Question

Mac Mail nightmare with Exchange Server - Please Help!

Asked by: jiggamoose

Mostly PC's in our office but we have about 4 Mac's.  We run SBS 2003 with Exchange Server.

Our Mac Users are using OS X 10.4.7 - Mail version 2.1

I have Exchange enabled with IMAP access.

Apple Mail works but it is often painfully slow - taking forever to show messages, or frequent connection timeouts, or goes offline

I really have no idea what else to do to solve the problem - I have gotten the users to reduce the size of their mailbox, I have entered in the server's IP address instead of full name etc etc.

The users would prefer to use Apple Mail - they are not interested in using entourage or OWA.  

Has anyone else experienced these issues and if so, would you have any suggestions for improving the performance of Apple Mail?

Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks

Mark

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2006-11-27 at 11:01:05ID22073693
Tags

exchange

,

mail

,

mac

,

server

Topic

Apple Software

Participating Experts
2
Points
500
Comments
13

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Entourage offline and Exchange
    All: Have a customer who would like to work offline in Entourage on his Mac laptop. He picked it up about 6 months ago. His network is SBS 2003 and XP machines all over. I have him connecting via remote desktop to his office PC, but he wants to take it to the next level. My ...
  2. Apple MAC, Mail
    Hi There, Am a bit of a MAC newbie so any advice would be appreciated! Have recently purchased a MAC running version 10.5.2 for a designer to run on our Windows SBS 2003 network running exchange 2003. Have binded to our Acive Directory Domain with no issues. Can access all ...
  3. OWA+Entourage not working for mac users
    Hello We have an sbs2003 R2 SP2 with GFI Mailessentials 14 and AVG 9. All the windows clients can use OWA and outlook. However when we try to access OWA on the Mac's, the page keeps loading and never shows up. When they try to send an email within entourage, the mail is stuck...

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-11-27 at 17:31:41ID: 18024359

Do you have all the latest patches installed for your SBS server and Exchange server? There is another recent post here in which the Mac connectivity problems were solved by updating the Exchange server.

 

by: jiggamoosePosted on 2006-11-28 at 05:57:49ID: 18027761

Strung,

Everything is fully patched and up to date.

Unfortunately I don't think that appears to be the problem.

Thanks though

Mark

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-11-28 at 06:06:35ID: 18027840

There are also some suggestions here:

http://www.macfixit.com/article.php?story=20050427062905210&query=mail+slow+with+exchange+server

Among the suggestions there (quoting from MacFixit):

Deleting Mail.app cache and .plist file Deleting the following folder:

    * ~/Library/Mail/Caches/Mail

and this file:

    * ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.mail.plist

may provide faster Mail.app performance in some cases.

Turning off SSL Turning off the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) option in Mail.app's preferences (Click "Server Settings..." for the desired account) appears to resolve performance issues with IMAP servers in some cases. Note, however, that this will disable access to some servers that require this option to be turned on.

MacFixIt reader Chris Janton, for instance, writes:

"When connecting to the IMAP server using SSL on port 993 all sorts of odd behavior - slow, not completely quitting, etc.

"If you turn off secure mail (back to port 143) the bad behavior seems to go away, at least I haven't observed the odd behavior."

 

by: jiggamoosePosted on 2006-11-29 at 06:39:46ID: 18037018

Strung,

I'll try those suggestions and let you know how it goes.

thanks for the help.

Mark

 

by: manicsquirrelPosted on 2006-11-29 at 23:37:07ID: 18043477

I went through the same thing.  However, I have a PC and a Mac sitting side-by-side.  I prefer Mail but end up using Outlook because I am on the PC way more.  The reason that Mail is taking so long is probably because Spotlight is indexing the mail store on the Exchange server.  Open the Spotlight preferences in your System Preferences panel and uncheck Mail.  See if your speed issues don't resolve after a restart.

Of course, Spotlight is one of the reasons that Mail is so usefull for me. So, I leave it on.  I know that the Apple literature and even the account setup wizard shows a connection method for Exchange, I've never been able to get it to work.  I've only been able to get IMAP to work.

 

by: jiggamoosePosted on 2006-11-30 at 06:50:06ID: 18045641

Hi Manic,

I'll try the spotlight thing, never thought about that.

The connection to the exchange server IS via Imap.  That's the only way to do it, as far as I know.

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-11-30 at 06:57:06ID: 18045710

You might be able to connect with OWA. That works quite well with Entourage.

 

by: jiggamoosePosted on 2006-11-30 at 07:17:12ID: 18045884

OWA is no problem.  Works fine.  The users however would MUCH prefer to use the Native Mail program unfortunately.

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-11-30 at 07:31:19ID: 18046007

From a quick Google search, it appears that Mail.app does not have the facility to connect to the OWA server, although Entourage does. I use Entourage at home to connect to our Exchange server via OWA and it works fine. (I don't like using OWA through a web browser either). If your users have Office 2004 on their Macs, they might try using Entourage for their mail.

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-11-30 at 07:37:05ID: 18046059

 

by: strungPosted on 2006-11-30 at 07:38:22ID: 18046077

 

by: manicsquirrelPosted on 2006-11-30 at 08:21:48ID: 18046443

I thought Entourage was bot an option as stated in your question.

 

by: jiggamoosePosted on 2006-11-30 at 10:08:07ID: 18047475

It's not obviously my first option or 2nd option - but if I can't get a reliable solution to fix the problem - I can't go on forever with these performance issues.

Strung was helpful and deserved the points.

Mark

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...