Getting a "Server Unavailable" error when trying to download address book. Microsoft office

What version of Outlook are you running ?
did you install the latest Office Service Pack's

i'm running 2010, several clients are running 2007 and a few on 2003... same error on all versions of outlook... so im guessing its still looking for the old server ?  I moved the offline address book from the old server to the new one... so im lost... and the error doesn't really give a detailed amount of info!

Do this from workstation.

Close outlook

then do this

start > run
type

outlook /rpcdiag

In connections monitor it will show which exchange it's trying to connect to.

Let me know.

all 3 are pointing to the new exchange server, and all 3 got a connection established link...
addressbook.png

on your workstation go here

c:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc

Open up a blank notepad
start > run
type notepad

drag and drop the hosts file there
go down to the bottom - see if the old exchange server is hard-coded there.

i checked the host file...
the server wasn't in there...

the new server is called exch02
old one was exch01
the new one has a totally different ip than the old one did as well...


anywhere in the event viewer that it'd give a more elaborate error message?
thanks for quick responses!

Did you replace the last Exchange 2003 using these methods ?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb288905(EXCHG.80).aspx
http://www.msexchange.org/articles_tutorials/exchange-server-2007/migration-deployment/removing-last-exchange-2003-server-exchange-2007-part1.html

How did you remove the last exchange 2003

i followed the msexchcange article step by step and did the uninstall of 2003...
everything appears to move over correctly...
if we take the users off cached mode they can see the updated global address book... but when we put them back on cached mode the new users will disappear again, and im assuming this is because we get the error when trying to download the AB...

Corrupt Profile ?
Can you delete the OST file and force outlook to create a new one ?

Preferably export the OST as .PST before you attempt this.
Please test this before attempting.

your outlook is connecting to the new exchange exch02 - so I believe there is nothing wrong with settings etc.
Lets focus on client-side issues and see what we get.

i thought it mighve been a client side issue as well so i setup a brand new pc, installed office 07 and pulled my account into oultook...

im still getting the darn error while trying to download the address book...
no event viewer errors either...

boggled!

Is it just the address book or MAILS + Calendar + Notes + Address Book ?

if it's address book then we can specifically looking into rebuilding OAB and have it propagate.

just the address book is the issue...
calendar, contacts, and mail work totally fine!

i did a rebuild of the address book from the management console last week... but it never pushed out to users... and when im in outlook and do the send/recieve ---> downoad address book, that's when i get the error

how many exchange servers do you have ?
Do you have Exchange installed on DC ?

1 exchange server... and nope... its a seperate machine from the DC... all the excahnge server is doing is exchange and blackberry

on exchange shell

get-offlineaddressbook | update-offlineaddressbook
enter

See if that works ?

THAT WORKED FINE...

Check if you can get the address book ?

NO SIR... STILL THE SAME ERROR!

Close outlook

Go to

%userprofile%/Application Data/Microsoft/Outlook

there should be a file called outcmd.dat

rename that file to outcmd.dat-old

restart outlook (this will create a new outcmd.dat)
See if you can get the OAB now.

let me know if this works ?

no luck...

when i try to view my public folders it is still pointing to exch01 ... so im guessing the address book is doing the same thing

ok.
a) How did you migrate the public folders from exchange 2003 to 2010
b) did you create a separate public folder database ?

How did you setup the replication from 2003 to 2010 ?

Let me know.

Check these

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb232155.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb397221.aspx
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb124719.aspx

Outlook 2003 clients require a PF distributed OAB, did you set that up?

Outlook 2007 clients and above use a web distributed OAB, which they find out about from the Exchange Autodiscover Service.

Which clients do you want to attempt to fix first?

For Outlook 2003 client fix:

On EMS do "Get-Mailboxdatabase |ft name,OfflineAddressBook", verify that the OfflineAddressBook value is not empty, it should say something like "\Default Offline Address Book"

Do these issues happen with new users on Exchange 2010? i.e. users that have not been migrated?

everybody's been migrated... the old server is out of commission... i uninstalled exchange then wiped it!

it doesn't really matter what version of outlook users have, the issue is the same on all of them... i've tried to download it on 2010, 2007, and 2003 and get the error on all 3...

is there a way to totally delete the Default Offline Address Book and recreate it?

I am asking about if you create a new test user on Exchange 2010, does the user get the same issue in Outlook 2003 / 2007 / 2010 and is it the same error in all three versions of Outlook? The error should be logged in the "Sync Issues" folder within the mailbox. (To see the 'Sync Issues' folder you may need to do Go-->Folder List from within Outlook)

just created a new user... tried it on 2010 and 2007 and i get the same error as shown in the pic above...
theres nothing at all listed in the sync issues folder...
when i run the "Get-Mailboxdatabase |ft name,OfflineAddressBook" it comes back empty...

does it take a bit for that to replicate?

when i went into the Organization Configuration-->Mailbox-->Database Management-->Properties on your Mailbox database/s-->Client Settings-->Offline address book
i noticed that the public folder database was still pointing to the old 2003 server... so i changed that to the 2010 server... then i set the offline address book ...

but still when i run the command Get-Mailbox "xxxxx@xxxxxx.com" |FL OfflineAddressBook for a user its showing as blank...

so i ran the command
Get-Mailbox "xxxxxx@xxxxx.com" | Set-Mailbox -OfflineAddressBook oab1

and it sets it for me... then i can successfully download the OAB....

how do i get it to set for all users?

It should be set for all users now...

Do F9 in outlook or Tools-->Send/Receive-->Download Offline address book

By default Outlook will only try and download the offline address book once every 24 hours.

If a user is not assigned an Offline Address Book then they will get the default one. Ensure the offline address book is set as the default.

Setting it to the default is in the same area as you were making the earlier changes:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa998569.aspx

Thanks for all the help!

Thanks for the ponts. Are all your Outlook clients working now?

it works great on the users where i run the command Get-Mailbox "xxxxxx@xxxxx.com" | Set-Mailbox -OfflineAddressBook oab1

but for users in which i didnt run that command it still not working...

hmmm, what happens if they restart outlook?

Is Get-Mailboxdatabase |ft name,OfflineAddressBook showing a value now for the OfflineAddressBook?

Did you set the OAB as the default?

You shouldn't need to define an OAB entry for users as they should all the use the default one...

You could however define it for them all with:
Get-Mailbox | Set-Mailbox -OfflineAddressBook oab1  

The above line should assign oab1 to all mailboxes...

it does return the correct oab1 for Get-Mailbox | Set-Mailbox -OfflineAddressBook oab1  
it's also set as default... and its the only address book!

i'm going to try a reboot... see if that works!

reboot of a client machine not the exchange server I hope?  ;-)

Basically Outlook needs to read that it has been assigned an OAB and should be able to now download it.

lol yeah not exchange!

the reboot appears to have worked!

thanks so much for the help!

No problem, glad it is all working now.

Have you tested all your clients? Outlook 2003 / 2007 / 2010 to make sure all versions can now see and download the OAB?