How to fix Citrix Receiver random pops up

25 November 2016 by pawelserwan 2 Comments

Citrix Receiver is important part of every XenApp or XenDesktop architecture. It has to be installed on the device from which user would like to launch Citrix resources. This is why it is important to keep it running all the time without testing limits of user patience. Recently I was reported problem with Citrix Receiver window pops up randomly like every 5 minutes. The first quick solution I thought about was to reinstall the plugin on user PC. But it of course didn’t work even though I used Receiver Clean-up Utility. I did check on Citrix forums and it occurred that this problem was happening in many different companies and there was no universal fix to that problem. So I did the troubleshooting by myself. After few attempts I finally found the root cause of Citrix Receiver pop up. It occurred that there were some orphaned entries in Citrix Receiver registry pointing to the Citrix resources that were not available anymore on my Citrix XenApp farm. Still Receiver was trying to check that and every 5 minutes was trying to refresh application list for user. And this caused a pop up of Receiver window.

To fix that permanently I have followed the below procedure.

When: In case when user reports Citrix Receiver popups unexpectedly multiple times on user’s desktop.

Why: The possible reason of this behavior is:

• Previous installation was done manually not using SCCM package
• Shortcuts to Citrix applications created by user on the desktop
• Orphaned entries in registry for deleted Citrix applications eg. from development environment

What: The complete uninstall and clean-up of Citrix Receiver from user’s desktop is required. Once performed the new installation of Citrix Receiver to be done.

How: The whole process requires the following actions to be fulfilled:

1. Connect to user’s desktop using remote session.
2. Check the version of Citrix Receiver installed on user’s PC.
3. Close all Citrix applications launched on user’s PC.
4. Download the Citrix Receiver Clean-up Utility from https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX137494  to user’s PC.
5. Launch Citrix Receiver Clean-up Utility. You might need to provide your administrator account password.
6. Once the clean-up is done verify in Programs and Features console that Citrix Receiver is not listed.
7. Navigate to: C:\Users\<username>\AppData and delete Citrix folder from:
   1. Local
   2. LocalLow
   3. Roaming

Note: AppData is a hidden system directory. To access it is suggested to type the path in address bar.

8. Launch Registry Editor (regedit.exe).
9. Select Edit –> Find and search for Citrix entries in registry.
10. The following entries should be removed once the Citrix Receiver is uninstalled and cleaned up.
    1. [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Citrix
    2. [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall]

In this hive key you can see the below entries related to Citrix applications.

Delete all entries related to Citrix applications. Please check the values of the keys.

11. Check in Start Menu if any orphaned shortcuts to Citrix application exist – they will be presented as unknown application. The icon looks like the below:

12. Once all the above steps are done please install the Citrix Receiver latest version. Preferred to use SCCM package or scripted installation.
13. When the installation is finished verify that Citrix Receiver is listed in Programs and Features.
14. Ask user to let you know the next day if the problem is solved.

I hope this article will help some of you 🙂