Exchange frequently "not connected"

[vcpsy00i]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Email Client: imap Many times a day, I see "Exchange not connected." When this occurs, I cannot seem to reestablish the connection and cannot send or receive mail until it "magically" reconnects. I do not understand why or how this happens and how I can reestablish the connection.

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Many times a day, I see "Exchange not connected." When this occurs, I
cannot seem to reestablish the connection and cannot send or receive
mail until it "magically" reconnects. I do not understand why or how
this happens and how I can reestablish the connection.

Your network connection is more than likely the culprit.

Make note of your server address and then when you see Entourage is not
connected, open the Network Utility found in /Applications/Utilties.

Ping the server by its address and see if you get a response. If it
responds then attempt to connect by entering the address into Safari and
connecting this way.

If you're using the Web Services Edition of Entourage then set up
Apple's Mail to connect as well. Test with it when Entourage doesn't work.

Post back if you find that Entourage is the only application unable to
connect to your server when you see it disconnected.

Hope this helps!

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[vcpsy00i]

Thanks, Bill, but I'm not sure I understand your reply, which suggests that I enter the server address into Safari. Is this your suggestion if I am not checking my mail via the web, but rather through MS Entourage as a &quot;stand alone&quot; client. At least, I think it is stand alone. I am new to the MAC environment. I used to use MS Outlook as my email client and thought Entourage would be similar. The interface looks similar, but I never had this problem on my PC - not that I'd want to return to that world, even with this problem. ;-)

 

[William Smith [MVP]]

Thanks, Bill, but I'm not sure I understand your reply, which suggests
that I enter the server address into Safari. Is this your suggestion if
I am not checking my mail via the web, but rather through MS Entourage
as a "stand alone" client. At least, I think it is stand alone. I am new
to the MAC environment. I used to use MS Outlook as my email client and
thought Entourage would be similar. The interface looks similar, but I
never had this problem on my PC - not that I'd want to return to that
world, even with this problem. ;-)

This is all testing and troubleshooting.

If you're using the WebDAV version of Entourage (you are unless you've
installed the Web Services Edition as an upgrade) then you should be
able to connect directly to your Exchange server using Safari. Safari
and Entourage use the same protocol, so if one works then both should
work. Or if one fails then both should fail.

Many folks assume Entourage is a port of Outlook. It's not. It has
similar features but it's not developed to be the same as Outlook.

--

bill

Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>
YouTalk <http://nine.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/youtalk>
Twitter: follow <http://twitter.com/meck>

 

[alecs]

Bill,

I have the same problem, and determined (I think) that it is my network. I use the web services edition, and when my entourage is disconnected I also cannot use Apple's mail, which usually works.

My question: what can I do about it? I use a cable internet connection, over wifi.

Please let me know your thoughts.

-Al

 

[Rob_Ryan]

Assuming the problem is not the network, you might want to look into

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329067/en-us

or

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947699

I'm trying to diagnose a similar problem: We have two new iMacs (and one older Mac) on the office LAN that recently have started disconnecting from the Exchange Server. The machines, without any warning message, simply disconnect, and next to the user's account in Entourage it says &quot;(Not connected)&quot;. When the user tries to send email, it just sits in the outbox. If they quit Entourage and restart, they report that it doesn't connect at all, then. The only thing that seems to work is rebooting the machine.

I'm going in Friday to take a look at the machines, but was wondering if anyone has any suggestions, to make my site visit most productive.

In my case, after reviewing http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947699 I'm skeptical that this is our problem because (a) this suggests that sending email will prompt it to reconnect, which it doesn't in this case; and (b) IT reports no server outages.

I think http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329067/en-us is more promising (though I'm waiting for IT to confirm).

FYI, users are running Mac OS X 10.6.2 with Entourage 2008 12.2.0. Server is running Exchange Server 2003 with latest service packs. Not running EWS (Exchange Web Services) because we're not running Exchange 2007 (yet). I'll do the updates to get the client machines up to date, but I don't see anything in the release notes for the subsequent updates that say anything about this issue.

I would definitely appreciate any suggestions that anyone might have.