Outlook must be online or connected…

After I completed setup of my first Exchange 2013 server and load balacer, I decided to test the clients before diving into setting up second server and DAG.

First test was on Outlook 2010 client. I fired up the Outlook client and proceeded to usual profile configuration wizard at first launch. The wizard found settings and proceeded to last step of logging on to the server. To my surprise, it took longer than usual. Everything was configured correctly so I decided to wait. It took about 40 seconds before Outlook choked on an error: “the connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.”

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Clicking ok took me to next and somewhat familiar screen of profile setup, showing Exchange server and mailbox information. Not surprisingly, for exchange server, it shows guid@smtpdomain of user mailbox. This is new to Exchange 2013. Exchange 2013 creates a connection point comprised of mailbox GUID @ primary smtp address in effort to nearly eliminate the familiar “Your administrator has made a change to your mailbox. Please restart.” message. Refer to “Exchange 2013 Architecture section of this TechNet article (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150540(v=exchg.150).aspx) for more details.

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Now I have to figure out how to make this work since Outlook 2007 and above is supported client versions for Exchange 2013.

Since I had second client machine with Outlook 2013 handy, I proceeded to first test the differences between the clients and see if that made any difference in the initial experience. If I were to tell you that it just worked without the error I was getting in Outlook 2010, will you be surprised? Smile

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At this point, it was clear that the issue wasn’t my server or load balancer configuration. The issue was certainly local to Outlook 2010. So on to trustee Bing.com… and what did I find? Outlook 2010 update released on April 2012. While Microsoft knowledge base article KB2596959 referenced in the update doesn’t exactly map to the issue I was having, it caught my attention as it mentioned [email protected].

I immediately downloaded the update and applied it to Outlook 2010 client.

Now, will you be surprised if I tell you that Outlook 2010 had no problem setting up profile correctly after I applied this update? Winking smile

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2 thoughts on “Outlook must be online or connected…”

  1. Hi ,
    I have recently installed the exchange 2013 as follow
    one CAS and Two mail box DAG
    so I was facing similar issue outlook clients were not able not see the CAS
    so here are the magic solution :
    1-created SRV record for auto discover
    right click the FLZ, click Other New Records. Select Service Location (SRV). Enter _autodiscover as the Service, _tcp as the Protocal, 443 for the Port, and autodiscover.domain.com as the Host offering this service. Hit OK.
    2-created A record for auto discover and the IP same as CAS IP
    3-created an internal Certificate in CAS server "create a new certificate request " and include all names such CAS , MB's , Auto discover this step to avoid the warning message during outlook setup because self-sign certificates in ex2013 not helping
    after that I have tested the outlook and was working fine NO GUID and NO certificates warning

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