Posted: 5/4/2011 5:15:08 AM EDT
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Ok guys, I'm stumped. Our network guys are stumped. Our messaging guys are stumped. It's up to you.
Thurs before last my Outlook worked fine. I went home and by Fri morning it quit working. I've been unable to connect to the Exchange server ever since. As best we can tell no updates were pushed out (there were some for Outlook waiting but they hadn't been installed yet). We've re-installed Outlook. We've reinstalled Office. We've deleted and tried re-creating the profile. We've deleted all the Outlook profile info in the registry. Nothing's worked. We even did a system restore to Thur and it still doesn't work. When it goes to create the profile it somehow finds my email address but it never fully resolves my name and won't login to the server. Outlook keeps telling me I'm not connected. We installed a packet sniffer and it doesn't look like there's any traffic at all between my box and the Exchange servers. I used another machine and it created the problem fine. So it's definitely something on my box but I can't for the life of me figure out what. My Windows firewall is disabled and we turned off Symantec. Still no luck. The last thing I want to do is re-image the drive and have to re-install all my apps just because of a stupid email problem. Any suggestions would be appreciated. |
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can you add your exchange email to another "working" computer? (i see that you said it created the problem fine, but idon't know what that means)
what version of outlook? service packs installed? can you login through owa? there are office removal utilities you might try one then reinstall office with all the updates link |
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can you add your exchange email to another "working" computer? (i see that you said it created the problem fine, but idon't know what that means) what version of outlook? service packs installed? can you login through owa? Sorry. Yes, I took a different machine and Outlook did everything correctly and setup a new profile for me on that machine. It's Outlook 2007 and I meant to mention that yes, I can use OWA. That's the only thing that's kept me going. there are office removal utilities you might try one then reinstall office with all the updates link I'll look at that. Thanks. Quoted:
Usually helps to know more about the environment. Exchange 2010? In any case based off the lack of information I would say try restarting the Exchange RPC client access service on the server. I don't know the Exchange version, just the Outlook version. They may or may not match I guess. I seem to be the only one having problems so I doubt they'll restart anything on the server but I'll see if they're open to it. |
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can you add your exchange email to another "working" computer? (i see that you said it created the problem fine, but idon't know what that means) what version of outlook? service packs installed? can you login through owa? Sorry. Yes, I took a different machine and Outlook did everything correctly and setup a new profile for me on that machine. It's Outlook 2007 and I meant to mention that yes, I can use OWA. That's the only thing that's kept me going. there are office removal utilities you might try one then reinstall office with all the updates link I'll look at that. Thanks. Quoted:
Usually helps to know more about the environment. Exchange 2010? In any case based off the lack of information I would say try restarting the Exchange RPC client access service on the server. I don't know the Exchange version, just the Outlook version. They may or may not match I guess. I seem to be the only one having problems so I doubt they'll restart anything on the server but I'll see if they're open to it. Whoops, totally misread. I thought you were having trouble with outlook connectivity network wide. Didn't realize it was just your outlook. restarting the RPC client access service wouldn't help at all in your case. |
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Grr, also meant to mention that I can ping the servers and talking to the network guy we don't go through any firewalls to get to them. He was hoping we did so he could at least look at some logs or something. I did a trace route and it was the number of hops he expected.
Let me try by IP. What I don't understand is how it finds my email address but won't resolve my name. 
ETA: IP didn't work either. Here's the exact message: 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. |
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Grr, also meant to mention that I can ping the servers and talking to the network guy we don't go through any firewalls to get to them. He was hoping we did so he could at least look at some logs or something. I did a trace route and it was the number of hops he expected. Let me try by IP. What I don't understand is how it finds my email address but won't resolve my name.
ETA: IP didn't work either. Here's the exact message: 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. Is your DNS settings on your network adapter set to use the IP of the active directory server? From what it sounds like it seems like some goofy active directory/DNS shenanigans are going on. If it isn't talking to the exchange server when you try to setup outlook this could be a problem with talking to AD. It could be an AD problem instead of an Exchange problem is what I'm getting at. |
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No worries. He said yes, they point to AD.
This is sucking even worse. If they have to re-image they can't just do my main drive. I have to give them both drives since they're encrypted together. It'll take about 5 hours to decrypt and another 5 to re-image. WTF?? This is fucking insane! |
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You may want to get your network guys to RPCping the exchange server from your workstation.
ETA also when yall deleted your profiles did you do so from the registry? HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles I think that's where the fun happens if I remember correctly. Delete your profiles, uninstall all of your office updates, create a new profile... profit??? |
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You may want to get your network guys to RPCping the exchange server from your workstation. I read about this but haven't tried it yet. I'm drafting an email now to fill in a couple of the other network guys on my saga so I'll mention it. ETA also when yall deleted your profiles did you do so from the registry? HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles I think that's where the fun happens if I remember correctly. That's the key I cleared out w/o any luck. Delete your profiles, uninstall all of your office updates, create a new profile... profit??? I guess technically I did this with the system restore. We installed the updates this past Fri and restored back to the previous Thur. I really hoped that going back to the last known good day would work. 
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can you add your exchange email to another "working" computer? (i see that you said it created the problem fine, but idon't know what that means) what version of outlook? service packs installed? can you login through owa? Sorry. Yes, I took a different machine and Outlook did everything correctly and setup a new profile for me on that machine. It's Outlook 2007 and I meant to mention that yes, I can use OWA. That's the only thing that's kept me going. there are office removal utilities you might try one then reinstall office with all the updates link I'll look at that. Thanks. Quoted:
Usually helps to know more about the environment. Exchange 2010? In any case based off the lack of information I would say try restarting the Exchange RPC client access service on the server. I don't know the Exchange version, just the Outlook version. They may or may not match I guess. I seem to be the only one having problems so I doubt they'll restart anything on the server but I'll see if they're open to it. you should be able to see the version of Exchange in the message headers |
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Is your DNS address pointing at the Active directory server on the network? Have you tried setting up outlook manually & using the IP of the exchange server instead of the hostname? check your host file, also is tis exchange server local on your network or is it hosted in another location? if it is in another location, does your company hosth their own DNS? if so is there(if exchange 2007 or higer) a dns record for your domains CNAME like autodiscover.redirect blah blah blah. Also make sure all services on your box as in the one in front of you are turned on if they are set to automatic. this may bea dumb question are you set up for rpc over https. imap or pop. all of these protocols have different ways of connecting. |
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Is your DNS address pointing at the Active directory server on the network? Have you tried setting up outlook manually & using the IP of the exchange server instead of the hostname? check your host file, also is tis exchange server local on your network or is it hosted in another location? if it is in another location, does your company hosth their own DNS? if so is there(if exchange 2007 or higer) a dns record for your domains CNAME like autodiscover.redirect blah blah blah. Also make sure all services on your box as in the one in front of you are turned on if they are set to automatic. this may bea dumb question are you set up for rpc over https. imap or pop. all of these protocols have different ways of connecting. +1 good call sir. I was also going to suggest trying to setup outlook manually & using POP or IMAP instead of exchange and see what happens there. |
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What is the date/time on your computer? Timezone? etc. more than 5 minutes difference between your system and the DC, and you cannot authenticate.
Have you tried removing the user profile from the computer? i.e. renaming your profile. Have you logged into a different PC and it works there? |
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Sorry guys. I was out of the office today. I didn't see anything odd in the hosts file when I checked Wed. I'll double check when I go in today.
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What is the date/time on your computer? Timezone? etc. more than 5 minutes difference between your system and the DC, and you cannot authenticate. Have you tried removing the user profile from the computer? i.e. renaming your profile. Have you logged into a different PC and it works there? I haven't checked the time but yes to the last two. Keep in mind it's not just my profile either. The support guys can't create profiles for themselves. So it's specific to my machine but not specific to the user. |
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Not an exchange guru, so be warned.
I'd try locking your AD account, making sure it takes (you can't log in). Wait a few minutes then unlocking it. I'm thinking something is up with AD, and making it resync your account around might fix it. Another option might be to delete you from AD then restore you back (much more complicated). |
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The network guys are saying it's not AD and I can't do any of that stuff. If it were AD I would think I'd have had the same problem on the laptop but that worked fine. And they should still be able to create different profiles. Not necessarily. AD is for users and their devices. A group policy may be bound to one computer for your user & not another computer. I find it unlikely but wanted to point that out. You may want to change authentication types in outlook to something you know will NOT work, close outlook maybe even reboot and restart outlook and change the authentication method back. Sounds stupid but I've ran into a similar problem before and that fixed it. |
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Its most likely an issue in your user profile on the bad machine. Create a new profile by creating a local user account, log into that account - and then setup your email. If that works - then its something in your profile. Back up your crap, whack it, and rebuild it and set up email. |
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you should be able to see the version of Exchange in the message headers When I login to the web client it says Exchange 2007. Quoted:
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The network guys are saying it's not AD and I can't do any of that stuff. If it were AD I would think I'd have had the same problem on the laptop but that worked fine. And they should still be able to create different profiles. Not necessarily. AD is for users and their devices. A group policy may be bound to one computer for your user & not another computer. I find it unlikely but wanted to point that out. You may want to change authentication types in outlook to something you know will NOT work, close outlook maybe even reboot and restart outlook and change the authentication method back. Sounds stupid but I've ran into a similar problem before and that fixed it. This makes sense. I'll try to do this. Quoted:
Its most likely an issue in your user profile on the bad machine. Create a new profile by creating a local user account, log into that account - and then setup your email. If that works - then its something in your profile. Back up your crap, whack it, and rebuild it and set up email. Ah! Hadn't thought about it possibly being the profile. I'll look into this also. Thanks! Quoted:
Has anyone else added their profile to your computer and connected their Exchange account? Yes and it doesn't work. They were logged in as me, though, and just trying to create an Outlook profile based on their account. Maybe that lends more credence to the possibility of a local account profile issue. |
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At least on my network, I'm the only one that can add any mailbox under my profile, and only in very rare instances do I give others access to another users mailbox. I would try the following: 1) have another user log in using their domain account and create their mailbox 2) if they are able to connect their mailbox, copy your pertinent files such as desktop and favorites, delete the account and recreate it because it is a profile issue or if the other user cannot connect their mailbox, right click on My Computer, go to Computer Name, click Change, and in the domain field delete the .com portion of the domain name (or, if it's already gone add it), click Ok, and authenticate to the domain, then reboot. This will add your system to the domain if the trust relationship has been lost for some reason. This is just a possibility, and it's easy to check. You would still be able to ping the servers even if your system isn't part of the domain any longer.
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We have some funky Sun Java mail system with a java connector to use with Outlook.
Sometimes, you have to whack the user's windows profile in order to fix an Outlook/Connector issue. I would be surprised if whacking the profile didn't fix it. Just log in as a local admin, rename your original profile and then log out and back in as yourself. |
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By chance do you have a Broadcom NIC?
http://www.webs05.com/2008/01/29/outlook-client-cannot-connect-to-exchange-server.html |
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By chance do you have a Broadcom NIC? http://www.webs05.com/2008/01/29/outlook-client-cannot-connect-to-exchange-server.html I was keeping my fingers crossed but it's an Intel Gigabit adapter. :( I'll try to test the Windows profile theory today. Had an email about a client issue over the weekend so we'll have to see how that plays out first. |
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Have you tried starting outlook with the RPCDiag switch yet?
Start -> Run "Outlook /rpcdiag" See what your results are. Alternatively, you can hold down ctrl while right clicking on the outlook icon in the system tray. Select "connection status." Then click "reconnect" and watch what happens. Note what appears and in what order. Also, you can test autoconfiguration from there as well. Note the time when you do this and look for accompanying messages in the event log. What OS are you running? |
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I tried running Office diagnostics after lunch but had an off-site meeting and never made it back to the office. When I left it was stuck on step 2 of 17 of the last check but I don't recall what that was now. Something connection related I think. I'll try the rpcdiag in the morning.
This is XP SP3. |
| Stupid computers. I never made it back to the office after my off-site meeting and the stupid thing had rebooted while I was gone. Not sure if it was a problem with the diag tool or if they pushed more updates to me that forced a reboot. I fucking hate computers. |
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If it were my IT department they would have simply re-imaged it.
It's what I had them do if they couldn't figure the problem out within 30 minutes. All programs were packaged up and deployed to the image as soon as the OS install was finished. I'm surprised your IT department doesn't do the same. |
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Oh, they want to for sure. But we're not your typical users either. We're a development group. We have deadlines and build schedules to meet. We're down to monthly builds now so if the downtime adversely impacts my ability to make the build on time we have to wait another month. That typically wouldn't sit well with our clients that are waiting for features/functionality or our strategy folks that drive our development.
Unfortunately it's not as simple as just re-imaging. Our desktop people have to first decrypt my drives, then re-image, then re-encrypt. That's probably close to or a full day. They only do the OS, though. Once they're done our dev support group has to re-install all of the various development tools. Once I finally get it back I have to get all those tools back to the point that everything is working properly and the source code is compiling like it should. There's a ton of stuff involved with it. This is why I've been fighting so hard to find/fix the problem instead of simply throwing in the towel and starting from scratch. I'd be willing to bet I'm looking at about a week of downtime at a minimum if they image it. |
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Oh, they want to for sure. But we're not your typical users either. We're a development group. We have deadlines and build schedules to meet. We're down to monthly builds now so if the downtime adversely impacts my ability to make the build on time we have to wait another month. That typically wouldn't sit well with our clients that are waiting for features/functionality or our strategy folks that drive our development. Unfortunately it's not as simple as just re-imaging. Our desktop people have to first decrypt my drives, then re-image, then re-encrypt. That's probably close to or a full day. They only do the OS, though. Once they're done our dev support group has to re-install all of the various development tools. Once I finally get it back I have to get all those tools back to the point that everything is working properly and the source code is compiling like it should. There's a ton of stuff involved with it. This is why I've been fighting so hard to find/fix the problem instead of simply throwing in the towel and starting from scratch. I'd be willing to bet I'm looking at about a week of downtime at a minimum if they image it. They should've done this after week 1. If they had you would have been back up and running for at least a week now! Look I've chased issues like this before and sometimes it's just easier and less painful to re-image and start fresh. At the least, you KNOW it will work after the reload. |
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Well, that's probably a valid point, but I'm not "down" per se. I still have email capabilities, they're just limited. So I guess if the latest suggestions don't pan out I'll just continue to hobble along until the next build is done. I'm not about to let them take my machine now when I have a build due right around the corner.
I still just can't fathom what in the hell happened between the time I left and the time I returned the next day. Software doesn't just break. Something breaks it. Something happened to my machine. I want to know what. But for now I'm at Disney so I don't care. 
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