Hello everyone,

We've had reports from several users that the UI in Excel and other Office apps like Outlook isn't rendering properly. I've attached a screenshot so you can get an idea of what we're seeing. I suspect this might be related to hardware acceleration, as we're using NVIDIA GPUs in our environment.

Here's a quick overview of our setup:

• Horizon 8 2212.2
• Windows 10 22H2 (September patches applied)
• FSLogix (latest version)
• AppVolume 2406
• DEM 2406
• NVIDIA A16/NVIDIA A2 GPUs
• Shared Direct and Shared Passthrough GPU assignment policies
• VMs spread across GPUs for best performance
• Latest NVIDIA drivers (16.7) on Hosts and 538.67 on Windows
• BLAST only with Windows Devices as our underlying OS

Interestingly, this issue isn't affecting all users—just a few here and there.

Has anyone else experienced something similar, especially in environments with shared GPUs? Any tips or known fixes would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!

Hello @SchwarzC,

what type of codec do you set on client?

We left everything on default

So

Allow BlastCodec Decoding

Allow H.264 Decoding

ALlow HEVC Decoding

Allow AV1 Decoding

On the VDI we see the following (HEVC 4:2:0)

Please enable HDR and check, in my case with GPU works good. 

I'm not sure this is a hardware acceleration issue.

You said this issue is impacting users intermittently?  Does the issue go away when the user logs out and logs back in?

Are you using Office 365 or a volume-licensed copy of Office?  If you're using Office365, how are you managing updates?

Hello,

I've been starting to get simmilar reports from users. For now it's very random and just restarting the application or just moving the cursor over the blank areas seems to do the trick but it's causing frustration and questions to our servicedesk.

• Horizon 8 2303
• Windows 10 22H2 (19045.5011)
• Office 2402 Build 16.0.17328.20550 64-bit (Semi-annual Enterprise channel)
• FSLogix 2210 hotfix 4 (2.9.8884.27471)
• DEM 2303 (10.9.0.1105)
• NVIDIA A16/NVIDIA A2 GPUs
• NVIDIA Grid 16.2 on Hosts and 537.70 on Guests
• BLAST only with Windows Devices

On 10/23/2024 at 4:17 AM, mlindgren1 said:

Hello,

I've been starting to get simmilar reports from users. For now it's very random and just restarting the application or just moving the cursor over the blank areas seems to do the trick but it's causing frustration and questions to our servicedesk.

• Horizon 8 2303
• Windows 10 22H2 (19045.5011)
• Office 2402 Build 16.0.17328.20550 64-bit (Semi-annual Enterprise channel)
• FSLogix 2210 hotfix 4 (2.9.8884.27471)
• DEM 2303 (10.9.0.1105)
• NVIDIA A16/NVIDIA A2 GPUs
• NVIDIA Grid 16.2 on Hosts and 537.70 on Guests
• BLAST only with Windows Devices

I’d open a ticket at this point to get support looking at the issue. Also pull a log bundle from the machine so you have something when you open the ticket. 

I've seen similar issues with a few different clients of mine. Here's a couple of the offenders:

• vGPU Drivers
  • Dated drivers
  • Mismatch from Host to Guest
• Hardware Acceleration on Software
  • OSOT can manipulate and disable hardware acceleration
  • GPOs can disable hardware acceleration
  • In both of the cases above, sometimes clients aren't aware if they have it enabled/disabled (or believe it's configured differently than it actually is
• Endpoints
  • Some endpoints can be running old clients
  • Some endpoints may have decoding issues

@SchwarzC, according to your notes, you're running 16.7 on the hosts, but 16.6 on the guest VM. You could try matching them. Additionally, 16.8 was just released. You could also try the latest vGPU 17 drivers (I'd recommend testing).

@mlindgren1, I'd recommend updating your vGPU drivers.

 

For both @SchwarzC, and @mlindgren1, I'd check to see if the Horizon Indirect driver is being utilized, or if it's going direct with the NVIDIA vGPU driver. I'd also recommend checking and confirming your clients are up to date.

Could you both check to see if you have hardware rendering for Office apps enabled?

There used to be a KB covering a known issue with Excel and hardware rendering, however I haven't come across the issue on up to date environments that are running Windows 11 with the latest vGPU drivers.

On 10/23/2024 at 11:17 AM, mlindgren1 said:

Hello,

I've been starting to get simmilar reports from users. For now it's very random and just restarting the application or just moving the cursor over the blank areas seems to do the trick but it's causing frustration and questions to our servicedesk.

• Horizon 8 2303
• Windows 10 22H2 (19045.5011)
• Office 2402 Build 16.0.17328.20550 64-bit (Semi-annual Enterprise channel)
• FSLogix 2210 hotfix 4 (2.9.8884.27471)
• DEM 2303 (10.9.0.1105)
• NVIDIA A16/NVIDIA A2 GPUs
• NVIDIA Grid 16.2 on Hosts and 537.70 on Guests
• BLAST only with Windows Devices

Whats interesting is that we have similar setups, but different versions of our backend, only the Win 10 22H2 is the same, so it could be the culprit

let me know if you have found out anything, I will do the same.
My current plan is
NV upgrade to 16.8
Horizon upgrade to 2312.1
Reinstall all agents with the latest version agents
what is really strange is that we have not seen this problem once in our test group, but with some random users the problem has occurred more often, and we have a default config for all

5 minutes ago, SchwarzC said:

Whats interesting is that we have similar setups, but different versions of our backend, only the Win 10 22H2 is the same, so it could be the culprit

let me know if you have found out anything, I will do the same.
My current plan is
NV upgrade to 16.8
Horizon upgrade to 2312.1
Reinstall all agents with the latest version agents
what is really strange is that we have not seen this problem once in our test group, but with some random users the problem has occurred more often, and we have a default config for all

Hello,

We upgraded our connection servers and agents to 2312.1 a few days ago and are currently evaluating if this has solved it or not.

Our next move is to upgrade the NV drivers and start customer projects to roll out windows 11.

I'll keep you updated!

Thanks!

On 10/26/2024 at 5:24 PM, StephenWagner7 said:

I've seen similar issues with a few different clients of mine. Here's a couple of the offenders:

• vGPU Drivers
  • Dated drivers
  • Mismatch from Host to Guest
• Hardware Acceleration on Software
  • OSOT can manipulate and disable hardware acceleration
  • GPOs can disable hardware acceleration
  • In both of the cases above, sometimes clients aren't aware if they have it enabled/disabled (or believe it's configured differently than it actually is
• Endpoints
  • Some endpoints can be running old clients
  • Some endpoints may have decoding issues

@SchwarzC, according to your notes, you're running 16.7 on the hosts, but 16.6 on the guest VM. You could try matching them. Additionally, 16.8 was just released. You could also try the latest vGPU 17 drivers (I'd recommend testing).

@mlindgren1, I'd recommend updating your vGPU drivers.

 

For both @SchwarzC, and @mlindgren1, I'd check to see if the Horizon Indirect driver is being utilized, or if it's going direct with the NVIDIA vGPU driver. I'd also recommend checking and confirming your clients are up to date.

Could you both check to see if you have hardware rendering for Office apps enabled?

There used to be a KB covering a known issue with Excel and hardware rendering, however I haven't come across the issue on up to date environments that are running Windows 11 with the latest vGPU drivers.

Dear Stephen,

first of all thank you for your answer and for your online materials, helped me a lot in the transition to 365.

I am suspecting similar, I will first try with 16.8 and afterwards v17

For the driver we have the following (SVGA 3D disabled)

For the clients, we only have one version that is 8.12.0.43490 but I will start with upgrade to the latest 8.13

 

On 10/26/2024 at 5:24 PM, StephenWagner7 said:

I've seen similar issues with a few different clients of mine. Here's a couple of the offenders:

• vGPU Drivers
  • Dated drivers
  • Mismatch from Host to Guest
• Hardware Acceleration on Software
  • OSOT can manipulate and disable hardware acceleration
  • GPOs can disable hardware acceleration
  • In both of the cases above, sometimes clients aren't aware if they have it enabled/disabled (or believe it's configured differently than it actually is
• Endpoints
  • Some endpoints can be running old clients
  • Some endpoints may have decoding issues

@SchwarzC, according to your notes, you're running 16.7 on the hosts, but 16.6 on the guest VM. You could try matching them. Additionally, 16.8 was just released. You could also try the latest vGPU 17 drivers (I'd recommend testing).

@mlindgren1, I'd recommend updating your vGPU drivers.

 

For both @SchwarzC, and @mlindgren1, I'd check to see if the Horizon Indirect driver is being utilized, or if it's going direct with the NVIDIA vGPU driver. I'd also recommend checking and confirming your clients are up to date.

Could you both check to see if you have hardware rendering for Office apps enabled?

There used to be a KB covering a known issue with Excel and hardware rendering, however I haven't come across the issue on up to date environments that are running Windows 11 with the latest vGPU drivers.

Hello Stephen,

Thank you for a great response!

We are mainly running client 2312.1, but with a few outliers (some newer and some older). I'll try and see if I can get my hands on a session with the issue active to see what is being used for rendering.

As for the hardware rendering settings in the Office apps, I think Microsoft removed them as they are now using some kind of dynamic settings which automatically turns it on/off depending on the detected hardware. Or are you maybe refering to something else?

Thanks!

By default, Office will utilize hardware rendering. Using the OSOT tool with default settings, will disable hardware rendering on Office unless you change this.

Additionally, I get called in to a lot of environments where customers also have GPOs configured to disable hardware rendering (and don't know, or forgot).

If you have a vGPU attached, I'd recommend making sure that hardware rendering is enabled. Without a vGPU, it should be disabled.

On 10/29/2024 at 10:25 AM, mlindgren1 said:

Hello,

We upgraded our connection servers and agents to 2312.1 a few days ago and are currently evaluating if this has solved it or not.

Our next move is to upgrade the NV drivers and start customer projects to roll out windows 11.

I'll keep you updated!

Thanks!

Dear mlindgren1, did the 2312.1 upgrade fix this issue for you?

BR

1 minute ago, SchwarzC said:

Dear mlindgren1, did the 2312.1 upgrade fix this issue for you?

BR

Hi,
Unfortunately not. I also went ahead to check about the OSOT settings for hardware acceleration that StephenWagner7 mentioned, but that also did nothing.

We're currently preparing and upgrade of our Nvidia Drivers the coming weeks to 16.8 (538.95 guest drivers).
 

Kind regards

@mlindgren1 - any further luck?

For anyone following this, NV Update 16.9 has fixed this issue for us.

We have the same issue with O365 apps on Win11 VDIs and Nvidia A16 vGPU. We have used the Nvidia driver 16.7 in the past, we now updated the driver to version 17.5 (we skipped 16.9). Unfortunately, the issue is not solved for us. Could it be possible, that this issue got only fixed in the on 16.x Long-Term Support Branch and not in the 17.x Production Branch of the Nvidia driver?