Hello Guys.

I really hope someone can help me resolve this asap. I have spent hours upon hours pouring through blogs and forums and applied and double checked every conceivable autodiscover tool and can not resolve this.

Scenario: Server 2012 Standard with Exchange 2013. Split-Brain DNS, (Internal = domain.local) (External = mail.domain.com.na)

I have applied CNAME, PTR, SRV and Autodiscover.xml, but still Exchange Connectivity (Autodiscover) keeps failing on all points.

Everything else is working 100%, OWA, Activesync, IMAP etc.

But I have 1 client PC with Windows 8 Single Language that can obviously not join the domain, and the client doesn't want to use IMAP saying it looks different?? Don't know why. But he wants to use Exchange.

From outlook 2013 I configure it as follows:

Server: server.domain.local

Username: domain user account

Exchange Proxy Server: mail.domain.com

Connection: SSL, HTTP and HTTPS, authentication "auto negotiate"

It just comes back with "Unable to resolve username"

Is it necessary to, as with "mail.domain.com" point "autodiscover.domain.com" to the public IP?

Thank you in advance.

Kind Regards

Hentie Loots

• Edited by EagleClaw1976 Sunday, July 05, 2015 2:26 PM

Hello Ed and thank you for the reply.

This is exactly where I get a bit hazy.

Some of the forums I have read talk about "internal" and "external" DNS Zones.

Internal is fine. But what do you mean by "External / Internet" DNS? Is it something my ISP has to setup on the internet dns? Like with the MX Records that point mail.domain.com to the public IP? Or is it a new zone I need to create on the Server's DNS? Reverse Lookup Zone or something?

I can't find anything on the web about "External DNS Zone". I completely lost with where exactly on this split-brain dns between .local and .com and Foreward and Reverse Lookup Zone I need to create the PTR, SRV, CNAME and A records.

Like I said, everything else works like a well oiled machine. It is only the Autodiscovery from the internet that keeps failing, so Outlook keeps saying exchange is offline and it wasn't able to resolve the username.

I get the same issue even when connected via VPN.

"The action cannot be completed. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action."

Hoping to hear back soon.

Thanks again.

Hentie Loots

• Edited by EagleClaw1976 Sunday, July 05, 2015 7:14 PM

This is the response I get.

<Autodiscover>

<Response><Error Time="11:46:31.9846029" Id="2220214705">

<ErrorCode>600</ErrorCode>

<Message>Invalid Request

</Message><DebugData/>

</Error>

</Response>

</Autodiscover>

From what I saw with a quick google search, is that this is correct and normal?

• Edited by EagleClaw1976 20 hours 32 minutes ago

Hi Hentie,

If you have setup all correctly and currently connected to your internal network using Win8 non domain PC.

Try opening this on internet explorer of the PC. You should be able to get through some XML data.

<Message>Invalid Request</Message>

https://autodiscover.domain.com/Autodiscover/Autodiscover.xml

Try to check if it is able to resolve

nslookup autodiscover.domain.com

Hi Hentie,

This is normal, means your Autodiscover URL is functioning correctly and you have something else causing the issue.

Try to configure it manually

Ex2013 works differently and hence you can no longer use a CAS Servername or alias to configure a account like earlier versions. You need to input the unique ExchangeGUID for the mailbox.

Refer to this link for Manually configure Outlook for Ex2013

Yes, that is normal.

Use the Microsoft connectivity analyzer for trouble shooting; if there's an error, it will tell you what it is. That way you know what needs to be resolved if it does find something wrong.

https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/

Let us know what the results are.