[FEATURE REQUEST] Connect when ready / Connection-retry (G)

[drlandau]

When a server is not yet ready to accept a connection, vRD will timeout on the connection and return an error about trying again later.

It would be great if you could make vRD keep retrying until a connection can be made (fx. in case of a server rebooting) or until a retry max is reached (retry every 30 seconds for 5 minutes - this should of course be configurable).

It could fx. be a checkbox in the global settings + in the settings of a connection (that will inherit the global setting unless it is changed on the connection). In the global settings you can also define the number of retries and the interval between each retry.

/Nicolaj

[drlandau]

It would also be great with a RETRY button on the "This computer can't connect to the remote computer" dialogbox.

To continue the original topic, it could fx. be a "Retry X times" or "Retry for XX minutes".

[Systemstarter]

It would be great if vRD pings a server until RDP is possible. Sometimes an RDP session ist not possible because the service isn't running correctly.

[TCH]

It would be great if vRD pings a server until RDP is possible. Sometimes an RDP session ist not possible because the service isn't running correctly.

A ping may be used as external application (see also http://forum.visionapp.de/showthread.php?tid=3400).

[Systemstarter]

Yes, i know that and it is great. I like to use it. But it would be even better when this could be done automatically when RDP is not ready.

[felix.deimel]

you are requesting an automatic reconnect feature, right?
if so, this is already on our feature request list.

[drlandau]

Yes, but not only an automatic reconnect when a server disconnects/restarts - also when connecting for the first time.

When I attempt to connect to a server and it is not ready, I will get an error because it is not ready.
It would be very handy to be able to to fx. do a "Connect all" on a connection folder (or a single connection for that matter) and the tabs will be opened/spawned - and instead of returning an error for the servers not ready, all tabs will keep retrying until the server is ready (or until we reach a configured timeout).

[Scoundrel]

I have been wanting this feature since I started using the free version months ago. Now that I have paid for the full version, I figured I could speak up about it. I even registered to this forum to say it. I hardly ever do that.

I am frequently doing hotfixes/reboots for customers, or some other upgrade, and I tell 7 or 8 servers to reboot, all of which take different amounts of time to reboot depending on what services are running on them. I would very much like to just right-click on each one, or maybe the whole group, and select something like "Connect With Options -> Connect when Ready". Then I would do some other stuff, or sit back in my chair, sip some root beer and listen to Supertramp while I waited for all of the servers to come back up.

That would be a much better use of my time than repeatedly clicking the Connect option, then watching it say "Connecting" while it times out, or listening to my computer beep at me when it pops up a dialog box in front of whatever else I might have been doing, and then clicking OK on the connect error dialog to make it go away so that I can start the whole cycle over again. Yes, I realize this is obsessive compulsive behavior, but hey, I'm a geek. If I KNEW that the software was going to retry for me, and they would eventually come back on their own, I could relax and wait.

I saw the replies about pinging. I'm not talking about pinging. I don't really care when the server starts responding to pings again - I care when it starts responding to RDP requests again.

I saw the reply that says this feature is on the request list already, but I wanted to clarify exactly what it is that I (we) want, in case there was a misunderstanding, and to add my emphasis to the request.

I've worked with software developers, and I know what "it's on the feature request list" or "it's in the bug tracking database" can mean. It might be years before this one has enough priority to not get shunted down to the next release, and then the next one, and the next one, and so on.

This feature would definitely increase the value of the software to me.

It might even convince me that it would be worth it to renew the software maintenance, instead of just staying with the version I have now when that runs out.

Thank you very much for your consideration.

   

[drlandau]

Scoundrel: I totally agree, we have the exact same problem.

When you work with many servers, fx. perform maintenance on 30 servers at the same time, it would also mean that you don't "forget" a server, just because it is slower to start up than the rest, because vRD will connect to it when it comes up.

The annoying message you attached could be accompanied by a checkbox or button "Auto-Connect for (X time)" making it more useful.

/Nicolaj

[Scoundrel]

Certainly. The two things; a Reconnect when Ready button on that dialog, plus a Reconnect When Ready option in the Connect with Options menu would be very complementary together, and probably easy enough to link together to the same basic function - That function being the software retrying RDP connections periodically until an adjustable timeout interval is up, and reconnecting when ready (or finally giving an error when the adjustable timeout interval is up).

[drlandau]

Excactly - just what I've tried to describe earlier, glad that I'm not alone in missing the feature

It would make vRD even more powerful than today.

[drlandau]

Any plans to implement this?

[DevOma]

I will see what I can do for you :-)

[drlandau]

THANKS, that sounds GRRRREEEEAT!

On the same line, today we can choose to have the popup-messages (like the above) sent to the Messages pane - but in our company we'd rather have the option of the tab/connection-specific messages being displayed on the tabs themselves instead of in a modal popup that steals focus (which are always a pain in any program ) and closes the tab.

[DevOma]

I have a question for the "reconnect" feature - We do not receive "connect ok or not" - the program calls a "Connect" and gets a "Disconnect"-event if it fails - and now I have to decide on which criteria I would start "the automatic reconnect feature" - would you like to enter a list of "disconnect reasons" (return codes) - e.g. if I try to connect to a server that is not "ready" the disconnect error code is "516 - RDP can't connect to the remote computer" - would set this as default but if anybody wants to add some error codes it would be possible

Do you like this way or anybody has other suggestions?!?

[drlandau]

Oh, I see. Hmm, speaking for our ourselves, I think using the disconnect error codes will be a good way to go, but not knowing the entire list of error codes there might be other than 516 that are relevant, fx. I guess that the error code might be different when the server is completely down (fx in the middle of reboot performing memory tests etc.), when TCP/IP is started and it becomes "reachable" on the network (i.e. responds to a ping), when Windows is almost started but RDP connection are refused - and when RDP starts to accept connections (well, the last one won't return an error )

It might be tedious to implement, but if you have the list of errorcodes, then it might be configurable in the Settings which to use?

I'm so glad that you're working on this - thanks! :D

[shaiss]

A year later I'm curious if there's any updates on this feature request? I use visonapp daily to connect to 100+ hosts in one day! This feature would save me hours of headaches

[DevOma]

It is implemented in vRD 2012

[shaiss]

Great that the feature was added! I just installed 2012, but noticed max number of retrys is 10? why limit it to 10? Also, what is the retry code for? I just put "516" for now as it was listed in this post. This should really be a selection list for less tech users.