Issue with Exchange Offline Address Book (OAB)

Hi Everyone

We have exchange server 2010 SP1 deployed in our environment.

We have 3 mailbox server deployed in DAG. We have around 600 mailboxes.

For the last few days our Offline Address Book (OAB) is not getting updated.

The error in the EventViewer is :

OABGen detected that the file '" "" is corrupted or missing. This indicates data tampering or disk problems. Restore files in this folder from the recent backup or clean up folder content and force a full OAB generation.

As backup is unavailable, we need to proceed with full OAB generation.

Kindly let me know what are the risks/things to be considered for full OAB generation and how much time will it take at the user end for the updated Address List to be available.

We have 600 mailbox users and they connect through WIFI

July 18th, 2015 5:06am

Hi,

Try a manual OAB replication as below

1. Get-OfflineAddressBook | fl Name,Server,AddressLists,IsDefault,Guid

2. Update-OfflineAddressBook <paste GUID here>

3. Check event log again

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 18th, 2015 6:27am

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

I have already tried the above provide manual replication.

It doesn't work. I receive the same error I have mentioned earlier.

July 19th, 2015 4:02am

I'm suggesting you one more option as below: This is basically deletes the original OAB and rebuild it from the scratch

1. Delete the contents of the OABGen folder from <ExchangeInstallDir> \ExchangeOAB\ <OAB GUID 2. Rebuild the OAB files by using the following command in the Exchange Management Shell:

Update-OfflineAddressBook <OABGuid>

This command will cause a full OAB download by all clients.

A full OAB download can cause massive network traffic between Client Access servers and clients.

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 19th, 2015 4:46am

You should check the disk related problem first, either space is not available or it is having bad sectors.
July 20th, 2015 2:36am

Hi

Thanks for your reply.

I have already tried the above provide manual replication.

It doesn't work. I receive the same error I have mentioned earlier.

Hi,

Please refer to ManU PhiliP's suggestion to delete the contents of the OABGen and rebuild it to have a try:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/931744

If it doesn't work, please create a new Offline Address Book to have a try:

1. Create Offline Address List:
New-OfflineAddressBook -Name "NewOAB" -AddressLists "\Default " -VirtualDirectories "SERVER01\OAB (Default Web Site)"
2. Set the new OAB as default:
Set-OfflineAddressBook -Identity "NewOAB" -IsDefault $true
3. Restart the following services:
Microsoft System Attendant service
Microsoft Information Store service
Microsoft File Distribution service
4. Download the OAB file in Outlook manually or waiting for OAB update automatically.

Regards,

Free Windows Admin Tool Kit Click here and download it now
July 20th, 2015 5:21am

Hi Manu

Thanks for your response.

This option is exactly what I am planning to do. 

And I fully agree, that a full OAB download will cause massive network traffic.

We have around 500 users and they all connect through WIFI. 

The OAB GUID size is 2MB.

I plan to perform the rebuild on weekend, the update will happen at 5:00 AM and all the users will arrive in office on Monday at 9:00 AM. The download of new OAB for all the 500 users will happen at the same time (9:00 AM).

Kindly share your idea on how much time might it take for the new OAB to be available for all the users.

Also during the OAB download taking place on the users, will there be any issue in Email Send/Receive inside or outside the organization?

Thank You

July 23rd, 2015 2:47am

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

Other recent topics Other recent topics