Black screen while streaming with Blast codecs

[virtualblog]

Hello community! 

We are facing a strange problem. Users reporting that streaming from Netflix, npo start (dutch) and other streaming platform not works. users are getting a black screen with sound and subtiteles. It is strange that the subtitels are showing without any problems 

When we changed from blast to RDP, Users are able to see the movie or the live stream. 

We are using:

- H.264 and H.265 Codec (HEVC)
- Nvidia  A16-2B and T4
- Blast Codec
- Horizon 2212.2
- Agent 8.8.2-22855861

Does anyone have the same problem? 

Many thanks!

 

Edited September 3 by virtualblog

[StephenWagner7]

1 hour ago, virtualblog said:

Hello community! 

We are facing a strange problem. Users reporting that streaming from Netflix, npo start (dutch) and other streaming platform not works. users are getting a black screen with sound and subtiteles. It is strange that the subtitels are showing without any problems 

When we changed from blast to RDP, Users are able to see the movie or the live stream. 

We are using:

- H.264 and H.265 Codec (HEVC)
- Nvidia  A16-2B and T4
- Blast Codec
- Horizon 2212.2
- Agent 8.8.2-22855861

Does anyone have the same problem? 

Many thanks!

 

Hey @virtualblog,

Noticed you're using NVIDIA vGPUs. Can you confirm their license mode is activated?

Also, can you open the Horizon Performance tracker and verify that NVENC is being used for the encoder?

I think your issue may be that you're using either MMR or HTML5 redirection, which, while it normally helps non-GPU environments, most orgs would disable MMR and HTML5 redirection for vGPU enabled environments.

Even if you have it enabled, it still should technically work, so in addition to this, you might be having issues with your endpoints not handling it properly.

But first, I'd try disabling MMR and make sure HTML5 redirection is disabled for those sites.

[Robin Harmsen]

NPO Starts works fine for us/me at the moment.
We use T4-1B profiles, Horizon 2312,  Blast and nVidia drivers 17.1

Could be something with HTML5 redirection or something with older horizon software or perhaps older nVidia drivers..

[virtualblog]

Thanks Robin and Stephen,

Good questions! 

The license mode is activated, HTML5 Multimedia Redirection has been disabled by grouppolicy and the global policy for MMR has been set to Deny. 

My machine has a T4-2b profile. The desktop pool for users used the A16 card, both having the same issue. 

- Grid T4-2B Driver version 538.78
- ESXI Nvidia driver 535.183.04

 

[StephenWagner7]

1 minute ago, virtualblog said:

Thanks Robin and Stephen,

Good questions! 

The license mode is activated, HTML5 Multimedia Redirection has been disabled by grouppolicy and the global policy for MMR has been set to Deny. 

My machine has a T4-2b profile. The desktop pool for users used the A16 card, both having the same issue. 

- Grid T4-2B Driver version 538.78
- ESXI Nvidia driver 535.183.04

 

Ohhhhhhhh, this is DRM kicking in, lol.

[Hans Straat]

At our environment npo start works just fine. we use horizon 2312.X (privat fix for connection server and appvolume managers) and client is 2406. can't figure out fast what profile we use not so much into the hardware more packaging etc

clients use blast protocol

we have this gpo enabled>  

VMware View Agent Configuration/VMware HTML5 Features/VMware WebRTC Redirection Features force client side WebRTC optimization. 

[StephenWagner7]

So I would almost bet that the content has DRM protection. There's a chance that HTML5/MMR might resolve this, but not sure what the experience would be like.

Also, it might be worthwhile fiddling with using the NVIDIA driver, vs the Horizon Indirect Display driver to see if it changes the behavior.

[virtualblog]

Did some testing with the Horizon indirect display driver. After removing the PCI Device, it's working great with Blast (blastCodec) so only in combiabtion with the nvidia driver the issue occurs. 

next step to do is enabling HTML5 redirection and see if it works 😉 

@Hans Straat i can't find the gpo setting to force webRTC. Can you tell me the date of the admx file? ( ours " 13-7-2022")  Yes, i known that is old 🙂

 

Edited September 3 by virtualblog

[Hans Straat]

@virtualblog we run 2312 admx templates. Whe we upgraded from 2212 to 2312 we also refreshed all admx templates. 

[virtualblog]

Oke thanks! i will ask my collegae to do that. 

[StephenWagner7]

54 minutes ago, virtualblog said:

Did some testing with the Horizon indirect display driver. After removing the PCI Device, it's working great with Blast (blastCodec) so only in combiabtion with the nvidia driver the issue occurs. 

next step to do is enabling HTML5 redirection and see if it works 😉 

@Hans Straat i can't find the gpo setting to force webRTC. Can you tell me the date of the admx file? ( ours " 13-7-2022")  Yes, i known that is old 🙂

 

Normally we want the NVIDIA driver if you have a GPU. Can you try enabling the NVIDIA driver, and disable the VMware SVGA driver.,

[Robin Harmsen]

We also only have the WebRTC redirection enabled, not the full HTML5 redirection.
But as far as I know that is/was only for MS-Teams optimization.

What browser are you using, we use MS-Edge...

 

PS. I just tried Netflix.. and that works to.

 

 

[Sandro]

I believe @StephenWagner7 is right about the DRM.

If that's the case then it fallas in this known issue and you should be able to try the workaround provided in this KB:
https://kb.omnissa.com/s/article/85492?lang=en_US&source=email

[virtualblog]

Hello Sandro,

Yes, that is the solution! Tried it in the test pool and it works 😉 We are now testing with a larger group of users. It looks good!