Status: Solved
Priority: Medium
Security: Public
Views: 434
Last Modified: 2012-05-11

Sync issues between Outlook and Mobile devices

We've got a couple of users who are having an issue with mail syncing between their mobile device, laptop and desktop PC.

The situation is this:

Users in the office are on "online mode" in Outlook
Users with laptops are in "cached mode" on their laptops.

What we're seeing is that a minimized Outlook window at the office (in Online Mode) will not update while the user is at home. Once they get into the office and start using Outlook, it takes about 5 minutes for Outlook client to sync with the changes (like marking read messages as read/populating with new mail).

Outlook isn't closed, it's just minimized overnight.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
LISCR

liscr

Asked: 2011-03-09

Advertise Here

3 Solutions

LVL 15

JamesSenior Cloud Infrastructure EngineerCommented: 2011-03-09

Have you tried restarting the services for IIS? On the Exchange Server go to the command prompt and type iisreset and then press enter.

LVL 15

JamesSenior Cloud Infrastructure EngineerCommented: 2011-03-09

Sorry, please ignore my comment I was referring to Exchange 2003!.

liscrAuthor Commented: 2011-03-09

I should clarify, the mobile devices/laptops are working well. They send, they receive and all is wonderful. The problem that we're having is that those changes don't populate in Outlook back at the office until a few minutes after they've been using it (even with Outlook open all night).

It's almost like Outlook goes to sleep after awhile and takes a little time to wake up. But I don't think sleeping is a feature of Outlook.

LVL 15

JamesSenior Cloud Infrastructure EngineerCommented: 2011-03-09

Is this happening on all Outlook clients?

LVL 1

edwaltersCommented: 2011-03-09

Have you tried configuring one of the Outlook clients in the office as cached mode. I can't think of a reason not to really.

LVL 15

JamesSenior Cloud Infrastructure EngineerCommented: 2011-03-09

If this is happening with all Outlook clients you should enable cache mode.

liscrAuthor Commented: 2011-03-09

I would think Cached mode would need more time to update. The reason why all users aren't in cached mode is because the OST gets too large and really slows down Outlook. I hate to admit it...but some of our users have 20+GB inboxes.

LVL 15

JamesSenior Cloud Infrastructure EngineerCommented: 2011-03-09

You should definitely look at archiving the emails. Also, just to point out, if you are ever thinking of upgrading you infrastructure Exchange 2010 has auto archiving of emails.

LVL 3

jetpowercomCommented: 2011-03-09

This is third vote to enable cached mode onsite; you'll be able to govern how often Outlook performs a send/receive. Also, Blackberry Enterprise Server hooks directly into the Exchange store, enabling the devices to update over the air very quickly. Large individual email stores can be slow to update Outlook from the devices (and vice versa).

liscrAuthor Commented: 2011-03-09

Thanks! I've turned on cached mode for Outlook for one of the users. I will update tomorrow morning if that was the cause.

We are running Exchange 2010 and are testing the online archive feature to help reduce the size of OSTs and to allow the user access to their older emails via OWA.

Thanks, and I will be sure to report back any findings.

LVL 1

edwaltersCommented: 2011-03-09

I would have thought your problems are related to the 20GB mailboxes. We have cached mode on all our desktops and it works fine but our mailboxes are smaller.
Don't mailboxes that size give you capacity issues in Exchange or are you already on 2010.

LVL 3

jetpowercomCommented: 2011-03-09

Ah, the 20G OSTs! MS Exchange development team keeps 10-20G mailboxes as a testing procedure (and many of my users, judging by their OST sizes, could be moonlighting for the development team ;>).

Even with cached mode, you can expect to see occasional issues with large OST files. I suggest cleaning them up every 30-90 days by running compression on them (or just recreating them), as well as aggressive archiving, which you're already exploring.