Skip to main content

Clients cannot connect to Exchange

I ran into a problem this week that caused a lot of headaches. In an existing Exchange environment everything seems to be working just fine for existing users. The problems occur when you try to configure an account on a new client. This scenario did not apply to all the mailboxes in the organization.

These are some of the messages that were presented during different stages in the configuration:
Outlook cannot log on. Verify you are connected to the network and are using the proper server and mailbox name. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.
The name cannot be resolved. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.
The action cannot be completed. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.
Your server or mailbox names cannot be resolved.
The environment is a pure Exchange 2007 and we removed the last traces of the earlier Exchange 2003 just a couple of months ago. The first theory was that this had something to do with the problems, but it seems like it did not. There has also been a lot of things happening in the Active Directory environment because we are preparing for a 2008 R2 upgrade.

Finally we to found that similar problems might occur if there are any issues with the System Attendant service. The Microsoft Exchange System Attendant is a service that runs on the Exchange server and works like a proxy to the Active Directory for some functions in Exchange.

The service seemed to be working as it should, but after I restarted it everything began to work. I still have not found any logs to identify the cause of the problems, but at least we got everything working.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Programming AD with C#.NET – part 4

Our transition to the  System.DirectoryServices.Protocols  has in the whole gone very smooth, but there have been some issues with one environment that contains subdomains. Most things are working fine, but writing to a subdomain does not work in the same way as it did before. What is generally bad with the  System.DirectoryServices.Protocols is the documentation, which is practically non-existent. But most things can  be figured out anyway since most classes just are wrappers for the wldap32.dll, which in turn is way better documented. I would like to have as little bindings to a specific server as possible but still be able to access the domain. In the  LdapConnection  it is possible to set the identifier to null and use the executing computer as a starting point to find a domain controller. But sometimes I must know that I am using a Global Catalog, and with more and more RODC in the environment I sometimes must know that I am working against a writeable domain controller.

jQuery file upload with Bootstrap progress bar

Performing an asynchronous file upload from the browser is a common problem with almost as many solutions as there are developers. The following solution is the best fit for my needs, and also works well with most popular browsers. Backwards compatibility is not an issue in this case which is great, because I can use the new technologies as they are supposed to be used. Everything is put together in JSFiddle for a working example . I will continue to explain the parts below... First, the input field needs to be styled as a button. The form tag is only present for us to be able to reset the file input field later on. <form>     <span class="fileUpload btn btn-default">         <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-upload"></span> Upload file         <input type="file" id="uploadFile" />     </span> </form> .fileUpload { position: relative; overflow: hidden; } .fileUpload input { position: a

Google+ finally for everyone!

There have been a lot of whining on Google from their Apps-users since the launch of  Google+  for everyone with a regular Google-account. The Apps-users have not been able to use  Google+ , until now! (actually  october 27 ) As usual I am impressed with most of the things Google accomplishes, but now when all of their services have gotten a visual and functional touchup I am getting really impressed. As someone at an early stage pointed out it is really sweet of Google to play naive and let me fill in my profile information when I create my profile (as if Google did not already know), but after a few clicks I am on the go. My albums from Picasa is automatically integrated and even the pictures I have uploaded to this blog is shown in  Google+ . But what happens next? Practically no one of my friends are on  Google+  so what do I use it for? I guess we will see. Hopefully there will be even more integration between the social networks in the future. I am anyhow very satified with