Exchange not updating inbox, owa not working for remote sites.
Hello I have been strugling with an issue we are having with our remote office.
The users call me saying that there are not receiving emails but they can send them correctly, when a I connect to their desktop the outlook seems to be connected to the exchange server but the inbox is stuck with the message updating. When this problem
arise they also can't connect to the Exchange owa, they can ping it correctly but they can't open the owa in any browser, I have checked the log events but can't find any fault with the server, the only way to resolve it is to reboot the server. Any help will
be appreciated. This issue only happens in remote offices, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the vpn connection as rebooting the routers or restablishing the vpn doesn't help, only a reboot of the server make it work again.
We are using exchange 2010 with windows 2008 r2, and the users are using outlook 2010 with rpc over https.
Many thanks.
March 12th, 2013 2:04pm
Hello,
From your description, I understand that the issue occurs when you download your message from the server.
Please check if your network is normal.
Please check if there is any sync error in your outlook sync issue folder.
Please try to use outlook online mode and check the result.
Please check if all exchange services are started.
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Cara Chen
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March 13th, 2013 5:13am
If your local clients are not affected at all, leads me to believe it is a networking issue. Does the issue only occur for remote sites? Do you allow your computers outside the VPN such as a laptop at someone's home - does the problem happen
outside your VPN network too?
Your VPN connection can have a limit of the number of concurrent connections - rebooting the server may drop all connections and start the count back at zero which would solve the problem for a period of time.... but rebooting the VPN device would probably
do that too, maybe not the case then.
You only have one Exchange I assume, no network load balancer.
Could do a 'route print' from the exchange command line to see if there are odd routing issues. Repeat from the client to make sure the traffic is directed through the VPN properly.
When the problem occurs on the client:
Ctrl Click the Outlook icon by the clock > Connection Status
This may provide a clue to what/why the connection is failing
As well, there is an Outlook setting to use RPC over HTTP on a fast and/or a slow connection. The above tip will show you how the connection attempt is being made.
I like Cara's suggestion to use online mode (turn off caching) so there is no confusion of what is working and what isn't working when the problem occurs.
When the problem occurs on the client:
Close Outlook
IPCONFIG /FLUSHDNS
Open Outlook
See if the problem resolves itself for a short time. Could be a DNS issue - do your remote clients use a public DNS (not using DNS through your VPN to your corporate DNS servers, or do your clients use your corporate DNS through the VPN?)Drew
March 13th, 2013 7:38am