Activesync and OWA stopped working

1.) Has it always been like this?
2.) Has it ever worked properly?
3.) Have you checked the events logs to see if there are any particular events recorded at the same time as when it fails?
4.) Have a look in the IIS logs:
Have a look in the IIS logs and see what it is saying is happening around the failure time, it may be a specific user causing the issue. Maybe have a look in the HTTPErr#.log first to see if that is recording any errors for you. The HttpErr.log files can be found under C:\windows\system32\logfiles\HTTPErr. More details about increasing the detail in the httperr#.log http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832975

IIS logs should be under C:\Windows\system32\logfiles\W3SVC1 if you can't see your usernames then you might need to make the server log it by going into IIS Manager, Default Web Site-->Properties-->"Web Site" tab-->Properties button under "Enable Logging"-->Advanced tab-->then select all the options

ActiveSync adds some custom fields that can be read to see what is actually happening during the synch:
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2005/03/28/403047.aspx

but I agree with busbar that 700Mb is very low for a FE, how many users are connecting to it?

Nearly 1000 users are connecting to it.

Please try to increase the phusical memory atleast by 2 GB , so that it can withstand 1000 users concurrently .

if you are doing any kind of work around , it will be a temp solution for this , untill and unless u do the memory upgradation , this issue cannot be solved .

Cheers ,

Ganesh

Hi MegaNuk

In the HTTpErr logs we see
Connection_Abandoned_By_AppPool ExchangeApplicationPool
whenever end users face the problem.

We also get set of these
Connection_Dropped ExchangeApplicationPool

Are you seeing any 2019 or 2020 events in the event log?

Can you run ExBPA on there to see if it picks up any issues?

Run the Exchange Best Practice Analyser (Exchange 2003 version):
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=dbab201f-4bee-4943-ac22-e2ddbd258df3

It does sound like a memory shortage though cause you are only allowing for 0.7Mb per user (even less when you factor in the OS needs memory too)

If you try and log onto OWA during the issue do you get: "The page cannot be displayed"?

and "Connections_refused" entries in the HttpErr log file?

If so, have a look at this article:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934878

We tried running EXBPA on the 1st day when the problem arised, it never returned any issues. We are planning to upgrade the memory soon and upgrade NIC drivers if feasible. Did not get any issue past 2days.
We are also checking the process explorer utility to see if there are any other dll apart from webmail/activesync related within w3wp.exe consuming high process during the issue.
Thanks for all your posts.

Hi All,
We have increased the memory of the server now.
Thanks for all your time and valuable comments.

Thanks for the update