Re: Outlook Problem with Exchange

So we rebooted our main firewall last night to no avail. Another
sidenote, that these systems can indeed SEND email. Really, they can.
This is certainly a head scratcher to me. I don't understand how it
could comminute with Exchange slightly but not all the way. There are
no specific rules in the FireWall concerning this, and other users that
travel through the same firewall have no problem, just this one
network.

So they can:
-Ping Exchange Server
-Do a "Check Name"
-Send Email
-telnet <exchange> 80

They Cannot:
-RDP to Exchange Server
-Receive Email
-Connect through the Web at http://<server_name>/

I'll be checking into the network problems all day, just wanted to
update these things. Thanks again for all your help.

Ward Flowers (MSFT) wrote:
Hmm, Telnet is working to port 80 but OWA or even basic IIS access is not..
Weird. The fact that other clients on other networks work go back to the
firewall as suspect as you suggested before. I wonder about maybe the
maximum MTU size or something to that nature, maybe large packets are not
getting broken down properly. Netmon should show that though with
retransmits of failed packets etc.

You might check this
159211 Diagnoses and treatment of black hole routers
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;159211


--
Ward Flowers (MSFT)
Microsoft Exchange Support Engineer

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.


"cbrunet" <darthkorn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1152738068.579463.52320@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I appreciate your quick response. We will attempt to do some netmon
traces tomorrow to more accurately detect the problem. Some other
little tidbits that were found today:

-Telnetting to Port 80 does indeed work from these client machines to
Exchange.
-Conencting to the server through the web (http://<server_name>/) does
NOT (though it does on PC's on our regular network, just not at this
sattelite site that again are VPN'd through SoHo Firewalls).

Are there other specific ports that would definitely be open on the
Exchange server that we can test with?

Also, I might not have made this clear in my initial post, but this
setup has been working for years now. I just got a call on Monday
stating that users had stopped receiving email the previous Friday,
which we've had a problem with our external mailserver kernel panicking
in the past. This just was not the case this time.

Thanks again.
-Curtis Brunet

Ward Flowers (MSFT) wrote:
If outlook is having a problem connecting if could be any piece of the
RPC
connectivity to Exchange. The connection to the GC for Directory access,
the Connection to the mailbox store on the Exchange box which is not a
set
port unless it is hardcoded, and the same for the connection to system
folders and public folders sometimes on the same public store and
sometimes
various public stores share this role. If this were a support call I
would
likely began with netmon traces from the client and server seeing what
communications were failing and why. Tools like rpc ping can test
specific
ports, see what ports the Information store is listening on etc, etc..

You may try other workarounds though if you have HTTP access--OWA or RPC
over HTTPS. This might simplify ports that need to be open but you would
have to configure the service on Exchange. some great whitpaers on
deployment are in the technical resources at microsoft.com/exchange.

Anyway, with some network tracing and a resource that can read through
netmons, you could likely narrow the problem down. As always we at MS
Product Support are available to help if you want to give us a call we
can
help with capturing and analyzing the data.
http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=en-us&prid=6001&gprid=35178

--
Ward Flowers (MSFT)
Microsoft Exchange Support Engineer

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights.



"cbrunet" <darthkorn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:1152716161.766995.153260@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Players:
Exchange 2003
Windows Server 2003 Standard

Problem:
Users of a sattelite site connecting through a wireless connection
canot utilize a local Outlook (as it errors out with not being able to
connect to the Exchange Server), nor can they RDP to the Exchange
server. Network connections everywhere else work fine. They can RDP
to any other server running the same/different OS's. Can connect to
virtual servers and open Citrix sessions just fine. They can also ping
the Exchange server and name resolve it just fine. No recent change
can be recalled being made, though it dosen't mean that one was not
done.

Cliffs:
-Cannot connect to Exchange server from Outlook to receive email.
-Cannot connect to Exchange server via RDP
-CAN ping the Exchange server (there's some connectivity)
-CAN do a "Check Name" in Outlook to resolve their mailbox (there's
more connectivity)
-Users everywhere else use the Exchange Server no problem (nothing
wrong with Exchange)
-Users can connect to Citrix and use Outlook through Citrix no problem
(nothign wrong with their mailbox/accounts)

My Thoughts:
Now, the wireless setup is more then problematic. It's really two big
antennas that connect two buildings. On each side, before the switch,
is a SoHo Firebox. All the rules are still the same as they were, and
no recent change has been made to any of the firewalls to make me think
that would be the case, but I am not ruling it out. That is really the
only thing that I could see causing problems, other then that, I am at
a complete loss. Firewall on their end has been reset to no avail.
Firewall on our end (a little harder to do) is scheduled to go down
tonight momentarily to see if that is it.



.

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