OAB Not Downloading to Outlook 2007

[itechaust]

Scenario: Outlook 2007 on Windows XP Pro SP3, MS Exchange Server 2007, iPhone 4s, 4 and 3GS, external POP email host, beginner user (i.e., me) of Exchange Server trying to make all of this technology behave itself.

When we first purchased iPhones our POP mail was arriving in Outlook then being passed to ES. This meant that iPhones syncing with ES did not receive emails unless Outlook was running on the user's PC. During this period the OAB updated correctly and regularly on the Outlook clients.

Recently we changed the priority so that POP mail is now received by ES and syncs with Outlook later. This works really well for the end users and everything is syncing ok.

BUT - and there's alway a BUT - now the Outlook clients will not download the OAB.

I have forced the OAB update on the server and the clients, run command line updates in the Exchange Management Shell and forced the update on the clients, but neither of these fixed the problem. I then deleted the *.oab files from the client PCs and restarted Outlook. The OAB downloaded OK and my new address list was visible - BUT, after I added a new contact in Recipient Configuration, Mail Contacts, the download stopped working on the Outlook clients!!!

I turned cache mode off in my Outlook Exchange account to see whether that made any difference and now I can't connect to ES at all. I can only work offline. I can't even access the exchange account via Control Panel. Hopefully I can solve this by removing the Exchange account and re-creating it.

Does anyone have a suggestion about how I can make the OAB download correctly on the email clients, please??? I would really appreciate it.

 

[Zelandakh]

Wow. Shouldn't see those in OWA for sure... that's odd.

In outlook, try to create a new profile and use the auto config wizard. Hopefully it will fail. Change the internal name to internal and the external to "external" and post back. This sounds like something really daft that will take 5 minutes

 

[itechaust]

I created a new profile using the autowizard and it worked. When I tried to open Outlook using the new profile it hung for about 10 minutes and I had to kill the process.

Just to err on the side of caution, before I make any changes to the URL fields, did you mean I should type the words "internal" and "external"?

 

[Zelandakh]

No - don't make changes. Take screen shots and change the relevant bits so you aren't posting sensitive information that can be used to identify you.

In that Outlook that died, go to control panel, mail and in there get screenshots / type out the config for...server name, username and in the more settings, look at Connection, proxy settings. What's the URL in the top box, the proxy servers/msstd entry, is either HTTP box ticked and what authentication?

Then on the Exchange server, can you go to Exchange Management Shell and get:
get-offlineaddressbook | fl
Change the domain names / server name as applicable

In the Exchange server application logs, are you getting any 9334 or 9335 events? Any other errors (ignore information and warnings) about anything to do with autodiscover, address book or similar?

 

[fusionpit]

Is the Exchange server hosted on a virtual machine, and was that VM copied from another existing VM? If it was, you'll need to generate a new SID using newsid.exe. Clashing SIDs will cause autodiscover and OAB problems.

 

[itechaust]

Thanks for your response Zelandakh. I promise I haven't been ignoring you! I had 2 weeks on sick leave and returned last week to focus on finance as June is the end of our financial year. I will get back to you with the screenshots but it might not be for some time.

Fusionpit - thanks for your suggestion. Our server was a ground-up installation on a brand new server in July 2010. It wasn't copied from anywhere else.