outlook won't stay connected to exchange

[swhitten]

I am running Outlook 2003 on my laptop. From home, I connect to a VPN then to my Exchange 2003 server at the office.

I am having a hard time getting/staying connected to the exchange server.

Sporadically, I get a connection window that asks for my password to connect to the server. If I enter my password, the window just pops back up. If I just click 'cancel', I seem to fare better.

When I click send/receive, Outlook will go to 'connected' status (bottom right corner). Then it will flip to 'disconnected' and then to 'offline'.

Sometimes I can click send/receive again and get reconnected; other times it won't connect and stays in disconnected or offline state.

A separate and less critical issue - when I am on a dial up connection (rather than high speed), I can NEVER get it to connect to exchange.

What controls the connection to the exchange server? Are there settings on the exchange server that need to be tweaked/changed? Are there settings in my outlook that need to be changed?

One thing I tried last weekend while using a dial up connection was changing the Seconds until server connection timeout to 999. It didn't help me get connected on dial up.

Anu suggestions/advice will be appreciated. Thanks!

 

[zaccaz]

with exchange2003 server, why bother to use vpn? you can use "rpc over https" for a secured remote connection

 

[Zelandakh]

dial up is probably a name resolution issue.
VPN is probably dropping which causes your problem.

Definitely recommend you go to Outlook Anywhere.

 

[swhitten]

Here's what I did to resolve:
1. Deleted and set up my outlook connection to exchange again. Couldn't open outlook - "set of folders could not be opened" error.
2. Ran scanpst.exe on my pst folder.
3. Made exchange be non-cached.
4. Opened outlook successfully.
5. Made exchange cached again.

Everything seems to be fine now. Staying connected without issue.
Corrupt pst or ost? Not sure.

 

[Zelandakh]

Result. Not a solid documentable one, but if it works I won't insist on documentation...

 

[swhitten]

yeah, well, it works. Exchange guru or even amateur I am NOT.

Now if I could just get my dial up issue resolved . . . .