Issue with Citrix 4.5 on Windows Server 2003 after applying Microsoft patches

The problem first surfaced right after patching a bunch of servers in my office. Luckily, I split my patching of Citrix farm into several groups. It is never a good idea to patch your entire farm at the same time because when problems start to happen, you cannot isolate the issue.

One weekend, I was applying a whole chunk of patches (not a good idea either) due to the huge backlog from my predecessor. Come Monday, several users started complaining about having a blank or grey screen when they login to their Citrix applications. I tried on my workstation but could not replicate the problem thus dismissing it as a client side issue. As the day go on, more and more users started complaining about the problem and I decided to test it out using a different desktop.

These are my findings.

Affected client:

• Citrix Xenapp ICA listener 4.5

Affected OS:

• Windows XP
• Windows 7 Enterprise (some Windows 7 work, not sure of the exact reason)

 Symptoms of problem

• Citrix application opens a window that contains only grey/blank screen or light blue screen (depends on the colour of your server desktop)
• Citrix application opens and automatically close within a second
• Citrix launcher loads but application does not open

The issue only happened to applications hosted on Citrix presentation servers that were patched so obviously something in the patch caused this.

Solution:

1. Uninstall Microsoft patch KB2922229 released in April 2014 on all affected Citrix presentation server
2. Restart server after the uninstall
3. Some servers might still be affected after uninstalling the patch. Go to the Citrix server policy to uncheck and re-check this option "User client's local time". Click apply and issue will be gone.

The issue was also reported by other users here
http://discussions.citrix.com/topic/350441-users-unable-to-login-to-xa-45-w2k3r2-server-after-kb2922229-and-kb2936068-installed/