Mac Mail nightmare with Exchange Server - Please Help!

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.

Strung,

Everything is fully patched and up to date.

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

Thanks though

Mark

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."

Strung,

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

thanks for the help.

Mark

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.

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.

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

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

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.

If you decide to try Entourage, see:  http://www.macwindows.com/entourage.html

and

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/exchange/index.html

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

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