Problems with outlook and exchange

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shadowwyvern

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Sep 22, 2005
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My friend is having this problem, but he does not have a real email address so he cannot register to post at the moment, and time is something of a factor, since he uses this daily. This has us both stuck, thanks for your help.

Alright so my school has an exchange server, the settings are available here: http://clarkson.edu/oit/applications/files/setup_outlook.pdf And I have it set up on my laptop using Outlook 2007. It works fine save for the fact it refuses to remember my password. I tried setting it up on my desktop so my PDA can sync to it, and it doesn't work. It refuses to connect. Everything I try results in a hang until Outlook times out, then the following error message:

The connection to the Microsoft Exchange Server is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.

Windows XP SP2, tried it with Outlook 2007 and then 2003 exact same result. And my laptop, on the same internet connection a foot away is working fine. No firewall, I trust my router for that, and aVast personal edition, but I tried disabling that, it was no help. I have also tried the customary reboots and such.

I've run Wireshark on both machines and there is a plethora of traffic on the working one and a decent amount of back and forth traffic on the non-working one. As far as I can tell its connecting fine which rules out a configuration problem. I have also tried it from a clean install of XP on a VM with a fresh install of Office 2007 with the same results. As far as I can tell the connection is going through, I do get prompted for my password and if I enter the correct one I receive the hang/timeout/error. If I input the wrong one it immediately re-requests it. ♥I have also tried changing my password, that went fine but even with the new password, same symptoms, works perfectly fine on laptop, and timeouts on desktop. It would appear the problem is at the remote end because of these symptoms except my laptop continues to work perfectly. Thanks
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I work with exchange all day but just to make sure go to your control panel and then open mail. Then make sure his name is found and the correct exchange server is in the field box. Do they have an online web access for the outlook? If so go there and try and log in with the same username and password and see if it will let him in. If it will then try logging in through outlook and double check all settings. Thats how I fix 99 pecent of the problems I have with exchange with different banks I work with.

If it will not let him on to the web login then he is entering the wrong pass or his account is locked. Both of wish you are going to have to get the admin to reset the password in active directory or uncheck the account is locked in active directory. Both of which are out of your hands as you need access to the AD server to do.

If they do also have a site to login then you need to go to mail again and open your account. Under the connection tab there is a button and check at the bottom to connect through http:. Click that and then in the first field at the top fill in the website for outlook login there.
 
I didn't see anything in the PDF illustrating the steps on importing the certificate....as this manual shows you how to setup Outlook via HTTP.
 
Destonomos said:
Wrong, every picture in that pdf is inside of outlook and windows.
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How is that wrong? Please explain to me? And where did I try to claim that any pictures were "outside" of Outlook and Windows? That doesn't even make sense. Yeah OK...it's really inside of Thunderbird and Ubuntu! :rolleyes:

***Lets see....I stated that the manual is showing the end user how to setup Outlook via HTTP. Now...lets take a look at STEP 11. "...check Connect to my Exchange Mailbox using HTTP..."...and then it goes into what info to fill into the HTTP section. This being said...I don't believe that I'm wrong here.

***I claimed that I don't see any mention of "importing the certificate" in this PDF. Unless I'm blind today..and missing something (which occasionally happens)...please point to the area in the PDF which illustrates importing the certificate of authority.

Note..that setting up Outlook via HTTP has different steps than the easy-peasy steps you do on a local area network. This is often done on computers across the internet which are NOT members of the domain. It's quite common in university setups these days as an option versus OWA. You cannot click "Check name" early on to resolve it like you do with LAN workstations.
 
Oh, we use OWA setups here at work. Just seems he is doing the exact same thing.
 
Destonomos said:
Oh, we use OWA setups here at work. Just seems he is doing the exact same thing.
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Did you take the time to actually READ that PDF? A PDF that had instructions for the end user to use Outlook Web Access would be quite different. Pictures of Outlook account setup would not be necessary...just pictures of Internet Explorer...what address to get to..and a picture of the log in screen from within IE....all of which would look very different from the pictures and description of that PDF file.
 
I'm confused.... The PDF is how to setup Outlook to connect to an Exchange server. The website syncs the two and is there for people that don't have Outlook on a pc or if they are somewhere where they don't have it installed. All he needs to go is go to the site I posted earlier and try and login, if he can then its an outlook issue. If he can't, then he has problems with his login at which point he would have to contact the admin to get that figured out.
 
Destonomos said:
I'm confused.... The PDF is how to setup Outlook to connect to an Exchange server. The website syncs the two and is there for people that don't have Outlook on a pc or if they are somewhere where they don't have it installed. All he needs to go is go to the site I posted earlier and try and login, if he can then its an outlook issue. If he can't, then he has problems with his login at which point he would have to contact the admin to get that figured out.
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http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/ork2003/HA011402731033.aspx

You can configure Outlook to use RPC over HTTP/S. This enables you to use Outlook outside of the LAN in cached mode (particularly useful for laptops that leave the office) and maintain connectivity to the Exchange server by tunneling RPC commands inside of HTTP/S, when you have an internet connection, without needing to establish a VPN connection.
 
I'm the friend shadowwyvern referenced.

First thanks for the input thus far, but OWA is working perfectly fine across all machines and all browsers. The problem lies solely with in Outlook.

So I'm not sure how to proceed from here.
 
Take computer to school IT department.......... they will have all the settings.........
 
noob, if he followed the manual and its still not working what do you think all of us will be able to do? magically fix a issue with someone elses server?

https isn't hard to setup, its like 4 options, you type in the local server name, type in your name, select connect to HTTPS over Internet and type in setting.
 
+1 to Destonomos who suggests Checking Name that wont work unless hes on a lan... good going Exchange guy!
 
IIRC, the initial connection mailbox setup with Outlook and Exchange needs to be done on LAN. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I vaguely recall seeing it before. What about a VPN connection to your campus, so you're "on lan" for the setup?
 
da sponge said:
IIRC, the initial connection mailbox setup with Outlook and Exchange needs to be done on LAN. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I vaguely recall seeing it before. What about a VPN connection to your campus, so you're "on lan" for the setup?
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Nope....import the certificate of authority in IE first.....the OWA address. Then run through the HTTP setup. Typing in the name and hitting "check" the first time will fail until the HTTP info is entered...and then it will give you the "challenge" to log in..once you authenticate..the name and server name section will come back underlined and resolved.

You do not have to be on the local LAN to set this up. You don't even need to have your PC a member on the domain.
 
It does not, the Check Name wont work untill you type in credentials.
 
So if its not finding your name you need to make sure you putting in the right information. I'd contact your admin to make sure its putting in everything right.
 
Here's a link about configuring Outlook over HTTP....which is quite different from the wicked easy configuring Outlook to an Exchange server over a local LAN.

http://www.petri.co.il/configure_outlook_2003_to_use_rpc_over_http.htm

The part I'm talking about...with the certificate....is in step 9 of the above link.
Specifically this following paragraph...

"However unless these computers are made members of the Active Directory domain where you've installed your CA, they will NOT automatically trust your CA, and thus your connection will fail! In such scenarios you must import the ROOT CA Digital Certificate into the client computers in order to make them trust your CA."

...which mirrors what I was talking about above...the workstations don't have to be members of the local domain, or on the local network. In this case...the certificate needs to be done.
 
Problem solved.

Turns out I was doing everything right, the problem was with my school.

See we have four servers, MS1, mbox1, mbox2, mbox3. The MS1 servers seem to handle incoming Exchange requests for initial configuration, at which point the configured computer starts using mboxX for its Exchange connection. My account was handled by mbox1. It seems that the MS1 server has stopped accepting a connection from me, I do not know if its a problem with my user or the server itself, but since my laptop had already switched over, without me knowing, to mbox1 it didn't prevent it from working. Once I determined this, I ran through the setup again subbing in mbox1 for MS1 and it came right up. Way to go school. I might be sending them an email later...
 
for it to remember your password, try going to the "exchange proxy settings" and in the box for the "mutually authenticate the session when connecting SSL..." put "msstd:" before the IP address / url and make sure all boxes on the page are checked...
 
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