OWA Inbox keeps displaying - loading... 2

[gscheepers]

Hi everyone,

I'm just about to have our users start using outlook web access with exchange 2k, but when you access a inbox from OWA, it displays loading and the message does not dissappear. This ends up not displaying any message within outlook.

Any ideas to what's wrong?

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards,

Gerhard Scheepers

"Great souls have wills; feeble ones only wishes..."

 

[paulsmith]

Most common cause of this issue is the URLScan tool... if you have it installed, uninstall it, your OWA will then work.

I think there is a new version of the URL Scan tool that helps avoid this issue.

Microsoft also have some tech documents relating to this exact issue.

 

[gscheepers]

I've had a look at the error messages and solutions that Microsoft lists on their website, but none of them sound simular to what I have.

When access OWA from a PC within the domain, OWA works fine and everyone's able to access their emails etc. When trying to access email from external via the internet, no messages are displayed. Instead only a message saying loading...

Any ideas to what the cause of this is?

Many thanks so far.

Gerhard Scheepers

"Great souls have wills; feeble ones only wishes..."

 

[twoeyes]

Hi Gerald,

I'm wondering if you've found a solution for this problem. I face it as well!

Oddly though, I have fewer problems when I use an alternate web browser offsite, namely Mozilla. A few features of OWA don't work the same, but it's better than 'loading...'

LC



----------------------------------------
Check out my irrelevant personal website:

http://www.lc.yi.org

 

[wibbe]

Hi,
Sounds like a URLSCAN problem.
Check the URLSCAN logfile (c:\winnt\system32\inetsrv\utlscan).

I guess you will find the drops here. See Microsoft Q309508 for information about configuring urlscan for Exchange.

If this not solve youre problem, then I need nore information about youre servers.

Is there any proxy servers or firewalls?
Are you using a front-end server or?
Have you installed SP3?
Are you running any other webservices on the server (like SUS)?

// Wibbe
Senior Exchange Consultant

 

[zoeythecat]

Open up IIS Admin....Check the "Exchange" Properties. On the Edit Anonymous tab I believe you have to enter your domain name. I had a similar problem today. I'm not at work right now so I don't have the exact properties where you change this. There may be a few other settings you have to play around with but I know one setting you have to enter your domain name. If the above step does not help I can get more info for you.

 

[securityforums]

Just to view a different angle on this ive experienced the same problem where inside the LAN OWA is fine but externally over the internet the images all load, everything appears except the actual messages and you recieve the loading message and nothing else.

From my experience the problem has lied with a mixture of things, the most common seemed to be either browser related or transparent cache used by ISPs.

AOL users especially, or behind another corporate network behind certain squid / inktomi setups my users were having the exact problems you recieved.

In certain instances an easy way to get around this was to use an alternate browser. For example one member of staff was at a university, im unsure on their setup but the user could see their mail perfect simply by using netscape.

The other solution which was definately better in the long run was to implement SSL. There are obvious security benefits in this(OWA passwords not being sent in cleartext) and this solved all my issues.

As I mentioned, AOL for example use caching / proxies which as far as I know the end user could not turn off(never bothered to research as I cant stand AOL) Anyway since switching to SSL it worked perfectly from any location, using any ISP or any browser.

You dont have to pay for an SSL certificate, you can generate one for free using certificate services under win2k(although the users get a slight warning as its not from a 'trusted' source)

Personally I think you should be using SSL if using OWA over the public internet as opposed to tunneling in via VPN or similar.

Previous posts suggest authentication problems, I personally dont think this is the case as the users can actually authenticate and login as such, and see the OWA images / menus etc they just fail to see the inbox

Id suggest firstly trying a different browser externally and trying SSL(and allow port 443 to the OWA server rather than port 80)

I spent some time researching this, ill post the kb article that describes the problem, if I remember properly it references the technology used displaying the webpages, something to do with webdav.

Hopefully this solves your problem as it sounds identical to one ive had previously



----------------------->

http://exchange.security-forums.com

http://www.security-forums.com

 

[wibbe]

Securityforums has many points.
This is a webdav problem.
Webdav is only used by Internet Explorer, so netscape will work better. But, there is a reason why IE use webdav.
You will not get all the functions without it.

Webdav use dynamic urls, with may confuse proxy and cache servers, including Microsofts own (URLSCAN). To solve the problem in URLSCAN see the previus notes.

One workaround is to use SSL and hope the proxy/cache dont mess with this trafic. But I think you should find the problem anyway, or you will get it again later with an other application using webdav.

Offcource you should use SSL, otherwise any scriptkid can sniff for youre password in no time!

// Wibbe

 

[OdedShafran]

Try using another user... (on the client computer) ...
I had once this problem with Windows XP...
after creating a new local user (there wasnt a domain) and then a new profile with new settings, the problem was solved. the problem was problematic settings in the profile.

Oded Shafran,
Network Administrator

 

[OxygenThief]

I don't think it has got anything to with the above answers.

I have seen this before -> will advise asap.

 

[OxygenThief]

You want knowledge base Q280283, this is about permissions in IIS.

 

[TechZorro]

I think "Security forums had it on this one" I had the same problem but only after updateing my home system to IE 6.0.

After puzzling over the "Loding" message for a while I notice the tiny unobtrusive "Error on Page" message and Symbol on the lower left edge of the page. Click on that and it will give you a lot more information. Mine was malformed request.

 

[brightds]

That is a webdav issue - Most likely a Raptor Firewall or a firewall that's version of webdav is older than the one w/ exchange 2k - Downgrade your version of webdav to determin if this is the issue -

XWEB: Unable to View Items in Inbox When Accessing OWA Through a Proxy Server Using Internet Explorer 5 or Later (267570)

http://www.webdav.org/other/proxy.html

This behavior occurs because Internet Explorer version 5.0 and later supports HTTP-DAV (as described in RFC 2518). Distributed Authoring Version (DAV) uses Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) verbs that the Raptor 6.5 software for Windows NT does not recognize, and the Raptor 6.5 software does not allow you to customize the list of approved HTTP verbs.

WORKAROUND
To work around this behavior, use one of the following methods:
METHOD 1: Force OWA to treat Internet Explorer version 5.0 and later as earlier versions.For additional information about how to force OWA to treat Internet Explorer version 5.0 and later as earlier versions, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

296232 XCCC: Empty Inbox Using Internet Explorer 5 and Later for OWA


METHOD 2: Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) on the OWA Web site to encrypt the HTTP traffic so that the firewall cannot determine which HTTP verbs are being sent.

 

[Sarge]

The answer is Languages. If their is no default language selected under internet options then it will constantly display loading. Under WinXP using IE 6 open a web browser and click on tools, internet options, on the general tab select languages, if this is the problem their will be no selected languages.. select English (or whatever) and hit apply/ok. now it should load all the way, it worked for me.. consult the Microsft web site for other IE versions on how to change languages.. im out.