Outlook Anywhere connection failure from 1 remote office
Hello. I have an interesting Outlook 2010 connectivity problem. There's a remote office that connects to an Exchange 2010 server running on SBS 2011. When the email clients were configured initially they connected without any problem. A month or two later
Outlook would no longer connect to Exchange. Other than a firmware update to the Fortigate firewall and Windows updates I'm not aware of any changes that might have caused the problem. OWA works fine. Outlook 2013 connects successfully, but it takes longer
than it should, a minute or two. Outlook 2010 will not connect but if it's left open all day it will sometimes connect for a short time and download new mail. They have Mediacom cable Internet and after rebooting the cable modem several times the Outlook 2010
clients connected for about 5 minutes, then lost their connection again. I rebooted the cable modem again and the Outlook 2010 clients connected for about 20 minutes before losing their connection. Following that test I had the cable company replace the cable
modem but the connectivity problem still exists. I replaced the Fortigate firewall with an inexpensive home broadband router and the behavior was the same.
In a nearby city at a location with the same ISP Outlook 2010 connects quickly and stays connected. The Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer doesn't find any problems, which is as you'd expect since everything works from other locations. If this is the
ISP's problem (as I suspect), how can I prove that?
Thanks.
Keith
November 14th, 2014 4:21pm
The problem happens with all Outook 2010 users. When one is able to connect, all are.
The connection status of Outlook is 'Connecting'.
Attempting to connect in online mode results in a 'The server is offline' message and Outlook is offline. The results are the same when starting in Safe Mode.
I've run through all the steps on the intermedia.net link you supplied without finding the problem. I think the results of each step can be found in my posts.
November 18th, 2014 6:58pm
Thank you for the update.
Have you tried testing with creating a new Outlook mail profile for one of the users? Did you get any error messages when configuring the email account in the new mail profile?
In addition, we may try adding the following registry key to see the result:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Outlook\RPC
DWORD: DefConnectOpts
Value: 0
Please let me know the result.
Regards,
Steve Fan
Forum Support
November 20th, 2014 2:18am
Hi Keith,
Just checking in to see if the information was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.
Best Regards,
Steve Fan
Forum Support
November 24th, 2014 2:08am
Hi,
I'm marking the reply as answer as there has been no update for a couple of days.
If you come back to find it doesn't work for you, please reply to us and unmark the answer.
Best Regards,
Steve Fan
TechNet Community Support
November 28th, 2014 9:14am
I apologize for taking so long to perform the steps you suggested.
I was able to configure a new Outlook profile but it took a very long time to confirm the credentials. Once the new profile was created I was never able to open Outlook - 'The server is unavailable'. I disabled cache mode, no difference. I added the DefConnectOpts
registry value, no difference.
Keith
December 3rd, 2014 1:08am
Hi Keith,
Thank you for the update.
I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience.
Thank you for your understanding and support.
Steve Fan
Forum Support
December 4th, 2014 7:40am
That article does not apply. As I described above, Outlook can't establish a connection to Exchange. The article describes a problem with a firewall or other network device closing idle TCP connections. In this case the connection is never established so
it cannot become idle. The office uses a Fortigate FortiWiFi 40C firewall. I replaced it with a $25 home broadband router and the Outlook behavior did not change.
December 20th, 2014 8:09pm
Steve, I opened a case with MS and they've discovered that enabling 'on fast networks, connect using HTTP first, then TCP/IP' allows the Outlook 2010 clients to connect successfully. That explains why Outlook 2013 can connect - because it uses a new MAPI
over HTTP transport by default. We're still trying to figure out why the TCP/IP connection doesn't work. I think the problem is the Internet connection the cable ISP provides.
-
Edited by
Keith Ketchum
Thursday, January 01, 2015 4:22 PM
January 1st, 2015 3:47pm
I have Outlook 2010 and I'm using Mediacom as my ISP. If I'm home and using a mediacom modem I have no problems with connecting and using Outlook. But when I'm away I cannot connect to the Mediacom server. I used to use POP3 but Mediacom second level told
me to use IMAP. Once again I away and again I cannot connect to their server and Outlook does not work. Supposedly I should get another call from their second level support but it took 6 weeks the last time.
I can sign on to Mediacom's web mail and I can get email but I can't use Outlook. The message says I cannot connect to the server. DAH!!!
Their first level said that it is an Outlook problem. They have no clue.
Help please
August 31st, 2015 2:25pm
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