete-memory-dump-on-windows-10-1590.html

...but it doesn't produce a memory.dmp.

I restarted after configuring, then remoted to the target machine, it crashed, I rebooted but no dump file.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,

Ric

Ric Miller