Troubleshooting the Virtual Lab

Some students may experience a problem connecting to the Virtual Lab. Here are common problems and possible solutions.

Error Messages

"The desktop is currently not available. Please try connecting to this desktop again later ..."

The Virtual Lab is currently set up to accommodate 75 simultaneous connections. Once all of the seats are full, you may receive this error message.  As seats become available, you should be able to log in again.

"Cannot establish an SSL connection to…"

You may be able to get around this error if your computer is running Kaspersky antivirus software: 

If this is your situation, go into the web-protection section of Kaspersky and explicitly trust the following URL:

  • https://vlab.wharton.upenn.edu

"The display protocol for this desktop is currently not available. Please contact your system administrator."

This message indicates something is wrong with the Virtual Machine you are trying to connect to. Often the problem will resolve itself within half an hour, but if it doesn't, you can try downloading and installing the most recent supported version of the client (see Installing the Virtual Lab for download instructions). If neither of these solutions fixes the problem, please submit a ticket reporting the steps you have taken.

"Bad Username or password"

This message means that your PennKey password and Kite password are out of sync. Please go to PennKey Password Change Portal and change your PennKey password. Allow 15 minutes for the change to apply. If after that you still have issues, please contact Student Support.

"Alert: Error in add connection. Reason = null" using a Mac, and you are unable to connect to the Virtual Lab.

Check your OS version; some versions of Apple's Mojave OS have problems running the VMWare View client (see Apple thread here for more details). In these cases, please try accessing the vLab using a web browser at https://vlab.wharton.upenn.edu.   

Problems

Computer Display is black when you launch the Virtual Lab.

VMware only supports screen resolutions up to 2560 X 1440. This is not likely to affect Mac users. PC users should check their system display settings in Control Panel and choose a resolution below 2560 X 1440.

Mac Display is white when you launch the Virtual Lab.

This problem is fixed by reinstalling the latest version of the Virtual Lab. See how to install the Virtual Lab.

If your problem remains unresolved, please submit a Help ticket to the Support Team.