Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops: New VDI Builds Show Registered in Studio but Cannot Be Found in vCenter

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Article ID: CTX696938

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Updated On:

Description

  • Environment: Citrix CVAD On-Premises with VMware vCenter Hosting Integration.

  • Symptoms:

    • VDI machines display as Registered in Citrix Studio/Web Studio.

    • Studio reports the underlying virtual machines as Not Found or cannot perform power management operations in vCenter.

Cause

  • Unmanaged Catalog Type: The Machine Catalog is configured as Unmanaged or Physical/Remote PC, causing Citrix to intentionally skip vCenter tracking.

  • Name Mismatch: The Active Directory computer name (sAMAccountName) does not match the vCenter VM inventory name.

  • Broken Hosted Machine ID: The VM was re-created or migrated in vCenter, causing its vCenter Managed Object ID (HostedMachineId / vm-xxxx) to change while Citrix Studio retains the old ID.

Resolution

1. Verify Machine Catalog Configuration

  1. Open Citrix Studio or Web Studio.

  2. Navigate to Machine Catalogs and select the catalog containing the affected VDIs.

  3. Check the Power Management properties:

    • If the catalog is set to Unmanaged or Physical, this behavior is expected. To fix this, you must re-create the catalog as Power Managed associated with your vCenter Hosting Connection.

2. Update or Re-add the Affected VMs

If the catalog is Power Managed but the machines show as missing:

1.Remove Broken VM Reference:Clear stale vCenter mappings.

  1. In Citrix Studio, navigate to Delivery Groups and temporarily turn on Maintenance Mode or remove the affected VM from the group.

  2. Go to Machine Catalogs, select the catalog, and remove the affected machine from the catalog (do not delete the Active Directory account or vCenter VM).

2.Re-add VM to Machine Catalog:Bind correct vCenter Managed Object ID (MoRef).

  1. Click Add Machines in the target Machine Catalog.

  2. Ensure the correct Hosting Connection (vCenter) is selected.

  3. Browse the vCenter inventory tree directly and select the actual target virtual machine.

Note: Browsing the vCenter tree forces Citrix Studio to fetch the current HostedMachineId (vm-xxxx).

3.Re-assign to Delivery Group:Restore production availability.

  1. Assign the re-added machine back to its respective Delivery Group.

  2. Turn off Maintenance Mode and verify that power state and registration update correctly.

3. Diagnostic Verification via PowerShell

Run the following PowerShell command on a Delivery Controller to check the current hosting references for the VM:

 

Add-PSSnapin Citrix*
Get-BrokerMachine -HostedMachineName "YourVMName" | Select Name, HostedMachineName, HostedMachineId, HypervisorConnectionName

 

  • If HostedMachineId is blank: The machine was added as unmanaged, or the hypervisor connection link was omitted during setup.

  • If HostedMachineId does not match vCenter: The VM was re-created in vCenter; perform Step 2 to update the reference ID.

Issue/Introduction

New VDI builds register successfully with Citrix Delivery Controllers but display as "Not Found" or unmapped in vCenter. This issue occurs due to an unmanaged Machine Catalog configuration or a broken Managed Object ID (MoRef) link between Citrix Studio and vCenter.

 

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