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I recently started working from home full-time (as everyone else here, thanks to Covid-19), and I noticed the following strange behavior when remote-controlling my work PC via RDP:

Sometimes, the RDP window will just stop showing screen updates, as if the remote screen were "frozen". It looks like the RDP session is stuck, but it isn't:

  • After reconnecting, I can see that all the keyboard and mouse events I sent after the screen froze have been processed.
  • The mouse cursor still changes according to what is really underneath: If I drag and drop a window a few centimeters, the window will still be shown at the old position, but the cursor changes to the "resize" cursor when I hover over the new position of the border of the window.

It's not a temporary network issue either:

  • If I wait, the screen just stays frozen (I tried it for many minutes while writing this question).
  • If I close the RDP session and reconnect, everything works fine again (until it freezes again at some random time).

Switching from full-screen to windowed mode and vice versa doesn't help. It looks like a bug in the RDP client or server (both machines are Windows 10 1909).

Is it a known issue? Is there some known workaround (except for closing and reconnecting)?

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  • Open Windows 10 RDP. Then see and click on More Options. Go through the tabs and ensure settings in each tab are correct. This is not a bug in Windows 10 RDP so far as I know and use. I assume you are right up to date with Windows 10 V1909.
    – John
    Mar 25, 2020 at 15:42
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    You seem to have a problem with your bitmap cache on the client side. Try to toggle the "Permanently cache bitmap" (or something like that; my version is in French) option in the Experience tab.
    – user1019780
    Mar 25, 2020 at 15:47
  • Also, you can try to enable smart sizing (hit the program icon in the top-left of the window to get the menu, and enable smart-sizing. Now resize the window so the screen is forced to refresh.
    – LPChip
    Mar 25, 2020 at 15:59
  • Many services like RDP are getting their bandwidth squeezed by the providers due to the covid outbreak. YouTube is only allowing lower resolution viewing as an example.
    – Moab
    Mar 25, 2020 at 17:30
  • @Didier: Good idea! Unfortunately, the issue still occurs in both scenarios (option on and off).
    – Heinzi
    Mar 26, 2020 at 12:22

1 Answer 1

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This seems to be an issue with using UDP in the latest version of windows. The answer in the question linked below worked for me.

Remote Desktop intermittently freezing

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