IE11 breaks the RHEV SPICE console and other SPICE issues

Latest response

SPICE consoles don't work with IE 11. Select your virtual machine, right-click and select Console and... nothing happens. Remove IE 11 and SPICE consoles work again with IE 10. This is written up in bugzilla number 1022857, but the writeup is only available internally to Red Hat so the world doesn't have an ETA for a fix.

This article:
https://access.redhat.com/site/solutions/546623

also acknowledges the problem and that it's not fixed yet.

My other SPICE issue is, I run RHEV-M for several customers across the Internet over a VPN. I don't remember this behavior earlier, but it seems with RHEV 3.2 and IE10, when I try to grab a console session over my VPN, the process is very slow and clunky. Grab the console the first time and a few minutes later, a popup comes up asking if I want to install the SPICE add-in. Wait another few minutes and try it again, and another few minutes later, it tells me it's installing the SPICE add-in. But it doesn't really install it. Wait another few minutes and this time it really does install the SPICE add-in and a few minutes after that, I can acquire the console. This is still helpful for customers 30+ miles away, but I was hoping for something a little more snappy. That 15-20 minute process to get at the first VM console is frustrating. After that initial ugly setup, I can usually get at consoles within 30-60 seconds over the Internet and performance inside the consoles is reasonable, given the bandwidth constraints.

But - why does my browser want to install the SPICE plugin anyway? It's already installed in my browser here from when I do my own RHEV-M for my own setup right here. Why do I need to install SPICE again when I reach out to a customer? And why do I need to try it 3 times before it finally installs all the way? Also, this seems to happen repeatedly. If I VPN to a customer and run RHEV-M from here, I go to all the trouble to set up SPICE. I shut down RHEV-M, maybe boot my PC here after yet another Windows Update, and next time to that customer site, I have to set up SPICE all over again for that specific customer.

Is there something about SPICE specific to each site?

And what's the possibility of supporting SPICE from Chrome and/or Firefox?

thanks

  • Greg Scott

Responses

Yes I too have encounted this issue with no spice console in IE11. The resolve for us was to roll back IE to a later version. This requires disabling and uninstall IE11 which will default back to a older version. As you can not really uninstall IE from Windows OS.

The VPN and plugin issue I can not speak of. Too many unrelated variables in the mix. Is there a proxy inbetween is there a certificate issue when you're on your VPN? etc. sorry.

Yes, dropping back to IE10 seems to be the only workaround for now.

On the slow WAN SPICE issue - no, no proxy server or anything fancy in-between. My hunch is, it's just a WAN in-between that happens to be the Internet that makes it slow. I can connect to customer Windows file shares and do SSH and RDP sessions without problem. I can launch IE10 here and connect to customer RHEV-M servers. Just getting started with that SPICE client is so slow.

The only unusual thing I can come up with is, I connect to my own RHEV-M server and several customer RHEV-M servers at random times. Usually when I connect to a customer RHEV-M server, it's because something is going on and I need to look into it and I need a console right now. That makes the problem more frustrating. Sometimes I can get around it by using RDP for Windows or SSH for Linux, but sometimes I need a real console to see what's going on inside a VM.

  • Greg

Here is a bugzilla reference that may be related to my slow WAN SPICE console issue:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=847065

It describes a standalone Windows MSI installer that sets up a SPICE client. I wonder how to get our hands on it and if it would also work with Firefox and/or Chrome?

Greg, this comment is from December 2013 so I assume you already have your answer to this but if you install the Remote Viewer from RHEV 3.3 (virt-viewer-0.5.6), it will allow you to use Firefox or Chrome to access Spice consoles. Just be sure to switch the default console type to "Native" (or Auto) using the rhevm-config command instructions in knowledge solution 731293.

Here is the link for the windows client:
http://www.spice-space.org/download.html

The clients available from spice-space.org will work but they are not shipped by Red Hat and are not officially supported. The version of Remote Viewer that is included with RHEV 3.3 supports the use of the "Native" Spice console which does not have restrictions on specific browser use.

Solution 546623 was recently updated with workarounds for RHEV 3.3.0 and RHEV 3.2.

So I downloaded and installed the standalone SPICE client. Start...Programs...VirtViewer...Remote Viewer. When I run it, it asks for a URL and sits there. OK, so all my RHEV VMs probably have console URLs - how do I find out what they are so I can connect to them with virt-viewer?

thanks

  • Greg

Not trying to be inflammatory (and trying to stay on topic), but SPICE needs some serious work and perhaps injection of time/money from Red Hat.

I have been trying to pretend it's a workable solution, but it has been nothing but pain in RHEV. My greatest concern is that the SPICE client / console is the view of RHEV that other administrators have when using it, and it's a terrible advertisement for the maturity of the RHEV platform.

Yes you can get it working by 'tweaking this / hacking that / modifying this / creating a script for that, install this bit of software', but it really needs to be at a stage where I (or an end user) clicks the VM in the RHEV console, a Java window pops up and I have access to the console.

We're steadily improving the Spice with each version and I believe with RHEV 3.4 (out in beta now) that the experience is what you are expecting in your statement above. I am a Virtualization TAM here at Red Hat and I would be happy to get on a call with you to address some of these concerns. Please open a support case and link your support engineer to this discussion; they can reach out to me from there.

Well this is a bummer. Even with RHEV 3.3, SPICE seems broken with IE11. I go to RHEV-M, select a virtual machine, right-click...Console. And...nothing other than a status message on the bottom of the screen. I really really want to show people how cool this remote console and user portal stuff is - but it needs to work and be easy to use. +1 for Pixel. What can we do to make this more stable?

  • Greg

Hey Greg, I hope I can help here. If you have virt-viewer-0.5.6, you will need to switch your Spice consoles to "Auto" or "Native" to be able to use a browser other than IE10 and earlier. There's a way to set this value to be the new default in knowledge solution 731293 using the rhevm-config command.

Edit: Or you can update to RHEV-M 3.3.1 or later and the issue with the IE11 ActiveX plugin should be resolved as discussed in knowledge solution 546623.

Hey Bryan - thanks. I'm running a yum update on my own rhev-m system in another window as I type this. When it finishes I'll try it again and post results here.

I ran across a potential customer where everyone in the whole company is mobile. They all carry laptops and a good chunk of the company data is locked away inside those laptops. I want to build a case for virtual workstations and SPICE, but the solution has to be easy to use. That's why this issue is important again.

I looked at that standalone client a few weeks ago but didn't like it. If I have to stop and figure out how to make it work, imagine what an inexperienced end user goes through. But - if I'm reading what 3.4 will offer correctly - when 3.4 hits, you can change SPICE to native, then it generates that .vv file and somehow a plugin to all the popular browsers will "know" how to deal with it? This will be nice if it works.

One other SPICE issue - when I connect to the user portal as me and acquire the console of my test VM, this works. But then I connect to the admin portal as admin and grab that same console. But now user gregs can't grab the console anymore until that VM reboots. What's up with that? A popup says there's a setting to override that goofy behavior but I haven't been able to find it so far.

thanks

- Greg

I looked at that standalone client a few weeks ago but didn't like it.
If I have to stop and figure out how to make it work, imagine what an 
inexperienced end user goes through. But - if I'm reading what 3.4 will 
offer correctly - when 3.4 hits, you can change SPICE to native, then it
generates that .vv file and somehow a plugin to all the popular browsers
will "know" how to deal with it? This will be nice if it works.

Well, actually, the Native console (.vv file) has been available since RHEV 3.2. However, a client that understood the .vv files wasn't available until RHEL 6.5 (Linux version) or RHEV 3.3 (Windows version). Once the proper version of Remote Viewer is installed (0.5.6 or later), then you can use any browser to launch the Spice session since the operating system will already know how to handle .vv files.

The key to making this work is to inform the users how they can get the updated version of Remote Viewer and then setting the console type default to Native.

One other SPICE issue - when I connect to the user portal as me 
and acquire the console of my test VM, this works. But then I connect
to the admin portal as admin and grab that same console. But now user
gregs can't grab the console anymore until that VM reboots. What's up
with that? A popup says there's a setting to override that goofy 
behavior but I haven't been able to find it so far.

Only 1 user can connect to a Spice console at any given time. Did you close out the previous session before trying to connect to it via the admin user?

Yes, there is an option to allow multiple users to connect to the same console but we don't recommend it unless you have to. It's best if you have multiple users to give them each their own VM.

Hi Bryan,
I'm hitting this problem as well - running 3.3.1-0.48.el6ev against IE11.0.9600.17041 - though slightly different - I get "Graphics Server not found"

Another thing I'm finding - when I click on "Console Resources" I get "Page not found" - where can I download the RHEV version of the SPICE client?

Thanks
Bret

I'm hitting this problem as well - running 3.3.1-0.48.el6ev against
IE11.0.9600.17041 - though slightly different - I get 
"Graphics Server not found"

You might want to open a Support Case for this. That sounds like a network routing issue. Do you have the Display network segmented out?

Another thing I'm finding - when I click on "Console Resources" I get
"Page not found" - where can I download the RHEV version of the SPICE client?

That was a known issue in RHEV 3.3.1 and fixed in 3.3.2. I recommend updating to the latest version which is 3.3.3 (released today).

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