Flash 11.4 and ICA Client 12.3 update2

A few weeks ago Citrix has released an update for ICA Client 12.3.

While this update is to get Flash version 11.3 and 11.4 rendering again on the client be aware that when Internet Explorer 9 is used on the XenApp server the content will still be rendered on the server instead of the client. In the event logs on the XenApp server this message will be entered.

On the client side you won’t see the process “PseudoContainer.exe” running and on the server side you will see the CPU utilization going up while rendering the Flash content.

At the moment this is normal behavior as ICA Client 12.3 is using Flash V1 in conjunction with IE9.

I tested this in my lab and when running IE8 the Flash content is rendered on the client again.

Testlab setup

• XA6.5 srv1 running IE9 and Flash 11.4.204.427
• XA6.5 srv2 running IE8 and Flash 11.4.204.427
• Windows7 client running ICA Client 12.3 update 2 (and IE9 locally installed) and Flash 11.4.204.427

Tests performed

I performed the following tests:

1. Connect to XA65-srv1 and play youtube movie on IE9
2. Connect to XA65-srv2 and play same youtube movie on IE8

When connecting to the XA6.5-srv1 server I launched the youtube website and selected the first movie that was displayed at that time. When the movie was playing I checked the CPU utilization on the server and checked the CPU utilization on the client. What was obvious was that the client didn’t have the process “PseudoContainer.exe” running and the CPU utilization was low. On the XA6.5 server however the CPU utilization was higher then normal. Also in the Application and services -> Citrix -> Multimedia -> Flash -> Admin log I saw a warning message stating that the browser major version is above the maximum major version supported by the HDX MediaStream for Flash.

When connecting to XA6.5-srv2 and I launced the youtube website (with IE8) and played the same movie I saw on the client side that the “PseudoContainer.exe” was loaded immediately and the CPU utilization was higher than in my 1st test. On the server side I saw that the CPU utilization was low. In the Application and services -> Citrix -> Multimedia -> Flash -> Admin log there were no entries found for that time I played the youtube movie.

Conclusion

For now it seems that when you need the Clients to keep rendering the Flash content you need to have IE8 running on your XenApp server. When there is an update on this I’ll update this post.

NOTE: If you use Receiver 3.3 on your clients you have NO issue with client side rendering of Flash movies. This behavior is only seen when using ICA Client 12.3 update2 and Flash 11.3/11.4 and IE9 on the XenApp server.