Cannot connect to GAL on Exchange 2007

Hello,When users try to access the GAL from Outlook 2013 they seem to receive this message "the connection to Microsoft exchange is unavailable. outlook must be online or connected to complete this action" It does not happen all of the time and usually switching from the GAL address list to the user's contact list then back to the GAL will fix the issue. Is there any way to resolve this issue so users just connects to the GAL the first time.

Thanks,

BJZ

January 27th, 2015 9:06pm

Hi BJZ,

In order to understand the issue more deeply, I would like to clarify the following questions:

  1. Are you in Cached Exchange mode or Online mode?
  2. Do you have problems with sending & receiving mail messages?
  3. How many users in the network are affected by this?

This could be due to a discontinuous/unstable network connectivity, might be you can first try with a different network connection and check behavior.

Let me know if this doesn't work, and post back with more info, then we'll take a further look.
Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 28th, 2015 8:42am

We do use cached mode and I know of at least six users that reported experiencing this issue all of whom use Outlook 2013. sending an receiving mail works just fine the only issue is the GAL and like previously stated if you switch to the local contact and then back to GAL it populates with no error.  

As for it being an unstable network connection I thought along those lines as well. We have two different subnets and have received errors in the past about subnet traffic from one subnet network interface being reported on the other network interface on the firewall. this is due to a missing route in between the two subnets.

I am going to try adding these routes this week but I suspect that this will not resolve the issue.

Thanks,

BJZ

January 29th, 2015 3:16am

Hi BJZ,

Thanks for your feedback. As per the symptom, I think it's worth a try and see if the network connection is the problem here.

Also, in Cached Exchange Mode, Outlook's GAL is actually the Offline Address Book (OAB). I would suggest we try to manually download or reset the Offline Address Book and see if it helps:

Go to tab: Send/Receive> Send/Receive Groups-> Download Address Book

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
January 29th, 2015 12:59pm

Hi,

Just checking in to see if above information was helpful. Please let us know if you would like further assistance.

Regards,

Ethan Hua

Forum Support

February 2nd, 2015 5:18am

Ethan,

I have been unable to apply any type of solution for this issue as it has been labeled low priority  by management as we are moving to Exchange 2013 here in the very near future that said I suspect you are correct about it being a network issue as I have tested and only seem to have the issue when I am on a different subnet from the one the exchange server is on.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
February 2nd, 2015 11:28am

This topic is archived. No further replies will be accepted.

Other recent topics Other recent topics