I have an issue with the Office 365 integration module on one of my customer's Windows Server 2012 Essentials servers.

Recently they switched to a new Office 365 plan, but the integration module still thinks the customer is on the old plan. This doesn't seem to affect functionality at all, so I think it's just cosmetic. On the Office 365 tab of the Windows Server Essentials dashboard, under Subscription it lists the old plan and says the subscription has expired. Under Licenses it says "your subscription includes 0 licenses" and "0 licenses are assigned to user accounts."

Steps I've tried to resolve this issue:

1. Created a new Office 365 test user account (after switching plans) and then on the Windows Server 2012 Essentials dashboard clicked 'Change the Office 365 administrator account.' This made no difference.
2. Uninstalled and then reinstalled the Office 365 integration module. Again, this made no difference.

I suspected there might be an issue in the Office 365 back-end, where the customer's Office 365 account was somehow still associated with the old plan, but they said that wasn't the case.

I opened a service request with Office 365 support about the issue with the server dashboard, but this was their response: "As we are online service support team, we provide limited support on local application extension...you may need to contact the Windows Server support team for further help."

As it seems to be just a cosmetic issue, I'm not going to open a paid service request with the Windows Server support team, but I'm interested to know if anyone on the forum has struck this issue before or has any suggestions.

Not seen this issue myself, you may be right in that it Is just a cosmetic issue, and I would be surprised if a fix was forthcoming even if you opened a case (or we opened a case for you) due to resources having shifted to the Windows 10.

You could grab the OIM logs from programdata\windowsserver\logs and we can see if there is anything obvious in there.

I had a look at the OIM log and there's nothing of interest in there.

After switching to the new Office 365 plan, the old subscription is still listed in the Office 365 portal with a status of 'canceled.' I think it will drop off the system after 30 days, so it will be interesting to see if the subscription status in the WSE dashboard changes after that.

Let us know in 30 days.

Hello Simon,

I don't think I have an answer for you, as you seem to have tried what I would have done as well. What I can say is that I have noticed that some changes take a while to reflect in the console through Office 365. Make sure that the integration module is configured with your O365 credentials and let it sit for some time. Check back and see if it is showing the correct information.

Hope this helps,

Jared

Progress has been made...

This is in regards to case: 114110690682564, where the issue is Office 365 Integration with Windows Server 2012 Essentials

I sincerely apologize for the delayed response. I had a discussion with my senior escalation engineer today. We have identified this as a bug and the Product Group is working on it. My escalation engineer will get back to you next week. I am copying him on this email for your reference.

Please feel free to contact him in case you have any questions or concerns related to our issue.

Appreciate your time and patience in this matter and thank you for choosing Microsoft!

• Marked as answer by Justin GuMicrosoft contingent staff, Moderator Wednesday, November 26, 2014 1:38 AM
• Unmarked as answer by Simon Daniel Friday, January 16, 2015 3:37 AM

I have the same expired message on my server after switching Office 365 plans.

I am seeing the exact same problem on two servers running Windows Server 2012 Essentials as well as another server running Windows SBS 2011 Essentials.

After switching plans, the Office 365 Integration Module continues to be "linked" to the old plan and shows 0 licenses available. This has now become a problem, because when I try to create a new user on the server, I get an error that there are no licenses available and I have to go onto the Office 365 portal and manually create the user account.

I opened a support case for it on Office 365, but then was told it wasn't there issue and was passed on to the on-premises group. And they said it was a paid-support issue, and therefore would not help without charging.

So I am very much interested in finding out if your case was actually solved and what the solution was. My guess is that the add-on grabs the first subscription and never looks further or checks to see if it's expired or cancelled.

I heard nothing further from Microsoft after my last contact with them. The issue is still unresolved.

That's bullshit if they said it's a paid support issue. You can refer them to Office 365 support case number 114110690682564, where they identified it as a bug.

Yeah, they tried to close my case, so I referred them to this thread and your case number. We'll see if anything comes of it.

So did the old subscription eventually disappear and then it worked OK, or are you still stuck with Expired, no licenses after all this time?

PS: Can you UNmark as answer so this thread can get some atte

The old subscription is still there with a status of expired and zero licenses.

I've unmarked this thread as answered.

That sucks. Well... hopefully we can get it revived and solved. If you still have the original messages, sending a response should re-open the case. Does it even show as an unresolved issue on the portal? I'm guessing not.

Thanks. I hate it when moderators mark stuff as answered when it hasn't been. They must get paid or earn brownie points or something for "answering" so many threads.

Let me see what's going on with this bug.

Thanks Susan.

I'm just getting BS for my efforts. This is the response I got from my Office 365 case:

I am sorry but I am not at liberty to discuss any information on another customer's case, however, as confirmed by our technicall support team the issue should be handled by our onpremise support team for which our Partner Technical Router assisted to create a case.

So again, O365 support says it's an onpremise problem, and onpremise support says it's a paid support issue. Pass the buck.

There's obviously a bug in the Office 365 Integration Module, which is present in SBS 2011 Essentials as well as WS2012 Essentials, so this should not be a paid support issue.

As I said previously, my guess is that the add-on grabs the first subscription and never looks further and/or fails to check to see if it's expired or cancelled.

Another problem with this bug is that you constantly get a red flag error in alerts and reports because "your subscription has expired". So that means having to check all the time if you've got a new real red flag, or just this stupid thing.

Just a brief update on this, now that the status of the old plan has changed to 'Canceled - Locked Out.'

In the Windows Server 2012 Essentials dashboard, on the Office 365 tab, the status appears as follows...

Organization: Not available
Domain: Not available
Subscription: Not available
Licenses: Not available
Exchange Online: This part still works - it displays the mailbox usage for the top five mailboxes

I ran through the wizard to set up a new user account and it appears that wizard still integrates with Office 365 without any problem (you can create a new Office 365 account for the user or assign an existing Office 365 account to the user).

Susan, any progress on this?

Update: The same issue is also present on Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials.

I can provide an update on this.

The issue affects Windows Server Essentials 2011, 2012 and 2012 R2.

The week before last I was contacted by a Microsoft engineer who spent about two hours performing additional testing on one of my customer's servers and also in a virtual test environment (BTW, I was very impressed with the engineer I dealt with). He said there are three unresolved issues between various Windows Server and Office 365/Azure integration modules. One of the issues has been resolved and there's a private hotfix available, which will be made public in April. The other two issues (including the one we're discussing in this forum) are still being worked on. Unfortunately Microsoft has reallocated engineering resources to other projects, so it's taking longer to resolve this issue than he would like. He couldn't give me an ETA, but said Microsoft has contacted all customers who have a case open regarding this issue, will be closing all the cases for now and will contact all of those customers again once a fix is available.

Simon, I can confirm the exact same behaviour in SBS 2011 Essentials (except it doesn't display top 5 mailboxes).

Which support group did you open the case with? Office 365? On premise? I'd like to get added to that list that will get notified.

I guess Windows 10 is sucking up all available resources...

I opened the service request in the Office 365 portal. They originally tried to fob me off to the Windows Server support team, but I was persistent and got the issue escalated. Perhaps you can use my Office 365 case number as a reference: 114110690682564

Update: Using your case number and some perseverance, I was able to finally get a case of my own opened. After spending over an hour with a tech who messed up all my NIC, DNS and other settings. I finally stopped him and explained that this was not a connectivity issue and that he was essentially barking up the wrong tree. I think he was out of his depth, so just tried every trick he could think of. He then ran an app to collect system and log info and asked me to send it to him. Several days later, I get a call from another guy who tells me exactly what you were told. It's a bug, they know about it, they're working on it, but no ETA. But it's affecting more and more people, so it should be "soon". Case closed. You'll be notified when a fix is available. Buh-bye.

It sucks when you have to deal with a tech who knows less about the product than you do, especially if they start screwing with your production server. I was fortunate in this case to be working with a high level engineer who was liaising directly with the development team. I was impressed with his skill, zooming around the registry, etc. almost faster than my eyes could keep up. :-)

I think part of the problem is the integration of Server Essentials and O365 Small Business that was originally a P1 Plan. In my case, my subscription says O365 Small Business but my licenses have never been migrated - they are still labeled P1. My theory is that the O365 integration module sees my plan but fails when it cannot find any licenses labeled Small Business.  Eventually, Microsoft will force all O365 Small Business subscribers to move to O365 Business Essentials.  I thought about moving now, but, since I pre-pay for the year, I'll lose what's left of my pre-payment. 

I opened a support ticket on the O365 portal, but, as everyone else has stated, the O365 support team will not touch this.  They have called me three times to tell me they have no clue and that I should get in contact with the Essentials Server support folks.  I'm hoping this eventually gets fixed.

Initially, you couldn't switch Office 365 plans at all, you had to create a new account and do a migration. I know, I had to do it myself to switch a client from P1 to E1. It was a PITA. Therefore, at that time, it was probably impossible to have more than one plan. So, putting my developer hat on for a minute... my guess is that the integration module checks your O365 account, but only retrieves the first record it finds. In my case, it's an old expired plan with no licenses. Result... integration broken. If that's the case, then it's just some short-sighted thinking from the developers, but it should be relatively easy to fix.

Yesterday, I was able to build a Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials server in Windows Azure and integrate it with an E1 Subscription that I get as a part of the MS Action Pack.  However, after I signed up for the preview of Power BI (which adds a license to my plan) the O365 integration fails.  I agree with Henri that the integration module was probably written when O365 was limited to one plan and one set of licenses.

Thanks Henri:

I am a 2012 R2 Essentials Newbie - and this is exactly the same behavior I observe.  I believe your diagnosis of the base problem is correct.

I am frosted that MS doesn't seem to find the time to fix this, but given the discussion in this thread, I am going to ignore the issue!

Good detective work!

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