OWA displays no images, almost like a FTP type site....

Have a look at the /owa/8.1.240.5 folder in IIS Manager, and make sure that Anonymous Access is still enabled on it, and its subfolders.  If it is, then it sounds like there is a problem with the identity used for your anonymous access.  Maybe the IUSR_computername account is being locked out.  Look for evidence of this in your server's Event Logs.

Thanks for your help&

I checked all the folders and subfolders under : /owa/8.1.240.5 and they all have Anon access enabled.

I rechecked the Event logs and there is nothing showing that would indicate a problem like this..

Is there anywhere else, I can check ? Anything that needs changing ? I am still very green with Exchange 2007.

Thanks
Liam  

You need to check the IIS logs in C:\windows\system32\logfiles\w3svc1 .  Look for the most recent file, and double-click it to open it in Notepad.  Note that the times are in GMT.  Now, when someone starts to use OWA, you will see a GET request for /owa.  At the end of the first one, you will see a status 401 returned, which tells the browser to ask the user to login.  After that, you should see lots more lines beginning with /owa/ as the browser then requests the supporting images, .css files, and .js javascript files.  All of these should have a 200 status near the end, indicating that the server was able to deliver them okay.  Do you see any that have a different number, like 401, 403, 404, etc.?

Thanks again for your help...

Most of the entry do end in 200 0 0

However I do have a few entries that the in 401...

401 2 2148074254
401 1 0

One of the entry End in

302 0 0

Hope this helps,
Thank for your help,
Liam

302 is okay, but anything beginning with 4 (or even 5) is bad.  Can you paste us the whole lines that contain the 401's?  401 indicates that the user does not have permission to access the requested resource.

Here you go.. Hopefully it will displayed o.k... I repalced the ip address with xx.xx.xx.xx.

Thanks again..


2008-02-21 15:39:15 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/ ae=Item&a=Preview&t=IPM.Note.Rules.OofTemplate.Microsoft&id=RgAAAAAfzNercUCiRYTZQOh5NbX4BwCQlwFXRjYLRryhLKbK4troAAAAEF3qAAAs5QnccQdBQoQ8RUqtow5qAAMmsaJ8AAAJ 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 401 2 2148074254

2008-02-21 15:39:16 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/ ae=Item&a=Preview&t=IPM.Note.Rules.OofTemplate.Microsoft&id=RgAAAAAfzNercUCiRYTZQOh5NbX4BwCQlwFXRjYLRryhLKbK4troAAAAEF3qAAAs5QnccQdBQoQ8RUqtow5qAAMmsaJ8AAAJ 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 401 1 0

Can you see any entries after those that contain something like /owa/8.1.240.5/ and so on.

Hopefully this is what you are looking for..

2008-02-25 21:11:19 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/8.1.240.5/scripts/premium/freadcnt.js - 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 200 0 0

Another thing I noticed today was that: Restarting the IIS admin service appears to resolve this issue also..

I think these issues are also more frequent on new computers (kiosks etc) or computers that have just had the cache/temp files removed..

Do you have an idea what I can do to resolve this issue? This is becoming more and more frustrating for everyone.

I appreciate your help,

Thanks
Liam

I have another quick question...

I have been rechecking all the permissions of the OWA virtual dir in IIS. The top most OWA folder named: OWA has permission set for: Integrated windows authentication only.. Is this correct? Anonymous is not checked...

However, all the folders under: 8.1.240.5 have anon enabled.

I appreciate your help,

Thanks
Liam

The permissions should be as you described.  The 200 0 0 at the end indicates that the client downloaded the .js file okay.  Can you see any similar entries that contain /owa/8.1.240.5/ but do not end in 200 0 0 ?  Particularly at a time when your OWA was not working?  That entry may have been from a time when it was working okay.

Below I have pasted the "GET" commands from this morning. I tried to connect, got the "no images" web site.. I resetarted the IIS ADMIN service and successfully connected.

So why is my IISADMIN service, flaking out on me every day. It seems to be happening more often now.. Several times a day, I get a call and have to restart the service..

Any ideas ?

Thanks for your help,
Liam

2008-02-26 15:25:54 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/8.1.240.5/themes/base/msg-unrd.gif - 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx. Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 200 0 0
2008-02-26 15:25:54 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/8.1.240.5/themes/base/rul-sml.gif - 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 200 0 0
2008-02-26 15:25:54 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/8.1.240.5/themes/base/copy-to-folder.gif - 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 200 0 0
2008-02-26 15:25:54 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/ ae=Item&a=Preview&t=IPM.Note&id=RgAAAAAfzNercUCiRYTZQOh5NbX4BwCQlwFXRjYLRryhLKbK4troAAAAEF3qAAAs5QnccQdBQoQ8RUqtow5qAAMmsaP0AAAJ 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 401 2 2148074254
2008-02-26 15:25:54 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/ ae=Item&a=Preview&t=IPM.Note&id=RgAAAAAfzNercUCiRYTZQOh5NbX4BwCQlwFXRjYLRryhLKbK4troAAAAEF3qAAAs5QnccQdBQoQ8RUqtow5qAAMmsaP0AAAJ 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 401 1 0
2008-02-26 15:25:54 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/8.1.240.5/themes/base/notify.wav - 443 - xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 200 0 0
2008-02-26 15:25:55 W3SVC1 192.168.150.253 GET /owa/default.aspx ae=Item&a=Preview&t=IPM.Note&id=RgAAAAAfzNercUCiRYTZQOh5NbX4BwCQlwFXRjYLRryhLKbK4troAAAAEF3qAAAs5QnccQdBQoQ8RUqtow5qAAMmsaP0AAAJ&prfltncy=548&prfrpccnt=10&prfrpcltncy=0&prfldpcnt=3&prfldpltncy=109&prfavlcnt=0&prfavlltncy=0 443 domain\username xx.xx.xx.xx Mozilla/4.0+(compatible;+MSIE+7.0;+Windows+NT+6.0;+SLCC1;+.NET+CLR+2.0.50727;+Media+Center+PC+5.0;+.NET+CLR+3.0.04506;+.NET+CLR+1.1.4322) 200 0 0

Unfortunately, it all looks okay.  It's strange, though, that you need to keep restarting the IIS Admin service.  If you run the Task Manager, does it show that the amount of memory being used by inetinfo.exe (you may see several instances) is constantly increasing over time?

Right now it just shows one instant of inetinfo.exe running... but OWA working fine right now.. I will check the next time it breaks...

Is this possibly a permissions issue on the service ? Any ideas on a fix ?

I apprecaite your help,

Thanks
Liam

No ideas yet, I'm afraid.  This is the worst kind of problem - something that works for a while, then breaks.  If it were a permissions problem, then it wouldn't work at all.  Also, check that your IUSR_computername account hasn't been temporarily locked out the next time you are aware that it's not working properly.

LeeDerbyShire,

Thanks for your help again,

I checked the IUSR_computername this morning and it was not locked
I checked inetinfo.exe and there was only one instance, and the memory usage appeared to be normal around 6,000 k.
I restarted the IIS admin service and this resolved the issue.

I am thinking about putting the IIS admin service on some kind of auto-restart (maybe a batch file) to restart the service once a day, that would probably resolve the issue or at least produce a seamless workaround.
Currently in the recovery options on first, second and subsequent failures it is set to "Run a program" it just runs a IISREST.EXE /restart cmd...
If I were to change these to "restart the service" do you think this would help ? There are dependant services on IISADMIN so they would also be affected.

All ideas and Suggestions are welcome,
Thanks
Liam

Yes, inetinfo.exe is the IIS Admin Service.  It used to do the WWW service, too, but that is now handled by w3wp.exe (the WWW Worker Process).  That means that IISRESET will not stop/start IIS Admin any more.  I'm not sure that 'Restart The Service' will help, because it doesn't actually seem to be aware that something has gone wrong.  Can't hurt to try, though.  If you want to try a batch file, then try something like

NET STOP "IIS Admin Service" /y
NET START "IIS Admin Service"

And use Explorer to add it to the server's Scheduled Tasks in 'My Computer\Control Panel\Scheduled Tasks'.

Thanks again for you help, I am just curious...

Will the /y restart the dependant services ?

I will create and test the batch file today...

Thanks
Liam

I added the /y because that stops the command line from asking you to type 'Y' to confirm the action.  I forgot about the dependencies.  I would prefer to add the lines manually for NET STOP (just for clarity), and they will need to be added for NET START, otherwise they will not be started at all.  Try this:

NET STOP "HTTP SSL" /y
NET STOP "World Wide Web Publishing Service" /y
NET STOP "IIS Admin Service" /y
NET START "IIS Admin Service"
NET START "World Wide Web Publishing Service"
NET START "HTTP SSL"

All 3 options appear to work.. I have created a scheduled task to run each morning at 5a.m. hopefully this will be a good workaround. Do you foresee any issues with leaving this workaround in place as a full time solution if it works?

I will follow-up tomorrow with you on the success/failure of this solution.

Thanks again for all your help,
Liam

It's a shame that you have to do it in the first place, but I can't see there being any issues, other than the obvious one of your OWA being unavailable for a few seconds each morning at 5.

Hey LeeDerbyshire,

The batch file/scheduled task appears to be working good. This is not the ideal solution but it has cut down on calls :)

Thanks for your help
Liam

Thank you for your help

I'm glad it helped.  I don't know if you are aware that there is now a update 'Rollup 1' for E2007 SP1.  it might help.

I was not aware of that,I will check it out. I am however hesitant to perform another update as this issue was casued by an update originally :)