Incoming mail issue

[8rent]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel Email Client: Exchange Good afternoon.
I have been experiencing an error within Entourage.
The error reads "could not synchronize record: to Exchange server: " Error -18800.
I am able to send email with out a problem and even receive it sometimes. I find that from time to time my mail stops coming from the Exchange server. I can prove this by sending myself mail or checking through my OWA webmail. Clearing the cache in Entourage temporarily resolves the issue.
I have been busy reading the web looking for possible solutions. Although there are a few posts sounding very similar to mine, none of their solutions have been applicable. None of my operators are using shared calendars.
I am trying to receive my mail in headers only mode. I have stopped Nortons and Spotlight from scanning my "MUD". Still I find that incoming mail can not be relied upon.
I support about 25 Mac workstations within a large organisation (3500+ PCs).
I have only just upgraded the department to Snow Leopard. This was done by moving the MUD from the old Leopard workstation to the new one. I did not even need to key in the account details. I have of course tried making new accounts. These behave just the same.
Any advice?
Thanks in advance,
Brent.

 

[8rent]

Has no one ever heard of a -18800 error?

What things could be wrong with my configuration or network to cause my connection to the exchange servers incoming mail to drop out?

What are the usual reasons that cause people to continually have to clear their Entourage cache to receive incoming mail?

Any ideas how to trouble shoot this problem?

 

[Diane Ross]

Has no one ever heard of a -18800 error?

We have no info on this error.

What things could be wrong with my configuration or network to cause my
connection to the exchange servers incoming mail to drop out?

What are the usual reasons that cause people to continually have to clear
their Entourage cache to receive incoming mail?

Both of these have various answers.

Any ideas how to trouble shoot this problem?

You could try running tcpflow to monitor the traffic. It might show what is
happening.

How to use TCPflow to test Send & Receive:

<http://www.entourage.mvps.org/troubleshoot/tcpflow.html>


--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://tinyurl.com/bzcrjy> <-- Entourage mailing list
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/entouragehelp>

 

[8rent]

Thank you very much for your reply Diane.
Although I am in IT support, my area of expertise is in pre-press and its associated applications.
I have not had to work with an Exchange Server or Entourage before.
To be honest in my almost 20 years working behind a Mac I have never had these sort of dramas with email before.
In the past I have found that my email either works or it doesn't.
This is intermittent and thus harder for me to solve.
To make things more difficult I do not have access to the Exchange Server to check the configurations, just instructions on how to connect to it.
There are other Macs here that use these settings with no problems, but they are all a few years old.
To add to the mystery I was able to integrate with the Exchange server when using Leopard.
This issue has only occurred since upgrading the department to Snow Leopard. Entourage is running all of the latest updates. To move each operator to the new workstations I simply moved the MUD folder across. The network settings are of course identical to those that we used with the old Leopard Macs. Sure has got me scratching my head.

Thank you for pointing me towards TCPflow. I now have some more reading to do.

Cheers,
Brent.

 

[Diane Ross]

The network settings are of course identical to those that we used with the
old Leopard Macs. Sure has got me scratching my head.

This sounds like something in Snow Leopard, but have no clue what it could
be.

--
Diane Ross, Microsoft Mac MVP
Entourage Help Page <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://tinyurl.com/bzcrjy> <-- Entourage mailing list
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/entouragehelp>

 

[8rent]

For sure, as the most obvious variable has been the upgrade of the operating system. I hope the problem lies with the OS at least I can make changes on this &quot;side of the fence&quot;. Every thing else works well across the network. Our access and authentication to the internet proxy server was intermittent with Leopard. Snow Leopard has improved this. Our connection to the proxy server is now rock solid.

 

[8rent]

Diane, not sure if you are still following this. This is quite a busy little forum, full of people all with their own problems. I stumbled across a system setting that has been causing the grief. All is well now thanks for your help.

 

[Diane Ross]

I stumbled across a system setting that has been causing the grief. All
is well now thanks for your help.

What was the system setting?

 

[8rent]

The parental controls preference was activated.
Although it was set to allow unrestricted access to the web and not to filter mail it has been playing havoc with our network connections. The problem did not exist when on the Leopard OS (there it clashed with our web proxy instead). In Snow Leopard, for what ever reason, the web proxy works fine but Entourages access to the Exchange server is hobbled. The difference with it turned off is amazing! A restart is required, then suddenly everything syncs almost instantly.
No errors being logged any more and no need to clear the cache repeatedly to access incoming mail.
All my operators are happy again!
Thanks again for your help Diane.

 

[Diane Ross]

The parental controls preference was activated.

This is one I would never have even considered. Thanks for sharing.