New User Created in Active Directory, Can't Connect to Exchange 2003

[medens]

Hello,

I am experiencing a very frustrating issue right now where I create a new user in Active directory, as normal and when I go to set them up to communicate with our exchange server in Outlook 2003, it won't let me establish the connection. I go through Control Panel, Mail, Email Accounts, add a new email account, exchange server and so on. I type in our exchange server address and the name of the new user. If I click on Check Name, I get a message that says "the action could not be completed. the connection to the microsoft exchange server is unavailable. outlook must be online or connected to complete this action." If I skip hitting check name and hit next it says "mail from this exchange server account will be delivered to the existing personal folder on your local computer. if you wish to keep your mail on your server, you must change the default delivery location using the email accounts command from the tools menu. do you wish to continue?" I finish and close and open Outlook to where I imediately get the message "the connection to the microsoft exchange server is unavailable. outlook must be online or connected to complete this action." This happens with any new user I set up in Active Directory!! Please help!!

 

[Zelandakh]

Check event log. Any clues?

What is topology?

Have you tried sending that user an email?

Do they show up in the GAL on your Outlook?

 

[medens]

well, according to the event log (when looking at DNS Server events) earlier this month(the 6th) there were 4 warnings, one said the DNS server encountered error 32 attempting to load zone rlc from active directory. the DNS server will attempt to load the zone again on the next timeout cycle. this can be caused by high Active Directory load and may be a transient condition. Earlier that day there were 3 errors which said "the dns server was unable to complete directory service enumeration of zone rlc. this dns server is configured to use information obtained from active directory for this zone and is unable to load the zone without it. check that the active directory is functioning properly and repeat enumeration of the zone. the extended error debug information(which may be empty) is "". the event data contains the error."

the user is retrieving email via pop3 currently just fine through outlook.

the users do show up in GAL in my outlook but of course if you try to email them, it doesn't go through to them because exchange isn't pulling on their outlook.

how do I find the topology? sorry, I'm kinda new at this

Thank you so much for your help by the way!

 

[58sniper]

Look at their account and see if it has email addresses stamped on it yet.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[medens]

What do you mean by "stamped on it"?

 

[ntinlin]

Have the default e-mail addresses appeared on the AD account yet is what Pat means. They would be blank when you created the AD account even if you create mailbox at the same time.

If not then try forcing the RUS (Recipient Update Service) to create them which will actually register the mailbox with Exchange.
It's a foible of XC2003 that even though it is supposed to be continuously running it tends to run when it feels like it.
Look under the recipients tree in ESM.

Cheers
Neill

 

[medens]

Oh, ok, yes it did automatically create and smtp email address in active directory. Everything is set up just like all the accounts before that I was able to load fine. Its strange, it has been a few months that this has been going on, any new profile is having this same issue. Here is another issue that might be tied to this..if I go into Control Panel, user accounts and try to add one of our users to the local administrative group(like I was always able to do), it won't let me, it brings up a "Name not found" screen and is only trying to find the username on the local machine instead of pulling it from the network profile. This is with any user on any machine. Seems like it could be related?

 

[medens]

Do you think I should try rebuilding the Recipient Update Services?

 

[medens]

Another issue I have been noticing is that every once in a while, our users that are connected properly to the Exchange server get a message that says they are now disconnected from the exchange server and I have to restart the Information Store service to get them connected again.

thanks again to all of you trying to help, I greatly appreciate it!

 

[Zelandakh]

Yes, rebuild the RUS. Can't really harm anything (famous last words).

How many DCs do you have and if it is 1, please don't say it is the Exchange server.

Have you backed up the Exchange server recently? Just an idle question but needs asking. Is that server up to date with windows updates, exchange service packs etc?

 

[medens]

Please pardon my ignorance but what do you mean by DCs?

 

[58sniper]

Domain Controllers

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[medens]

we are a small, one server operation, so the domain controller is the server that also acts as the exchange server. it is up to date with everything and yes, I back up the exchange server regularly.

 

[58sniper]

Ouch - Exchange on a DC. Not a recommended scenario.

What's in the logs?

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[medens]

yeah, I know it isn't ideal, I enherited the network as far as the logs are concerned, nothing new since the ones I listed in the 3rd comment above.

Do you agree that I should rebuild the recipient update services?

 

[58sniper]

Well, I'm not convinced it's a RUS issue if the accounts have been stamped with addresses. But it generally doesn't hurt anything to rebuild it. So give it a try.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[medens]

will this effect our day to day operations if I run it while users are here?

 

[58sniper]

No.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Shad007]

are you creating your exchange accounts on a server where the exchange system manager is installed? if not then it will be creating the AD accounts ok but not the exchange mailboxes. The quickest way around this is to create the AD account using the AD snapin on your exchange server.

 

[58sniper]

You'd realize things are getting created with mailboxes if you'd have read the entire thread.

And as long as the Exchange management tools are installed on whatever machine you're creating accounts with, it doesn't matter if it's an Exchange server or not.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/