Windows 10 – Remote Desktop intermittently freezing

I use a Windows 10 machine remotely at work. Both the local and remote machine are in the same ISP network (not same local network, but same ISP). I’ve been using it like that for almost a year now and I had never experienced absolutely any issues.

Until recently. I don’t know if anything specific triggered this behavior, but I feel that it started happening after I upgraded the remote to W10 1903. I later upgraded the local one as well and I feel that it only made the problem worse (but I don’t really have any data).

From time to time, the session will freeze – the image stops updating. However, what I type and mouse clicks are still being sent. No error message is shown whatsoever, the image simply freezes. To make it work again, I have to close and re-open the session. Everything that I had typed and/or clicked while it was frozen is there.

Is there any way I can debug this?

Solution:

I also ran into this issue since July 2019 on a Windows 10 1903 acting as the client machine. The following workaround on the client works for me, so that RDP no longer freezes.

Start an elevated command prompt (run cmd.exe as administrator), andthen run:

reg add "HKLMsoftwarepoliciesmicrosoftwindows ntTerminalServicesClient" /v fClientDisableUDP /d 1 /t REG_DWORD

After that, close and reopen all your RDP sessions on your client computer to restart the Remote Desktop Client (mstsc.exe, aka Microsoft Terminal Services Client) application.

I’m waiting for a final fix to this issue.

Follow-up: I am not sure, but it looks like fixed in 21H1 (both client and server must run 21H1 or higher). For me I no longer see freezes without the disable UDP workaround.