This was an issue where a client travelled to a remote site linked to headquarters via site to site vpn. When they initially connected to a remote desktop via RDP – they were connected as normal and saw their desktop as expected.
What was not expected was that within 30 seconds the remote desktop session had stopped – no error ! After reconnection the same pattern appeared. Testing from the same location using a vpn client gave same results and ruled out site to site vpn issue.
Given that the same user had been able to do this successfully from the same location the last time they were there = led me to investigate the remote desktop PC to see if any errors where in the event logs. Checked for windows updates when no errors were found.
Next I connected to the remote machine from another location as was able to connect and maintain the rdp session for at least 15 minutes!!
So that pointed the finger back to the laptop that was making the rdp connection to the remote ! Checking the event logs on that machine when I retried the rdp connection immediately threw up an application error Faulting application name mstsc.exe with Faulting module LMFX1N4Z.dll.
Looking at the name and thinking about what had been changed with this laptop I remembered that a lexmark printer had been configured after the last successful connection .
The result – turning off local printing in the rdp client before connecting stops the crash !! The setting for that can be found under local resources tab when editing the rdp connection settings – untick printers and save.