Why ist Citrix Receiver so slow at Parallels Windows?

Hello...

I had to set up a Windows Boot Camp partition on a computer in order to be able to use it with a customer using Citrix Receiver. The performance of the Citrix Windows session is also excellent under Boot Camp. However, the constant restart for macOS / Bootcamp gets on your nuts ...

So I tried the whole thing with Parallels and a Windows VM.

So under Parallels a Windows VM and within this VM I then start the Citrix Receiver which shows me a Windows environment in the Citrix browser window. Logically think so far.

If I now want to work under Citrix Windows, this is simply not possible. Everything stops. If I click on the Windows icon, it takes 3-4 seconds for the start menu to pop up, if I want to scroll down the app list, it takes 5-6 seconds for it to scroll down. When I click on the Excel app icon I have to wait forever until the click arrives in the Citrix Windows environment.

Now you could say - yes - performance in Parallels Windows is worse than Bootcamp Windows.
No!


1. The Windows under Parallels boots on this iMac (which has a very good configuration) within 10 seconds. Then Windows 10 is ready to start under Parallels. All menus work without delay. Any clicks on programs or something will react immediately, like working with a real Windows on an installed SSD.

2. I also installed Visual Studio Enterprise on this Windows within Parallels. When I start an app debugging and the Android Simulator - it all happens as under Bootcamp. Without any delay. We sometimes have really heavy app projects and we can work with Parallels Windows almost like a real Windows. Nothing jerks, nothing stalls.

Not even if we start a VM with Parallels Windows and then start another (Android) VM (nested VM) under Visual Studio. It doesn't even blink.


Long story. It's not because of the "bad" Parallels Windows VM performance. Significantly more power-hungry tasks do their jobs without delay.

But why is the Citrix Windows browser window stuck within Parallels?
Can there be any network settings?
Does anyone have a tip ready?

 

I have the exact same problem here.

 

Me, too

High Sierra, Parallels 14 is working well,
but Catalina and Parallels 15 is worst

 

This seems to be app dependent on my Mac in VM mode only (not booting directly into Windows from Boot Camp).

I use two enterprise apps under the same Citrix Receiver 4.9x install. I am currently forced to use a very old (now deprecated) version of Citrix Receiver because one of the apps I use (Infinitt) freezes under newer versions of Citrix, regardless of weather I am using a PC or Mac. One app works normally in Parallels (Infinitt, https://www.infinittna.com/). However the main EHR app I use (Epic, https://www.epic.com/) runs about 4X slower in Windows 10 as a Parallels VM. Usable in a pinch in Parallels, but I just boot to Windows in the Boot Camp startup if I need to use Epic extensively.

Citrix is definitely a problem in certain environments. Not just Parallels. Although new versions of Citrix should be backward compatible, as I pointed out with Infinitt, it doesn't always work that way in practice. If your apps are compatible, you may wish to try the Citrix Workspace App (the replacement for Receiver; https://www.citrix.com/downloads/). Otherwise Parallels and Citrix will need to get together to try to troubleshoot the problems with slow performance of some apps running under Citrix.

 

What kind of memory is everyone allocating to the VM in this situation? I've run into the same scenario and I initially thought lack of memory allocation (8GB) was my issue. Comments?

 

MarcF2: correct, Citrix Receiver works normally with bare metal/Boot Camp. Have you tried the replacement for Citrix Receiver, Citrix Workspace? "Beginning August 2018, Citrix Receiver will be replaced by Citrix Workspace app" https://www.citrix.com/downloads/workspace-app/

 

I'm stuck with Receiver, due to Government insistence on outdated software!

 

BTW, MarcF2, I just configured my Windows 10 Parallels VM with 8 cores, 16 GB RAM and 1GB VRAM plus used a bridge mode network (not shared) to connect to this 16" MacBook Pro directly to the WiFi NIC and there is no improvement in the Citrix performance with my Epic EHR connection. In fact it is worse with artifacts in the display. And of course using a bridge mode to get the IP via DHCP directly from the WiFi access point subnet corrupted the connection on the Mac side. Even though it looked like the Mac had a valid IP in the same subnet a the Windows 10 VM, I had to toggle the WiFi connection off and on to fix the Mac Internet access after shutting down the VM.
You may wish to reach out to Citrix support.

 

Well thanks for that info! I was leaning toward an upgrade, thinking the extra processor power and RAM might improve Citrix performance. Not so much, according to all your configuration attempts. Thanks again!

 

Just curious. Why not just run Citrix via the Mac OS? I've had no problems using The Citrix Mac versions of Receiver/Workspace apps. The only reason I'm using Windows on my Mac is because I use Nuance's Dragon Dictate with our EHR (which is a Windows-only application).

 

I'm running Catalina and the remote solution is not supported. Not enough for me to downgrade OS X.

 

Understood. Even though your organization does not "officially" use Citrix Workspace, it is compatible with OSX Catalina and presumably would allow the remote access to function. If you can, I would just download and install Citrix Workspace on the Mac OS and try it. Just watch out for the known SSL bug:
https://www.citrix.com/blogs/2019/1...-for-mac-is-here-with-macos-catalina-support/
https://support.citrix.com/article/CTX262778

 

MIDIPanic, just wanted to let you know I'm in the exact same boat as you. I installed Windows 10 on my MBP to use a combination of Epic (via Citrix) + Dragon dictation software, but Epic is literally unusable. Not sure what to try next. I might try a different virtualization client for Mac, but not sure if that will change anything.

 

To CharlesW7: Unfortunately, in our enterprise environment, they see this as an unsupported implementation on a personal machine. Unlikely that your IT department or Citrix will show any interest in trying to get it to work. It might be worthwhile reporting to Citrix to see if they have any suggestions (if they will even talk to you rather than your IT department who holds the support license). You could also try starting a support ticket with Parallels. The only limited work-around I've found is to launch Epic under the Mac IOS and launch Dragon Dictate under Windows 10. You can then use Dragon's Dictation Box to dictate and paste your text into Epic. But none of my macros or programmed buttons on my Nuance PowerMic III work. So if I need to use Epic + Dragon on my Mac for extended periods, just boot to Windows 10 from Bootcamp and forget the VM thing. I also cary a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga running Windows 10 that I use for Epic/Infinitt/Dragon most of the time. But it would be nice for this to work under Parallels. It would save me from carrying around multiple laptops.

 

Same problem (host Catalina, parallels 15) that citrix is veeeery slow, not only under guest Windows 10, also under guest Mac Os 10.12

Can only use old citrix receiver version. Used to work well on mac host (10.12) previous to update to Catalina this month. Service provider is unlikely to change his setup anytime soon.

 

Salu: If your organization allows you to use Citrix Workspace app (the replacement for Citrix Receiver), that may fix it on the Mac side. Workspace functions normally for me on the Mac OS (Catalina 10.15.4); it is the Windows 10 VM where Citrix is virtually unuseable. You can download Citrix Workspace here: https://www.citrix.com/downloads/workspace-app/. As you know the Citrix Receiver (now Citrix Workspace) products are simply used to securely access a remote desktop. Receiver will likely be deprecated soon. However, if your organization is not keeping up with changes to the Citrix ecosystem, it could cause problems. What is your specific situation? What application/system are you trying to access? Does this occur if you boot directly into Windows via Apple's Boot Camp?

 

Thank you very much for asking. Fortunately, the resource I am reaching via Citrix is now also supporting Citrix workspace. Thus, I can access it directly from host system.
Issue solved for me.

 

Nice! Unfortunately, one of my resources is incompatible with Citrix Workspace; and Nuance's Dragon Dictate is Windows-only. Hopefully updates to Citrix and/or Parallels with allow Citrix to run normally in the Parallels virtual machine eventually.

 

Similar problem here, but forced to use the new Citrix Workspace App... formerly was able to run Citrix on the MacOS and all worked fine, but one by one the Mac browsers quit working (SSL issues, I think). So I went to my Parallels VM, running Win10 Pro fast and efficient. Original Citrix Receiver worked well... Citrix Workspace App worked well with Catalina until the most recent update (Feb-Mar 2020). Now the Citrix environment is totally unstable, slow, terrible network latency.
I reconfigured the Parallels VM to maximize performance but no help to the Citrix mess... but it is NOT a Parallels issue (per se). All other apps work fine in my VM; it's only Citrix Workspace App that is flaky, unstable.