Outlook 2003 can't connect to Exchange 2003; Check Name Error

can ping the server with the server name ?
check if the dns settings r correct on the client .

to check if no ports r blocked on your client telnet the mailserver on port 25
i.e
 c:\> telnet mailserver 25
if u r able to connect using telnet than the communication is ok .

http://www.itc.virginia.edu/desktop/central/display/details.php3?installerID=127&nav=title

try this to see if it will help u.U can also reinstall the nic or try using another one.

Check the alias name on the Exchange server, does it have characters other than a-z, 0-9?
Log in as a domain admin on the offending computer, can you create an account for the domain admin and use Outlook to open the admin mailbox? If so, can you open the offending account with this admin account (File->Open other users folder)?

Regards
Peter

Yeah i can ping the server name; dns settings are provided by dhcp and are correct.
I can also telnet to the server on port 25.

Tried using winsockfix and reinstalling nic; still no work.

I have checked the alias name on the exchange server which is "Jon".
Logged on as domain admin, when i started outlook the first time and attempted to create the account i recieved an rpc error message (sorry i can't remember the exact details), something along the lines of it was not configured correctly or failed to start.

This error message only appeared the first time, since then i get my original error message "Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action." etc..

So my thoughts would be its an rpc problem on the offending machine, any suggestions?

i can't believe i didn't think of that... the event log!!

Here is the Outlook error message i recieved in the event log: -

Event ID: 28
"A system component, RPC, required by Outlook to connect to the e-mail server is not configured properly.  For more information, contact your system administrator."


peakpeak:  the offending machine can't connect to any mailbox.

Apply the latest service pack and hotfixes .... scan for slammer worm ...

/P

Ok I found a solution, after doing a search for the above error message i came across this link: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;830914

Although no one actually provided me with the solution, i will split the points between anupnellip and peakpeak for being so helpful and pointing me in the right direction.

Thanks


ps: accidently clicked on the wrong accept answer buttons. sorry

I had exact same problem. Sweated over this one for a while before finding about solution. Many thanks Loqutus!

We had this same problem.  Although, the users event logs didnt show errors, the user just couldnt connect to the exchagne server. I looked at the registry and sure enough, this entire Key was missing.  I added it to the registry and Outlook worked like a charm...

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Hi, i have this problem, but i've connected several times, but after i reboot, i lose the connection, and am not able to reconnect ever since.

i've followed the directions in the microsoft kb, and found that the keys are there.
does anyone else have the same problem i have?

I have a single machine experiencing the same error message when connecting.  The RPC registry keys referenced earlier are present and the machine is able to connect to the Exchange Server in all other ways (ping, RPC ping, telnet, network share, OWA, etc).  This appears to be an RPC issue such as referenced earlier, but not relative the the information provided in the MS Knowledge Base  article.  While connected to the LAN, if I create a PPTP VPN connection to the server, Outlook successfully connects to the server.  If I then disconnect the VPN, the Outlook client also disconnects even though all other aspects to LAN connectivity remain active.

Any ideas would be hlepful.

I have the same issue and checked out anything possible. I am getting realy upset.
I can access my exchange server without any issue on all other protocols offered by the server. But with my easy to configure Outlook 2003 client form any machine in the domain I can logon as I trace the application behaviour but it can't resolve the user name. Somehow it is not completing the "Check name" process. But I do not know how or what might be wrong. I can do the same thing with the same clients onto another domain which has just a trust but is not a part of the AD and it works fine. Any help and ideas?

Thanks, Loqutus! Solved my problem exactly. :)

My symptoms on one machine were similar to the ones metnioned here and I tried all of the suggested solutions including the RPC registry keys mentioned in the Microsoft KB article above, uninstalling and re-installing TCP-IP, uninstalling and re-installing Outlook 2003 etc.  Trying one more time, I completely removed the network card along with all the protocols and re-installed the NIC and TCP-IP.  This resolved the issue for me.  

This solved it for me to. My Network Manager and I had been stuck on this for 2 days.  Thanks guys.

Removing your NIC and reinstalling TCP-IP seems a little tough for someone like me. Is it an easy process, how do I do that?

It's pretty easy. Just remove the NIC through Device Manager and TCP/IP through the Network Connections applet (if TCP/IP doesn't automatically remove itself when you remove the NIC). Windows should recognize the NIC and attempt to load drivers when you reboot, so just point it to where you have the new drivers (or let it automatically load the drivers). Once that's done, reconfigure your TCP/IP settings and you should be OK.

I got it working a different way. The problem for some reason just started for no reason. All I did to get it working again (after trying everything else under the sun) was to make sure that it asked for my credentials every time I opened outlook. My exchange server is on a different domain to my pc, but it has never had any problems connecting before......

I resolved the Outlook connectivity issue by removing ncacn_ip_tcp entry from HKLM\software\microsoft\rpc\clientproviders and recreating it.

After a reboot of the Exchange box problem solved.

I have tried all of the above and still not working
Help!

Hi, i'm in the same situation as you,
but i've found a work around, which seems to work, but I would still like to see this fully fixed. I've even thought about reinstalling my computer, or upgrading to a new operating system.

the workaround that has worked for me over and over again is to use remote desktop (from another machine) login, and open outlook.  Outlook should open fine, and connect to the server.  Logg, out, and jump on the machine again as you normally would and login.

when I reboot my machine, i would have to do this process over again.
this problem is related to my machine, i don't think it's my outlook.

This is a fresh install today,so I wouldn't try that if I was you. I am trying this remote desktop thing for the first time.
So I will get back to you later with the results.
I am at my home office and my laptop works fine but my home desktop is the problem.

I am not sure what should have happend
But it would not resolve my name in either direction
If you meant to use the remote desktop to gain access ,I do not need that, as I have a laptop with me.
I would just like to get this working on my desktop.

we may have similar problems, but may not be the same problem,
how are you connecting to get email? Exchange server? pop?

i'm using exchange server,

exchange server

in order to get your name resolved, go through remote desktop using your laptop.

in other words, control your desktop, using your laptop.

all this remote desktop idea is to get the name recognized, it's a silly process, but it worked for me.  

it has no problem resolving on other computers, but if you login using another computer to the one that doesn't work, and open up outlook, then it should resolve.

let me know how it goes.  I've always though i'm the only one with this unique problem.

Yes that is what I did , but no good
No your not alone
I have all but given up
Our company IT guy says he can make it work if I send my Desktop to the office.
He says that it must be on the local intratnet of our company to verify
I am in the midwest and the office is in NY
I am going to try a VPN
I have never done this before, but this is how I learn.
If that doesn,t work then my desktop is going to take a trip.
I will let you Know if I learn anthing else
Thanks

After several days trying all the above to solve my identical problem, I finally checked the Application event log more completely and found a reference to multiple names amongst the error messages corresponding to Outlook's failures. I subsequently fixed the problem by deleting "lmhosts" and "hosts" and inserting a "hosts" file known to work (no replacement "lmhosts").

If your using XP, make sure your own DNS servers IP address is set as the Primary as opposed to say your ISPs DNS or any preferred forwarding DNS servers as the primary dns servers.
We had the problem above and a quick check on this particular problem PC showed it was a DNS issue unique to this one pc, so simply setting our own DNS server as the primary solved the problem, mind it set other questions and checks in motion as we had to find out why the logon script had not kicked in on this pc and set the correct DNS server.

Our setup is
XP clients
2003 servers
2003 Exchange servers

Hope this helps those with this problem reading this in the future.

There are many comments in this thread of the accepted solution NOT fixing this problem. There is another possible cause that is unrelated to network connectivity. The following Microsoft KB article should shed some light on this for all of you Exchange/Outlook 2003 users out there.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;837444

The surest sign that this is the source of your problem is that the problem users do not appear in the Global Address Book.

Look for Event ID: 8331 in event viewer...It may or may not be present. Even if it is not there try restarting the "Exchange System Attendant" Service to correct the problem. If it works, the users will appear in the Global Address Book and be able to be added on your Outlook 2003 Desktops.

Microsoft suggest running the latest Exchange Service Pack to correct the issue.

I hope this helps someone out there...

I'm having a similar problem that I cant seem to resolve.
I'm on a Win2K client connecting to a remote exchange server. I can connect on my XP machines, but cant connect out of any of my Win2K machines.

I have all the registry values. I've tried telneting to the server and it works.
I'm still not able to connect my Outlook 2003 to the exchange server. I get the message "Cant connect to exchange server. Outlook must be connected in order to connect to the server."

Hi,

I had the same problem for a very long time and finally I have resolved it. At least it worked for me.

The initial problem is that to some point the Microsoft Outlook 2003 could not connect to the Exchange server on the remote network. After that I have added the VPN server on the remote network and configured the internal IP network to prevent Outlook using some of the possible blocked ports but still no joy. Then I have installed the local Exchange 2003 server and it still wasn't working. I have tried all possible settings, configurations and resolutions but with no luck. I have reinstalled the OS with no success.

At the very end before choosing to reinstall NIC and TCP/IP, I have downloaded the latest WinsockFix application. I have run it and rebooted the system to find that my TCP/IP settings are lost (no IP address, gateway, DNSs,...). Putting it back together immediately made Outlook 2003 work! It started working with all Exchange 2003 servers (remote and local).

The keypoint is that you need to save (write down) your TCP/IP settings, download and run Winsockfix, reboot the computer, put back the TCP/IP settings and it should work. At least it did in my case...

Where do I get the WinsockFix application from?

I ran into the exact same problem above, tried all the solutions presented (and others) and had no luck.  Finally, a little flailing brought me to the solution.  To be clear, my setup was that I had two Windows XP laptops (one XP professional, the other XP Home).  Both were running Outlook 2003 and connected via VPN to our corporate network.  We are running Exchange 5.5 on a Windows 2000 server.  Contrary to all public biases, the XP Home box had no problems connecting to the Exchange server!  I could not get the XP professional box to connect at all.

When I finally discovered the solution, I realized that I was the master of my own disaster (aided and abetted by Microsoft):

You have to be careful when you specify the name of the Microsoft Exchange Server in the Exchange Server Settings form (this is the form that you find the "Check Name" button).  For a reason that I'll explain later, I specified the fully qualified name of the exchange server, e.g. servername.somedomain.com.  From this point on I couldn't connect.  The nanosecond I changed the name to JUST the server name, it worked.

Why didn't I think of it before you ask?  Because when I set up the XP Professional box I used the Home box as a reference.  On the XP Home box, the exchange server name is FULLY qualified and it is very nicely underlined indicating it has successfully connected to the requested server and mailbox in the past.  Now for the added fun, the instant that the XP Professional Outlook successfully connected to the Exchange server, it changed the name in the form to a fully qualified name (and then underlined it).

So it appears that Outlook 2003 always appends the domain name to whatever is in the Exchange Server name field until it successfully connects - at which point it converts it to a fully qualified name and "remembers" for future reference not to append the domain ever again.  How bogus is this?  Once Outlook connects, the only difference between a working name and a not working name is the fact that the working one is underlined.  In addition, nowhere is there an indication that this kind of behind the scenes magification is happening (certainly not in the event log where it might be useful).  It would even have been nice if Microsoft would have put up a little status dialog that said "Attempting to connect to servername.somedomain.com.somedomain.com . . ."  then one could see that the software was trying to be smarter (in a dumb way) for your ease of use.  From a user interface point of view this is a D'ar Quon (Dark One).  

I am feeling a little sheepish that I didn't try using just the server name right off the bat but . . . I mean I did have a working example to configure from . . .

blurred_vision,

That solved my problem as well.  I have no idea why that works that way and it is very frustrating.  I agree that some kind of notification would have been nice.

Thanks for the idea though!  It kept me from going crazy!

I had the same problem.
Tried all of the above to no avail.(removed and replaced ethernet card, removed/rejoined from domain,etc)
In the end I discovered the problem existed with one freshly created user.
I removed the exchange attributes (much to microsofts horror) and recreated then manually.
Worked a treat.

We had all the same issues listed above.  The solution for us turned out to be rather easy after much pain.  Once the email account was checked and underlined Outlook replaced the exchange server address with what the exchange server thought it was (the FULLY qualified name) and not what we are publically announcing (i.e. we setup aliases in our dns to get to it, and the one that exchange returned was not publically available).  So the account would verify but when you went into outlook it could not find the new name that exchange told it was.  Once we made this name available everything worked like a charm.

Hi Experts,

I experienced exactly the same problem yesterday. None of the solutions above helped me. I just entered the DOS command:
 "netsh winsock reset"
and restarted the computer.

From then on my Outlook 2003 connects to the Exchange Server!

Why was this neccesary? Are there static socket bindings (UDP sockets) that can't be altered in another way? Seems erroneous to me.

Greetings :-)

This issue is very common for me and I come accross this several times.  The fix for our environment is to uninstall the NIC and the TCP/IP Protocol and reinstall it.  This has so far worked for me every single time.  It appears that there is some corruption in the TCP/IP Stack and the binding for the NIC.  Hope this helps!

the solution is to update nic card for exchange server this is the solution i have faced before

I'm not sure whether all of us are having thesame problem.
"CHECK NAME WORKS WITH EVERYOTHER COMPUTER EXCEPT THIS ONE COMPUTER" This has nothing to do with the server,it has to do with this particular win XP PC, outlook 2003. On another PC all is fine. OS reinstalled, Outlook Reinstalled, still we have thesame error message. registry RPC keys are all there. TCP/IP re installed and still getting error message

you have to  install new driver for network card  of exchange server it will work perfect
this problem was with me and solved