IMPORTANT: The Citrix public symbol server is no longer being maintained and the existing symbols are out of date. As a result, using this symbol server may lead to symbol not found errors. For assistance with debugging Citrix-related memory dump files, please contact Citrix support.

This article describes how to use the Citrix Symbol Server to obtain the symbol files necessary to debug Citrix products.

Background

Debugging symbols are required to debug running systems or crash dump files. Symbols contain information that is not used by binaries as they run but is useful for debugging. During the debugging process, you can use the Citrix Symbol Server to download only the symbols required to debug a particular issue or scenario as opposed to downloading all the symbols for a particular product before starting a debugging session.

Requirements

The Citrix Symbol Server currently contains public debug symbols for the following Citrix products:

XenApp

• Presentation Server 3.0 and hotfixes for all languages (English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese)

• Presentation Server 4.0 and hotfixes for all languages (English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese)

• Presentation Server 4.5 and hotfixes for all languages (English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese)

• XenApp 5.0 and hotfixes for some languages (English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese)

• XenApp 6.x and hotfixes for some languages (English, French, Spanish, German, and Japanese)
• ​XenApp 7.X 

 

XenDesktop

• XenDesktop 4.0 and hotfixes for English and Japanese languages
• XenDesktop 5.0 and hotfixes for English and Japanese languages
• ​Xendesktop 7.X 

The computer retrieving the symbol files must have HTTP access to http://ctxsym.citrix.com/symbols.

Note: You must use a debugging tool to connect to the Citrix Symbol Server. Connections made directly from a web browser return a 403 error (Access Denied).

The WDK and WinDbg downloads package contains the components necessary to retrieve symbols from the Citrix Symbol Server. Citrix recommends configuring the debugger to download Windows operating system symbols from Microsoft’s Symbol Server. Refer to Use the Microsoft Symbol Server to obtain debug symbol files for instructions on how to use the Microsoft Symbol Server to acquire Windows operating system symbol files.

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Instructions

To acquire debug symbols for the Citrix products listed in the Requirements section:

• Add the Citrix Symbol Server to the symbol path in your debugging tool of choice:

  SRV*<your local symbol folder>*http://ctxsym.citrix.com/symbols

  <Your local symbol folder> is a directory or share you want to use to cache symbol files (for example, c:\symbols or \\fileserver\share).
  Note: A cache is recommended because it prevents redundant (and time-consuming) downloads.

• Citrix also recommends configuring the debugger to download Windows operating system symbols from Microsoft’s Symbol Server. A symbol path including both Microsoft and Citrix symbol servers is:

  SRV*<your local symbol folder>*http://ctxsym.citrix.com/symbols;SRV*<your local symbol folder>*http://msdl.microsoft.com/download/symbols.

• Another common method used to set the symbol path is to set the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH environment variable. Refer to the Setting the _NT_SYMBOL_PATH environment variable section in Use the Microsoft Symbol Server to obtain debug symbol files for detailed instructions.

• The symchk.exe tool included in the WDK and WinDbg downloads package can be used to download symbols prior to a debugging session. This method is useful to avoid download delays during a debugging session or when the debugging host does not have consistent Internet access. See SymChk.exe utility to download symbols section in Use the Microsoft Symbol Server to obtain debug symbol files for detailed instructions.

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This article describes how to use the Citrix Symbol Server to obtain the symbol files necessary to debug Citrix products.

Citrix provides symbol packages in the form of .zip files for the initial releases of XenApp as well as each hotfix rollup pack. For further information, refer to the Symbol Files Location section of the respective hotfix rollup pack download page.

Checksum warning messages like the following are common when analyzing dump files:

*** WARNING: Unable to verify checksum for binary.exe

These warnings occur when the debugger cannot verify if the symbols match the binary. This is a common warning when debugging a mini dump from a system that does not have the software that includes the binary installed. Possible workarounds include setting the image file search path in the debugger to a directory that includes the binary mentioned in the warning or performing the debug directly from a system with the software installed. See the sections titled, "Verifying Symbols," and, "Executable Image Path," in the Debugging Tools for Windows help file for more information.

To report problems with the Citrix Symbol Server, send an email to supporttools@citrix.com and provide the following information:

Note: Enable noisy symbol loading with the !sym noisy command before performing these steps.

• The output of the version command.

• The output of the .sympath command.

• The output of the .reload /f command and the command that is failing. Ensure to enable noisy symbol loading ( see Step 1) before performing this step.

• The output for the lmv command.