Hi all.... I am having a weird issue with E2K7 and Entourage. With no set pattern that I can see, all of my Entourage users periodically lose connection to my Exchange server. Some of them aren't prompted at all. Others are prompted with the standard "invalid username or password" error. Sometimes the connections are restored with no apparent intervention on either the users side or the server side and sometimes they are not. The really frustrating thing is that a reboot of the server ALWAYS fixes the issue...at least for a little while. Has anyone seen this?? Has anyone found a permanent fix for it? THANKS!!

Hi, I understand that the Mac client with Entourage 2004 connected the Exchange server unsteadily, it lost the connection periodically. Some of them were presented with the invalid user and password error, but others werent prompted at all. You had to restore E2K7 to temporary fix this issue. Based on the symptom, the most likely cause of the issue is the relevant services of the Exchange Server may be not started. Before going on, please let me know whether other clients (Outlook, OWA or OE) could work except that Entourage 2004 client. Now please first make sure all the configuration of the Entourage 2004 was correct. Then, please check the following services are running normal. Microsoft Exchange POP3 and Microsoft Exchange IMAP4, then check the network connection between the Mac client and the Exchange Server incidentally. Additionally, I would like to confirm whether Entourage 2004 SP2 was installed on the Mac client. Please understand that Entourage 2004 with an expired password may be also cause such issue. With SP2, you'll now get notified of upcoming password expirations so that you might be able to take action before the issue occurs. Thanks Allen

All other clients and all other services function normally. All configurations are correct. All updates are applied. All passwords are current. I found quite a few posts yesterday about Entourage and Exchange and dual NICs on the Exchange server causing problems. I removed the NIC "team" and disabled one of the NICs on my Exchange server. I won't know if that fixes the issue for a while since the problem with the Entourage clientshad no noticable pattern or timeline of events to allow for verification of a solution to the problem. If my Entourage clients stay connected and functional for more than a week I would say that NIC teaming was the issue.

OK, we can monitor this issue for some time. Thanks for your devoted time on this issue. Allen

All is good so far. Not sure if it matters but Leopard and Tiger both seem to be having the same issues with Entourage and E2K7. Using Mac Mail/IMAP from a Tiger machine seems okay with our E2K7 server butMac Mail/IMAP seem really sluggish and "clunky" with Leopard and E2K7.

Hi, If you can, please rebuild the profile of the Leopard to check this issue. Thanks Allen

Well..... All of my Entourage clients stopped working again today and as normal a reboot of the Exchange server fixed it. I do not see any event in any of the logs that is abnormal. All of my Mac users that are using IMAP work normally when the Entourage clients stop working. Any ideas??

I think I have this fixed now. Only time will tell!! Here is what I found: When any user (Mac or otherwise) used OWA from inside the building, the server always redirected to itsinternalURL even if the external URL was used to launch the session. The cert on the server was always shown to be invalid when using the internal URL because the CN on the cert is for our external URL. It seemed logical that Entourage, using OWA they way it does, would have the same invaild cert issues while inside the building. The thing that really tipped me off was an Entoruage userthat was forced to work from home for a while because of an injury. After he came back and began using Entourage in the building again he told me that "...he never hadconnection problems at home". I had already gone through all of the changes for autodiscovery suggestedhere (KB 940726) and assumed that would fix any cert errors for the internal/external URL difference. The last time the Entourage users quit working I was about to bounce the server again (I still don't understand completely why that EVER fixed it) and it dawned on me that the whole External/Internal URL thinghad to bethe issue given what my remote user said.The guynever had issues at home because from home he always used the external URL. If the server was forcing the Entourage sessions in the building to redirect to the internal URL like it did for a normal OWA session then that had to be the problem with the local Entourage users. I remembered the external/internal URL options on the General Tab under Server Configuration/Client Access/Outlook Web Access in the EMC. I guess I had assumed that if KB 940726 fixed the cert issues for my real Outlook clients that these settings didn't matter. On a hunch I changed the internal URL to match my external URL (whichis the correct one for the CN in my cert) and within about 2 minutes I got a call from the largest group of Entourage users saying they had just started working again. I don't recall missing anything in the docs about these settings and Entourageclients but I guess MSFT assumes most people will not run internal DNS either. I hope this helps!!!!

Well... I was wrong...at least I think so. All of my Entourage users stopped working again today, BUT I was able to get them going again by just restarting IIS...not the default web site but all of the IIS services. At this point I can only assume that the internal/external URL thing ... while it made a convincing case for me.... is not the issue. I am going to monitor the IIS logs and see if I can find anything out of the ordinary the next time my Entourage users quit working.

Same problem with the Entourage users again today. A restart of IIS services on the E2K7 server fixed them. I had a definitive time frame to compare against the security logs and IIS logs but I could find no entries that looked out of the ordinary in any way. As a matter of fact I could see the Entourage clients continually trying to authenticate to the server, both in the security logs and the IIS logs and the server returning an authenticated log entry, even when the Entourage client was returning the bad username/password error to the user. The same user was able toretrieve email withan IMAP connection to the same E2K7 serverduring thesame time that their Entourage client stopped working. I think that pretty well narrows it down to some problem with the Entourage client itself. Any body got any ideas??