Outlook spontaneously loses connection to Exchange2K

[Long]

Hi -



I'm running Exchange 2000 SP3 on Windows 2000 Server SP4 and using Outlook
2002 as the client. Of the 100 machines in this office, there is one that
behaves in ways that defy any logic to me and, worst of all, said machine
belongs to the CEO.



Specifically, when he opens Outlook, it'll prompt him for his credentials or
it'll hang while retrieving data from the Exchange server. This syndrome
occurs, spontaneously, every few days. The frustrating part is that there's
no clear pattern for this behavior. He'll use the machine fine for 3 or 4
days and then the following day he'll experience the issue I just described.
To resolve it, he needs to reboot the machine.



So far I've noticed the issue occurring mostly in the morning. The local
event log shows nothing suspicious and he's able to access all network
resources whilst experiencing the behavior described above so I gather that
to means he's authenticated just fine on the network.



Thinking that his machine may have gone bad I gave him another to test with
and it too experienced the same behavior (prompting for credentials or
hanging while retrieving data from Exchange server) so I ruled out hardware
defect. The only thing left that I am suspicious about is the fact that he
also checks his email via OWA and often times he forgets to close out of it
when he leaves his house. I think because of this the domain event log
records an Event ID 681 every 2 minutes. In so far as thinking his account
may be inadvertently locked out because of that I raised the threshold of
the lockout policy to no avail.



I've ran out of ideas - can someone please help?



Many thanks

 

[Ilya 'Koichi' Sretenskhii]

Well, I can't say what's the reason of your problem, I just know one issue
where Exchange/Outlook is hanging. Exchange 2000.
We have some errors in our EDBs, Event Viewer says we have bad blocks on the
HDD.
So while tring to read, move, erase or anything some old messages from
Exchange, Outlook 2002 & Outlook 2003 just hang.
I think I'm gonna have to try ESEFILE.EXE from "support\utils\i386"
Maybe, that might be the case, to examine the Exchange's databases.
I know no other causes for Outlook to hang. Yet.

 

[Pat Cai [MSFT]]

Is the CEO a domain user? If so, whether he is using the same mailbox as
his logon account? If he has not logged on to his domain account, then he
will get a password dialog before be able to access the mailbox.

Regarding the dialog "Retrieving message from Exchange server", please have
a look at this KB article which describes all abnormal scenarios that may
cause this problem.

839862 How to troubleshoot the RPC Cancel Request dialog box in Outlook
2003 or
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=839862

This is a known issue in Outlook 2002/2003 and it does not indicate any
problem in the system. In fact, Outlook 2000 does not have this dialog so
you did not encounter it before. This feature begins from Outlook 2002
(XP). And you can control the behavior of this dialog box, even disable it
by modifying client's registry.

833007 How to change the behavior of the Cancel Request dialog box in
Outlook
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=833007

If this problem only occurs on a particular user, your CEO, please try to
create a new Outlook profile for another mailbox on his machine. So we can
isolate that whether this problem is caused by his mailbox.

If this problem is proved to be a mailbox corrupted issue eventually, we
can try to recreate a mailbox for him. Before, please try to rebuild his
Exchange attributes.

-- Open ADUC snap-in. If you are using Exchange 2000, then please enable
Advanced Features on the View menu.
-- Right-click on the user, select Exchange Tasks/Remove Exchange attributes
-- In ESM, run cleanup agent on the Server/Mailbox Store/Mailboxes first,
and then reconnect the isolated mailbox to the user
-- All of his previous data will be reserved since he still use the same
mailbox, but refresh the Exchange attributes
-- Make a new Outlook profile for this user and test the issue again.

For more information, please refer to:

XGEN: Using the "Remove Exchange Attributes" Option
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=307350

813337 How To Recover or Restore a Single Mailbox in Exchange 2000 Server
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=813337

Hope the info helps.

Regards

Pat Cai
Microsoft Online Partner Support


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[Long]

The CEO is indeed a domain user and he is using the same mailbox as his
logon account. I will try the recommended procedures and report back. Many
thanks

 

[Pat Cai [MSFT]]

If you have any further question regarding this problem, please feel free
to post back. I will continue to monitor this thread.

Regards

Pat Cai
Microsoft Online Partner Support

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Reply-To: "Long" <[email protected]>
From: "Long" <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>