View Composer agent initialization state error (6): Unknown failure (waited 0 seconds)

Perhaps the most useless error message on the planet, right next to PC Load Letter.


[UPDATE: The workaround detailed below refers to quickprep only.  Versions 4.5 and above now allow you to use customization specifications in vCenter.  I'd recommend using those for easier administration, especially when expanding your environment.]


Summary:
This error message can appear when deploying View Pool from a Parent VM (aka Gold Image) that has Microsoft’s App-V 4.5 client installed:
View Composer agent initialization state error (6): Unknown failure (waited 0 seconds)
Workaround:
  • On the Parent VM, change the “Application Virtualization Client” service to manual.
  • App-VClientService
      • Next steps are completely voluntary.  The only reason I went further was so that as soon as a user logs into a View session, their App-V applications would show up immediately.
      • Create a batch/cmd file and place it on the root directory of the VM. (Commonly C:\)
        • Open Notepad
        • Paste the following two lines:
          • sc config sftlist start= auto
            sc start sftlist
        • Save the file as a bat or cmd (For this example, I’m naming mine “Custom.bat”)
    • Once you’ve snapshot your changes, all you need to do is change the following setting to use the batch file that was created in the previous step Post synchonization script.
      • QuickPrep
      • Done, this should resolve the stupid error above.
Extra Stuff
One thing the App-V / Softgrid client does is add an entry to the UserInit Key (HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Winlogon) in Windows.  From my understanding, best practice from MS is that your supposed to put a comma after any entry that you append to this key.  App-V 4.5 / Softgrid don’t do this.  So when you install the View Agent, make sure the key reads something like this:
  • C:\WINDOWS\system32\userinit.exe,"C:\Program Files\Softricity\SoftGrid for Windows Desktops\sftdcc.exe","C:\Program Files\VMware\VMware View\Agent\bin\wssm.exe",
It is highly likely this was something left over from Microsoft’s acquisition of Softricity that was never corrected or left to the wayside.

Comments

Aiden said…
Hi there,

Do you know what is the causer if the parent VM does not have app-v installed on it but still getting the randomly getting the "View Composer agent initialization state error (6): Unknown failure (waited 0 seconds)" error?

Cheers.
Zsoldier said…
I haven't seen the error except in this instance where App-V (aka SoftGrid) is installed. I have a feeling that it tends to be related to another agent that plugs itself into the userinit key. That might be one place to look.
Zsoldier said…
Someone posted this comment and I screwed up and deleted it by accident. So here it is:

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "View Composer agent initialization state error (6)...":

Thanks for doing a write up on this. Got this error after doing a Windows update on my master image. I found [10/20/10 15:03:27] Error: (svmMonitoredVolume:320) Failed to find devnode id for Q:\ in the log files which made me think App-V. Thanks for validating it.
Anonymous said…
Many thanks.
I had the same problem with App-V 4.6 client installed. Instead of the (waited 0 seconds), i had (waited 5 seconds). Your workaround worked well.
Anonymous said…
Hi,

We had the same problem with AppV 4.6 client. Your workaround worked.

Thanks
Bryan said…
100000000 Thank You's!
Your Work around did the trick.
Anonymous said…
Hi,

I'm not sure if this is the right location for this, but I am hitting an issue with my vmware view 5 deployment for linked clones desktops. I hit the following error:
View Composer agent initialization state error (-1): Illegal state (waited 0 seconds)

I see the new desktops running, but I am unable to login to the desktop with the error 'this desktop currenty has no desktop sources available'.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks
Zsoldier said…
Anonymous, a better place to pose questions would probably be the VMware communities forums. http://communities.vmware.com/community/vmtn/desktop/view?view=discussions

Off the top of my head though, you did install the view agent onto the parent vm right?
Anonymous said…
ありがとう ございました!。うれしい です!
Anonymous said…
ありがとう ございました。!うれしい です!
Anonymous said…
ありがとう ございました!
Anonymous said…
ありがとう ございました!

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