RDS / Citrix vs V18 webclient, what's the future?

[info@]

This is actually a repost of https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/rds-citrix-vs-v18-webclient-whats-the-future.116848, which got not a single answer and also got locked down, as well as the associated forum account. As this issue is bugging us more and more, and I've been waiting for an answer on the same question for over a year now, here I go again. I want to be constructive, not a pain in the ass. But I'd like a clear answer. And if the answer is '3CX will stop properly supporting RDS/Citrix' then at least it's an honest answer, and a sign we need to move elsewhere. The V16 clients is starting to show it's age and also the Yealink integration doens't properly work anymore since the latest Yealink USB software versions. I know that's not 3CX's fault maybe, but as we simply can't use V18, somehow it is. Original message below, which more or less was a repost of an even earlier question with no proper answers:


Hi, this is in relation to https://www.3cx.com/community/threads/rds-citrix-and-v18-how-do-you-work-with-it.86492/ and basically the same question still applies. It's been almost a year but I've been unable to get an upate at all.
All our customers are on RDS environments. We have a lot of customers that don't have deskphones but use a 3CX phone app on their local desktop while running the webclient or the v18 client in their Remote Desktop session. Since V18 the 3CX Desktop App registers itself as 'Browser':



That means, if people run the V18 client on their desktop, and use the webclient from their Remote Desktop session to control it, that won't work. Both the V18 client and the webclient register themselves just as 'Browser' so you can't choose the correct one. So for those clients we still need to install the V16 app, which actually properly registers itself as a 3CX client:




All options we have today have issues when used from RDS.

- Using v16 locally and webclient or V18 in RDS works, but DTMF isn't working and users need to switch between their RD session and locally installed V16 app (try learning your users that);
- Using V18 or the webclient locally and using webclient or V18 in RDS doesn't work at all, both register as 'browser' and you can't select the correct one;
- Using the V16 in the RD session isn't an option at all as you can only select CTI deskphones, but no locally installed 3CX clients or browser-based clients;

V16 still works now, with it's limitations, but it's not maintained anymore, and I think the official download links have been removed (https://www.3cx.com/phone-system/download-links/ only points to V18). On the global download site the old link still works, but it's a version from August 2021, which as said isn't exptected to be updated anymore.
So what's the future of all those Remote Desktop / Citrix users with locally installed 3CX clients? When using actual deskphones, there's a bit more options as you can use either client from your RDS session, but still DTMF doesn't seem to work on any of them when using the webclient to control any 'remote' phone. V16 will at some point be dropped I assume, leaving us in the dark.

So, after about a year of silence, I'd like to ask for the current status and maybe an update again.

 

[SteveITS]

V16 will at some point be dropped

3CX has posted that the legacy v16 Windows client won't be updated or tested going forward.

 

[info@]

I know it's not necessarily not supported, but we all know mapping audio / video has it's drawbacks (although I must say RDS 2022 does a very good job at it, workable latency). It used to work perfectly with V16. But now with this Electron mess they messed it up in my book. Functionally the V18 app works fine, and the webapp even has native integration with several headsets which is absolutely great. Mapping audio to an RDS session makes you loose that integration. Mapping the complete USB device (if it even it USB) has a lot of other drawbacks and doesn't work properly.

While I hate Electron apps because of their resource-hog nature, I can somewhat see how companies want to use that to put less hours in development, while having a much more portable app. But so far, it's at cost of functionality and huge resource usage, which is a bad thing towards customers, even more so RDS / Citrix customers were server resources are more of an issue than on modern desktops / laptops (aslong as you don't have Teams running, another trainwreck of an Electron app).

Now I've mentioned several times before, also in a feature request at 3CX, that if only they made the v18 app / webapp identify itself as something more unique than just 'browser' it might just all be ok. But I am unable to get even a response from 3CX themselves. There's millions of users around the world that use remote workspaces, and even more so since Covid hit us. We made the choice some years ago to move our new customers and most of the old to 3CX as it always worked well using a local client or deskphone, controlled from within a remote workspace. Now that does not work properly anymore, and I'm unable to get an answer from 3CX for over a year now, I'm really considering moving away completely from 3CX. It seems to be like a lot of tech companies. At first they are great and service is gold, but when their installbase is big enough, service levels are cut and customers are left in the dark. I know for one that my company (and I am the owner in fact) would never allow a customer to be left in limbo for that long. If 3CX refuses to make RDS work properly, they should be honest about that.

I always want to be constructive, but that needs two parties in this case. If there is anything we can test, I'm totally open for that. But I'd like an official statement by now.