Poor performance Teams on Citrix

Dear @Mbongom Pheemah,

Based on the information you provided, it appears that your users are experiencing performance issues when using Microsoft Teams within the Citrix VDI environment.

According to Microsoft documentation on known issues when using VDI solutions with Microsoft Teams, some limitations and behavior may be observed in certain scenarios. For example:

1. Citrix/AVD (Mac) and Citrix/AVD (Windows endpoints in Public Preview), Presenter or viewer may experience mouse dragging or cursor lag while app sharing
2. In Citrix, app sharing sessions might freeze for the other participants if the presenter is on both VDA (virtual delivery agent) version 2402 and CWA for Windows 2309.1 (or higher versions).

Refer to: New VDI solution for Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

As initial troubleshooting steps, I recommend reinstalling the Microsoft Teams application, ensuring that the latest supported version is installed, and testing with an alternative network connection if possible.

Additionally, to help me further investigate, could you please confirm the following details:

• Does this issue affect all users who are using Citrix, or only specific users?
• Did the issue start recently, or has it been occurring since the beginning?
• Were there any recent updates or changes (Citrix, Teams, OS, or network-related) prior to the issue occurring?

Please feel free to share any additional updates or findings. I look forward to your response.

Check whether Teams is actually running in optimized VDI mode and then validate the Citrix/endpoint plugin and client versions.

Key checks:

1. Confirm Teams VDI optimization status
   • In the Teams client on the virtual desktop, look for the VDI status banner in the top-right corner.
   • If it shows Not optimized, select it and choose Restart Teams to optimize.
   • If still not optimized, hover over the banner, note the error code, and use the connection error table referenced in the article for targeted troubleshooting.
2. Verify the endpoint is using the VDI plugin (Citrix)
   • On the physical endpoint, open Task Manager or Process Explorer.
   • Confirm MsTeamsVdi.exe is running as a child process of wfica32.exe.
   • In Process Explorer, select wfica32.exe, enable Show lower pane, switch to the DLL tab, and confirm MsTeamsPluginCitrix.dll is loaded.
   • If MsTeamsVdi.exe or the plugin DLL is missing, Teams is not optimized and will show the symptoms described (audio/video lag, poor call quality).
3. Install or repair the Citrix Teams VDI plugin on endpoints
   • If you see error code 2000 or the plugin is missing:
     1. Quit Teams and disconnect from the Citrix virtual desktop.
     2. Install the Citrix plugin on the physical device (not inside the VDI) using the MSI from the article.
     3. Reconnect to the virtual desktop, open Teams, wait ~30 seconds, then restart Teams again.
4. Check for known VDI issues affecting performance
   • Citrix Published Apps are not supported; ensure Teams is running in a full desktop session, not as a published app.
   • For Citrix, be aware of known issues such as app sharing freezes when using certain VDA/CWA combinations; if users report frozen shares, stopping and resharing the window is a documented workaround.
   • Mouse/cursor lag during app sharing is a known issue on Citrix; this is platform-related rather than a generic performance misconfiguration.
5. Confirm Teams and VDI components are on fixed or recommended versions
   • Some issues (for example, black screen due to Screen Capture Protection, calls dropping when VM is locked) are fixed only in specific Teams and Remote Desktop/Windows app versions. Ensure:
     • Teams in the VDI is at or above the versions called out in the known-issues list.
     • The endpoint Remote Desktop/Windows app client is up to date.
6. Validate device permissions on the endpoint
   • On the physical Windows device, go to Settings > Privacy and security > Microphone and Camera.
   • Ensure Microsoft Teams VDI is allowed to use microphone and camera. If blocked, audio/video quality and availability will be affected even if optimization is active.
7. Use Teams call health to isolate network vs. optimization issues
   • During a call, select More actions > Settings > Call health.
   • Check:
     • Roundtrip time (< 200 ms typical).
     • Received packet loss (< 2% typical).
   • If these metrics are poor even when optimization is confirmed, the root cause is likely network quality rather than VDI optimization.

These checks will quickly confirm whether the Citrix optimization path is active and whether any known VDI-specific issues or missing plugins are causing the poor performance.

References:

• New VDI solution for Teams
• My virtual desktop experience in Microsoft Teams isn't optimized
• Monitor call and meeting quality in Microsoft Teams