Outlook Client Cannot Connect to Exchange Server
Tagged with: Email • Exchange Server • Microsoft • Technical • work
Scenario:
Only one user cannot connect to Exchange with Outlook. OWA (Outlook Web Access) works fine and no one else has reported the problem. Lower right corner of Outlook shows something like “Cannot connect to Exchange Server”. Reboot Outlook and now Outlook won’t even load up. It starts and you can see something that might be the inbox, but then Outlook closes and throws up an error. I have never seen this before…
I immediately created a faux POP3 account and removed the Exchange account. Outlook opens just fine. Stranger still… I then recreated the Exchange account and then Outlook fails with an error message along the lines of “Offline file folder needs to sync before Outlook can be opened”.
Thus starts my troubleshooting journey listed below.
Things that Didn’t Solve the Issue:
- Tried removing Mail Properties profile
- Tried non-cached Exchange mode
- Tried syncing time of computer to Time Server on Network
- Tried release and renew of IP address
- Tried adding user’s account on my machine and I got the same error
- Tried moving the mailbox to a different partition on the Exchange server (we have multiple partitions for storing mailboxes)
- Tried deleting mailbox (after backing up to .pst file)
Other Notes:
- Can ping Exchange Server from user’s system
- OWA works fine from inside and outside the network
- User has appropriate permissions on his account and has been made a temp machine admin
- Exchange server is it’s own box in AD, no other services running on it
- Ran Outlook in Safe Mode (“Outlook /safe” from Run dialog box) which only worked when a POP3 account was the default account
- Ran Outlook RPC Test (“Outlook /rpcdiag” from Run dialog box) which ran and all tests completed meaning there is a connection to the Exchange server.
After some headaches and countless hours of searching I have found the solution to the above problem is caused by the assumption that our server’s NIC card has the latest drivers. Basically none other than M$ (Microsoft), assumed with their latest version of Exchange that the server’s NIC card has the latest drivers. If the server doesn’t, there are some new TCP/IP features Exchange has enabled that may cause problems. Problem solved from this link…
Broadcom has provided an update to their drivers that helps resolves the issues with these offloading feature problems. To determine if you have the correct update, you need to check the version numbers to ensure they are 3.7.19 or later. Anything lower than that does not have the fixes in them.
What breaks, or what might be affected by having older drivers?
- You cannot create a Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) connection to the server.
- You cannot connect to shares on the server from a computer on the local area network.
- You cannot connect to Microsoft Exchange Server from a computer that is running Microsoft Outlook.
- You can only connect to Web sites that are hosted on the server or on the Internet by using a secure sockets layer (SSL) connection. In this scenario, you cannot connect to a Web site that does not use SSL encryption.
- You experience slow network performance.
- You cannot create an outgoing FTP connection from the server.
- You experience intermittent RPC communications failures.
- Some Outlook clients may be unable to connect to Exchange.
- You cannot run the Configure E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard successfully.
- Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server blocks RPC communications.
- You cannot browse Internet Information Services (IIS) Virtual Directories.
In Support Services, we are also seeing some of the following behaviors when clients are trying to connect to the Exchange server.
- 32 MAPI sessions exceeded (9646 errors) causing the inability for Outlook clients to connect to the Information Store. This can occur more frequently with VPN connected clients and we have also seen scenarios where Exchange 2007 is affected with Windows 2003 SP2 installed as well.
- Non-paged pool memory leaks caused by having the Chimney feature enabled. Sometimes you can’t even start the IIS services when Non-paged pool gets below 20MB.
- The Inability to logon to Outlook Web Services or even IIS for that matter, either locally or remotely.
- Networking throughput is decreased when these features are turned on. This is the opposite of what the Networking Pack is supposed to do.
- Cluster ISAlive checks fail randomly
- TCP Connections are reset when RSS is enabled.
- TCP port exhaustion
Reasons for Issue:
Exchange server has a Broadcom Net Extreme II NIC card. The driver version was 3.0.x and according to the link above I found if your version is 3.7.19 or lower, than there may be issues on the server. This seems like an odd fix since only one user has the problem. Exchange by default has some new TCP/IP features enabled. Older NIC drivers aren’t compatible with these features, so you need to update your drivers to solve the issue.
I found all of this from the link I have above, but since it solved the issue, here it is again. I think there are a few issues though that may have caused this problem for the one particular user. With the primary one being he is a new user. Beyond that I am not really sure what else could of caused this to happen.
I guess I’m just glad the problem is solved. 
Welcome to my blog! Topics tend to focus on Science and Technology, but I throw in personal stuff too. I hope you enjoy!
January 31st, 2008 at 6:43 am
You don’t sound like a server guy, but my advice is to use Intel Pro1000 adapters on servers whenever possible. A little forethought saves a lot of hassle.
And it sounds like you earned your money in this case
January 31st, 2008 at 8:58 am
You are correct, I am not the server guy. But I do get to work on servers from time to time.
I have grown to loathe Broadcom and they seem to be the worst in the industry, but Dell for some reason is infatuated with them. And unfortunately we have a lot of Dells.
Thanks for the compliment
February 21st, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Thanks for the above we have recently had a new server setup and we are having similar issues Guess what it a Broadcom NIC, gona check this out tommorow
February 21st, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Glad to hear this post may have helped someone Zaheer! And hopefully you guys get your server up and going. Normally up-to-date drivers is the number thing for any server, but I think for most people it’s a thing of, the server is working and there are no complaints so I’m not about to touch it. At least that’s how it was for my when I was managing a small office server.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:53 am
I am having a similar issue and Microsoft has a technet article relating to this exact issue but they are limiting the issue to Small Business Server. Are you running SBS?
February 29th, 2008 at 11:57 am
No. Here at my institution we have a volume licensing agreement and I think we have Enterprise.
February 29th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
We had this exact problem at my company. I’m the desktop guy, and spent a couple of days banging my head against this problem, trying to get our *ONE* user connected to exchange. Eventually I crossed off enough possibilities, and elevated it to our server guy who found your article. I can just imagine this question on some MCSE exam:
You are managing a network of 250 users where only one user is complaining that their Outlook client can’t connect to Exchange. Do you:
(A) Create a new Outlook profile for the user.
(B) Re-install Outlook on the user’s computer.
(C) Verify the user’s connection to the LAN.
(D) Upgrade the NIC drivers on the Exchange server.
I stared in disbelief when Outlook successfully opened the user’s account on a test machine after upgrading the drivers, and had a good laugh with the rest of the IT department. All in all, a great way to end a week that started out with so much frustration. Thank you so much for posting this solution!
– Ken
March 1st, 2008 at 11:17 am
No probs Ken! Glad to see it helped someone.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:37 am
I have exact problem here. I recently updated the network card driver to the current one however this problem still exist. What I assuming is that we have third party company that does provide our emal system. so my question is if the third company does not update the driver on there mail server would not solve the problem right?
Thank you.
May 23rd, 2008 at 7:43 am
Most likely yes. The NIC driver that needs to be updated is the one located on the server, not the clients. Although updating the client NICs is never a bad idea.
I would recommend calling the third party company and asking them what NIC they have on the server, the version number for that NIC, and the date for the driver. I suspect if you are having the same problem, their server NIC drivers are a little old.
Good luck!
August 1st, 2008 at 4:28 am
Solved it for us too, although this wasn’t a new user it was a new machine …
Ah well, only took 8 hours and a couple of reinstalls
Thanks guys
August 1st, 2008 at 7:14 pm
No problem. This is still one of the more stranger issues I have come across…
October 28th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Same issue, one client could not access email server on a Compaq ml370G3 with SBS2003. Tried everything and was about to give up and I found this blog. Updated the driver on my server an problem solved!
October 28th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Glad I could help! I know how big of a pain this problem can be.
December 16th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Actually, I had this same issue with one of my users. However, the broadcom NIC was in the client machine. After updating the driver Outlook fired right up and went past the Configuring Client screen it froze on every time before. Thanks for the article, i have been working on this for three days, off and on.
December 16th, 2008 at 4:52 pm
No problem Stevo! Glad it helped you.
December 17th, 2008 at 4:08 am
hi there, i have experienced the same problem, and already tried the update from microsoft, but still get the same problem, so i have to disable the network card restart windows then enable again. it was few months ago, but now i got the same problem almost every day, so each morning or afternoon i have to do the disable restart enable things… could any one help me (i’m using 3COM ethernet card) ?thank you
April 13th, 2010 at 9:11 pm
I facing the problem in configuring my account in outlook exchange. But i can access in OWA web mail. So do anyone here had the idea in how to solve it? Thanks
April 14th, 2010 at 6:34 am
This probably is not the best place for Outlook support. I recommend trying the website: Server Fault.
May 9th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
I just got a new laptop for work and am having the issue you’ve outlined. Is there something I can do for my own laptop without the help of my help desk folks? I’ve clicked the link you provided but have no idea what any of that means and what I should actually do to solve my problem.
Thanks,
May 9th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
Also, where do I look to find what version I have (“version is 3.7.19 or lower”)?
May 9th, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I doubt you are having this same problem as newer NICs and Exchange servers should of fixed this issue. I’m guessing your issue would be solved elsewhere.
If you want, forward this post to an IT guy that you have befriended in your org (If you haven’t made friends with any of the IT people in your org, what are thinking?) and see what they think. I know our last thought was that the items in this post would solve our problem, but sure enough they did.
Your best bet is probably going to be to call your helpdesk or talk to an IT person in your org and have them troubleshoot your system first.
July 8th, 2010 at 11:31 am
I came across the same exact issue while trying to configure outlook for new PC’s that were recently added to out domain.
Talked to the network administrator, and he found another solution.
this is what he emailed me:
“Microsoft Exchange System Attendant service was not running on exchange. After a reboot last week the service did not automatically come back up. I started the service and tested my outlook client and it works fine now.”
Now i’m able to add new clients to outlook.
hope this can help someone else.