Outlook Connection to Exchange Server Intermittent

[Chaplain Doug]

Server Config: Windows 2003 Server, Exchange Server 2005

Client Config: Windows XP SR3. Outlook 2003 Professional

Client Connection to Exchange Server: RPC over HTTP

I have a client who is connected to our Exchange Server from outside our
LAN. The client computer is connected using "RPC over HTTP." We have many
users in the field using the same type of connection, including me, who are
not experiencing any connection problems.

For the client in question, sometimes it takes 3 minutes to kake the initial
connection to Exchange, even though the Windows Username/Password prompt
comes up indicating that the server has been reached. But after entering the
username and password, Outlook says "Trying to connect" in the bottom
right-hand status bar sometimes for minutes (up to 15). Once connected all
the data is synchronized. However, at interniitent points later in the day
Outlook will say "Connection lost ..." and "trying to connect . . ." and the
end result is that Outlook has to be exited and brought back up or the
Outlook session can stay in that state for a long time. Sometimes exiting
Outlook and bringing it back up clears the problem. Other times it does not.
This client had been clicking along just fine for over a year until a couple
of weeks ago, then this interniitent problem became persistent.

Does anyone know of any reason why an Outlook client would behave this way.
What things might I check on the client (or server) to figure out why they
are having the problem?

By the way, when Outlook was stuck "Trying to connect" to the Exchange
Server, I pinged the Exchange Server from the client and the pings were all
successful.

 

[Dennis C. in Virginia Beach, VA]

Dr. Pruiett,

Wow! Here are a few Microsoft Knowledge Base articles that appear to be
directly related to your issue. I hope they are of some use to you.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/331320
"Outlook 2003 Performs Slowly or Stops Responding When Connected to Exchange
Server 2003 Through HTTP"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/831051
"How to use the RPC Ping utility to troubleshoot connectivity issues with
the Exchange over the Internet feature in Outlook 2007 and in Outlook 2003"

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/827330
"How to troubleshoot client RPC over HTTP connection issues in Outlook 2003"


One of the concepts behind HTTP, the way I understand it, is a connection to
the server is opened on a "temporary" basis and there takes place a carefully
orchestrated series of "ESTABLISHED", "LISTENING" and "TIME_WAIT" states for
the connection. If a client is idle for to long a period of time the
connection is regarded as having "timed out", expired or no longer needed and
the HTTP server on the OTHER end does not continue to wait for the client
(the user's browser or Outlook program in this case) to request the next
packet of data.

This is all equivalent to the dedicated line (analog) style of old telephone
calls versus the new and emerging intermittent style (digital) of "Voice over
IP" protocol calls you may hear about these days (e.g. Vonage telephone).

The non-dedicated connections are less expensive to maintain (allegedly) and
make better use of the bandwidth resources we all share that make up the
public Internet.

Good luck!

 

[Chaplain Doug]

Thanks Dennis:

The articles you cite do not address my scenario. The first article
indicates that the problem for which the article is written was addressed in
Windows XP SR2 and the hotfix is dated in 2002. The client in question is
using Windows XP SR3.

The other two articles deal with how to troublehoot the connection if there
is no working connection (i.e., how to set up the connection so that it works
at all). My client connects and is configured as all the other working
clients as far as the connection. The client just has intermittent problems.

It seems like it must be something peculiar on this client, not related to
the connection setup in Outlook. Any other ideas?