The following servers in this deployment are not part of the server pool

So for my first article I’m going to write about an issue I had with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services. Let me give you a little background information before we dive into the actual issue.

Background information

I was assigned to a project that involved setting up an RDS environment for a 250 concurrent seat customer. The architect had already made the design and virtual machines, the RDS infrastructure had 1 RD Connection Broker which also was used as a RD Gateway and RD Web Access and 4 RD Session Hosts.

The actual issue

After accepting the environment by the customer, the MSP who hired me decided they could do with 1 RD Session Host less to reduce costs. The RDSH #4 had his role removed and was demoted from the RD Farm, removed from the Active Directory and the virtual infrastructure. The environment was working except for one small issue, only 1 account was about to see Collections in the Server Manager (Fig. 1). Fig. 1 All the other administrator accounts saw the following error (Fig. 2): The following servers in this deployment are not part of the server pool:
1. <FQDN>
2. <FQDN>
The servers must be added to the server pool.
Fig. 2

Reproducing the actual issue

It might be confusing that I wrote about 4 RD Session Hosts and you only see 2 in the screenshots. This is due to confidentiality, I used the screenshots from my lab environment to reproduce this issue instead. The infrastructure used in my lab environment is 1 Domain Controller, 1 RD Connection Broker combined with RD Gateway and RD Web Access, 2 RD Session Hosts and 1 client. So, as you can see in Fig. 2, I am able to reproduce the issue by removing the SRV-T-RDSH02 from the Active Directory, turning off the virtual machine and logging on using a different account than the DOMAIN\Administrator. I know it is not the ideal and most likely a dirty way, but I was not able to reproduce it using the PowerShell command nor by removing the role using the Server Manager. When I log on using the DOMAIN\Administrator account as you can see in Fig. 1, you can see I can see the Collections.

The KB’s provided by Microsoft

Both https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2925854 and https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2910155 were helpful in understanding the issue but they didn’t provide the solution. Microsoft suggested a re-installation of the RD Connection Broker but that was a no-go as the whole RDS environment was already accepted by the customer and in production state.

The actual solution that worked for me

After doing these 13 steps I was able to see my Collections again from any admin account. If this guide helped you in any way feel free to hit me up using any of the media displayed below.