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OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS

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OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 11.Jul.2007 5:12:42 AM

mjf41

Posts: 50
Joined: 2.Mar.2006
Status: offline

Hi Guys/Girls,

We have stumbled across a very interesting problem with the use of Outlook 2003 in an Exchange 2007 environment. It seems to result in the Out Of Office assistant being out of sync between Outlook 2003 & OWA. We have approx 100 users and I am getting more and more complaints with out of office replies being old and out of date.

I have checked the 'Remote Domain' properties and made sure selected is 'Allow external out-of-office messages, and out-of-office messages set by Outlook 2003 or earlier clients or sent by Exchange Server 2003 or earlier servers'. However this option still has not helped.

As a run through this is what happens:

1. Changed the out-of-office message within Outlook 2003 from older OOF to new date etc. (No rules are being used). Click OK.
2. Sent test e-mail to mail account and the OLD OOF is sent back to the sender.

The only way I seem to get OWA and Outlook 2003 back in sync is to remove the text within OWA from the 'External' & 'Internal' out of office replies and then go back within Outlook 2003 and set the OOF again.

I need to do the above process for each time an out of office is set. As I am sure you can appreciate it gets quite tiresome at times.

If anyone knows of an incompatibility issue or resolution for this I would really appreciate your views and opinions. I hear that SP1 for Exchange 2007 is due out any time soon so does anyone know if this also has fixes for the out of office? I have reviewed the notes for SP1 and it does not mention a lot of OWA updates.

Any posts will be replied to extremely promptly as I would really like to get to the bottom of this issue.

Many thanks in advance!

Post #: 1

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RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 23.Jul.2007 6:42:06 PM

sbouse

Posts: 17
Joined: 3.Dec.2004
From: work
Status: offline

We have the same issue with Office 2003 and Exchange 2007. We have been working with Microsoft for a few months. They do suggest exporting the Outlook 2003 user rules, running outlook /cleanrules from the start, run line, and then reimporting the rules..or upgrading to Office 2007 to correct. Have you made any progress or found another solution? Steve

(in reply to mjf41)

Post #: 2

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 24.Jul.2007 4:30:13 AM

mjf41

Posts: 50
Joined: 2.Mar.2006
Status: offline

Hi Steve, Sorry no update on this yet. If you hear anything more then please let me know. I have currently 70 very anoyed Users that OOF does not seem to be working correctly for. Ah ho! LOL!

(in reply to sbouse)

Post #: 3

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 25.Jul.2007 1:21:47 PM

sbouse

Posts: 17
Joined: 3.Dec.2004
From: work
Status: offline

do you have a Blackberry Enterprise Server? if so, what version, and are your affected users Blackberry users too? steve

(in reply to mjf41)

Post #: 4

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 26.Jul.2007 3:53:06 AM

mjf41

Posts: 50
Joined: 2.Mar.2006
Status: offline

Hi Steve, Yes we have a BES Server running 4.1.4.

I fail however to see how the Blackberry server would come into this......The issue is the SYNC between Outlook and Exchange.

This issue happens to non-blackberry users also. What was the reason Steve for suggesting this?

Thanks.

(in reply to mjf41)

Post #: 5

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 26.Jul.2007 7:22:23 AM

sbouse

Posts: 17
Joined: 3.Dec.2004
From: work
Status: offline

The list of our affected Outlook 2003/Ex2007 users are all BES users so far. We have BES 4.1.3.18 (upgraded to be compatible with Ex2007). Microsoft checked, and each customer with the same issue also has BES. Do you have a case open with Microsoft. If so, I can tell you who we are working with and you can work towards a resolution that much quicker. Steve

(in reply to mjf41)

Post #: 6

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 6.Sep.2007 11:32:20 PM

sbouse

Posts: 17
Joined: 3.Dec.2004
From: work
Status: offline

Microsoft has confirmed this to be an Exchange 2007 issue affecting BES and Outlook 2003 users..and will be fixed in SP1. :)

(in reply to mjf41)

Post #: 7

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 4.Dec.2007 6:20:23 PM

cda71

Posts: 2
Joined: 4.Dec.2007
Status: offline

You wouldn't happen to have a KB article or something that officially states this would you?

Thanks for your help.

C

(in reply to sbouse)

Post #: 8

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 4.Dec.2007 8:40:18 PM

sbouse

Posts: 17
Joined: 3.Dec.2004
From: work
Status: offline

there isn't one yet that i know of, but I have asked microsoft for a list of fixes that SP1 addresses..they are working on it...

(in reply to cda71)

Post #: 9

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 4.Dec.2007 8:56:07 PM

cda71

Posts: 2
Joined: 4.Dec.2007
Status: offline

Thanks very much for yor quick reply. I would be interested in that final list if you ever do receive it.

Thanks again,

C

(in reply to sbouse)

Post #: 10

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 23.Jan.2008 10:16:03 AM

jasonraff

Posts: 4
Joined: 23.Jan.2008
Status: offline

We are still experiencing this problem even after installing SP1. Anyone else still having issues with Outlook 2003 and OOF?

(in reply to cda71)

Post #: 11

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 7.Mar.2008 7:07:56 AM

majobu

Posts: 2
Joined: 7.Mar.2008
Status: offline

quote:

ORIGINAL: jasonraff

We are still experiencing this problem even after installing SP1. Anyone else still having issues with Outlook 2003 and OOF?

The same problem here... after installing SP1. All BES users are experiencing the OOF problem. I asked some Microsoft Gold Partners for help. They sent me the following statement they received from M$:

quote:

I have checked the known issues regarding to the OOF messages. Yes, we have definitely some - especially when Blackberry is in use. The root of the problems is that Blackberry and Exchange changes the OOF rules not the same way.

The most of issues were already fixed in Exchange 2007 SP1, but we need some fixes also from the Blackberry-side.

Known issues:

Duplicated/old OOF messages received > fixed in SP1

Workaround:
The problem is more likely a problem with OOF rules. OOF is actually a server side rule in user's mailbox. It may corrupt, or damaged. When this occurs, we run Outlook with the /cleanrules switch to clear out the rules and recreate the OOF rule, so everything will then come back normal.

Workaround #2:
1) Launch the MFCMapi tool.
2) Open the Mailbox of the affected user.
3) Right click on the Inbox folder and select Open Associated Contents Table.
4) Select the Message Class column and find the IPM.Rule.Message and IPM.Note.Rules.OofTemplate.Microsoft messages
5) Before deleting the messages you can take backup of the template message the user had set for his OOF rule
6) Delete these messages for the affected user.

Workaround #3:

Set up OOF through OWA 2007.

-------------------------------

Background information:

The duplicate OOF messages are sent because the legacy rule is enabled on an Exchange 2007 server - as well as the new EXCHANGE 2007 OOF rule(s).

When OOFAssistant see an interesting mapiEvent for a mailbox for the first time on an EXCHANGE 2007 server, it disables the legacy OOF rule. After that, it does not disable the legacy OOF rule again (unless the user changes the OOF settings with OWA or Outlook 2007).

When an Outlook 2003 user turns on OOF for the very first time, it creates the legacy OOF rule (enabled). When turning OOF off/on, Outlook 2003 leaves the legacy OOF rule in place and just changes a mailbox property to enable/disable OOF messages. Thus, if something (say OOFAssistant) had disabled the legacy OOF rule, it remains disabled when Outlook 2003 turns OOF off and on.

The problem appears in the following situation also:
- A mailbox is created on an EXCHANGE 2007 server. OOFAssistant sees some interesting mapiEvent related to that mailbox. OOFAssistant runs code to disable the legacy OOF rule, but since Outlook 2003 has not created one yet, OOFAssistant does nothing.
- The user turns on OOF with Outlook 2003 for the very first time. Outlook 2003 creates the new legacy OOF rule (enabled).
- OOFAssistant processes the change to the legacy OOF rule by creating the new EXCHANGE 2007 OOF rule(s).
- Duplicate OOF messages are sent.

We have fixed the issue - now OOFAssistant will check and disable the legacy OOF rule every time it encounters an interesting mapiEvent.

Resolution:
---------------
I would suggest to install the Exchange SP1 (You need Windows 2003 SP2 also for the installation.).

Marcus

(in reply to jasonraff)

Post #: 12

RE: OWA 2007, OUTLOOK 2003, EXCHANGE 2007 OOF PROBLEMS - 16.Apr.2008 12:41:37 PM

WillFulmer

Posts: 1
Joined: 16.Feb.2007
Status: offline

I have a "quickfix" for this issue. It only is relevant if you are running Exchange 2007 SP1 and BES 4.1.4 MR4. You cannot be using 4.1.5 or MR5. This is a quickfix released by the RIM team and will fix this issue until 4.1.5 MR1 is released, date To Be Announced.

See http://www.blackberryforums.com/bes-admin-corner/112250-out-office-oof-corruption-blackberry-bes-exchange-2007-a.html

(in reply to majobu)

Post #: 13