WebView2 hangs over Remote Desktop (RDP)

Problem

When a Wails application is used over a Remote Desktop (RDP) session, the UI can stall for several seconds on common interactions:

• Opening a popup window takes around 4 to 8 seconds from click to visible content.
• Closing a window blocks the parent window for around 2 seconds.
• The slow state persists across reconnects and only clears after the host machine is rebooted.

This is most often seen with the Microsoft Remote Desktop client on iOS, which provisions a Retina-optimised virtual monitor part way through the session. Any RDP client that introduces a monitor with a different DPI context mid-session can trigger the same behaviour.

Why it happens

By default, WebView2 uses windowed hosting, where its compositor surface lives in a child window. When an RDP client introduces a monitor whose DPI context differs from the session’s, every WebView2 controller call (PutIsVisible, MoveFocus, first paint, and surface release) forces a synchronous DirectComposition re-marshal. Each re-marshal blocks the UI thread for around 2 seconds, which is why the stalls stack up on popup-heavy apps.

A native Win32 plus WebView2 application on the same machine is unaffected, because it relies on visual hosting. That points to the hosting mode as the cause rather than a general WebView2 or Windows compositor issue.

Solution

Enable visual hosting by setting UseVisualHosting in your Windows options. With visual hosting, WebView2’s compositor surface is owned through a DirectComposition visual that the host owns, so DPI-context changes no longer trigger the synchronous re-marshal.

package main

import "github.com/wailsapp/wails/v3/pkg/application"

func main() {
    app := application.New(application.Options{
        Windows: application.WindowsOptions{
            UseVisualHosting: true,
        },
    })

    // ... create your windows, then:
    app.Run()
}

After enabling it, popups open within normal navigation time (roughly 150 to 500 ms) and closing a window no longer blocks the parent.

Осторожно

UseVisualHosting must be set before app.Run(). Wails reads it during application startup and sets the COREWEBVIEW2_FORCED_HOSTING_MODE environment variable to COREWEBVIEW2_HOSTING_MODE_WINDOW_TO_VISUAL before the WebView2 environment is initialised. Setting it later has no effect.

The option defaults to false, so windowed hosting remains the default. Existing apps see no change in behaviour unless they opt in.

When to enable it

Set UseVisualHosting: true if your app is regularly used over RDP, especially the Microsoft Remote Desktop iOS client, and you see multi-second stalls when opening or closing windows. If your app does not run over RDP, you do not need this option and can leave the default in place.

References

• WebView2: windowed vs visual hosting
• WebView2Feedback issue #5248
• WebView2Feedback issue #4485