Things  To be checked before you proceed with troubleshooting  – ?

      What type of clients are used – Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010

      Have the OAB files been replicated from Mailbox Server(OAB GenServer) to Client   Access Server.

      Does the organization contain at the least one Oab-VirtualDirectory.

      Is the OAB set for web distribution?

      Any recent changes on the environment or any updates or patches installed.

      How many users are affected and the mode of occurrence?

 

TROUBLESHOOTING

Check if Autodiscover Service is working fine in Outlook 2007 & Outlook 2010  because misconfiguration of Autodiscover could cause the OAB to fail downloading.

 

Steps to check – check the test email auto configuration on outlook client

Also another  way to check this is to see if users are able to modify OOF Assistant settings in Outlook 2007 0r 2010 .

If the problem is with Outlook 2003 then proceed with linear troubleshooting for OAB in legacy Exchange

For Outlook 2010 check if the OabVirtualDirectory is present.

To verify, open Exchange Management Shell and enter the following cmdlet. This
will return all of the OAB Virtual Directories found.

Get-OabVirtualDirectory

If the cmdlet doesn’t return any OAB virtual directories, then there is a problem
and you will need to create an OAB Virtual Directory using the
New-OabVirtualDirectory task.

Verify if there are any OABs setup for Web Distribution.

Do the following:
a. Open the Exchange Management Console.
b. Expand the Organizational Container.
c. Click on the Mailbox Container.
d. In the middle MMC pane, click on the ‘Offline Address Book’ tab.
e. If there are any Offline Address Books setup for Web distribution, they
will be identified as such under the Distribution Mechanism column as Web-Based.

The following location on the Client Access Server can be checked to see if the
Offline Address Book files have been replicated:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\Client access\OAB

This is the local cache for the Client Access server and any Offline Address Book
files that need to be updated will be updated here.

Permissions should also be checked. If any of the default permissions are locked
or are missing, the Offline Address Book files might not be replicated.

The following permissions that are installed on this directory are as follows:

Anonymous access disabled
Integrated Windows Authentication Enabled
Read Permission Enabled
Write permission disabled
Directory Browsing Disabled
Script source access disabled
Log Visits Enabled
Index this resource disabled
Execute permissions set to None

If you suspect that you are having a OAB Generation problem, turn up Diagnostic
Logging through the Exchange Management Shell.

On the Exchange 2010 mailbox server, open Exchange Management Shell and
enter the following cmdlet:

Set-EventLogLevel “MSExchangeSA\OAL Generator” -Level Expert

After you hit enter you will not see any output that indicates that the
logging level has been set.

However, you can verify the level using the following cmdlet:

Get-EventLogLevel “MSExchangeSA\OAL Generator”

Next, type Update-OfflineAddressBook -Identity “Default Offline Address
List”. This will generate the Default Offline Address List.

Review the application event log on the mailbox server.

Another method for troubleshooting OAB failures is to use the tracing built into
ExTRA

 

• Exchange 2010 OAB
  ================

  Analyze current configuration
  ——————————————–

  1. Use Exchange Management Console
  2. Expand Server Configuration and select Mailbox
  3. Right-click the server in the list of servers and click Properties
  4. Select the Client Settings tab
  a. Check specified Offline Address Book configuration
  b. Check Distribution methods (Web and/or public folders)

  Public folder distribution
  OAB 4.0, 3a, 2.0

  Web folder distribution
  OAB 4.0

  Public folder distribution
  ———————————-

  Use MFCMAPI to inspect the public folders housing the OAB data

  1. Public Root
  2. NON_IPM_SUBTREE
  3. OFFLINE ADDRESS BOOK
  4. DN for OAB (for example, /o=Fourthcoffee/cn=addrlists/cn=oabs/cn=Default Offline
  Address List)
  5. Double-click any of the following folders to see the messages within:

  OAB version 2
  OAB version 3a
  OAB version 4

  Web distribution
  ————————-

  1. use Exchange Management Console
  2. Expand Server Configuration
  3. Select Client Access
  4. Select the CAS server in top pane
  5. Select the “Offline Addresss Book Distribution” tab in the bottom pane
  6. Right-click the listed OAB and click Properties

  a. On the General tab look at the Polling Interval value. This is the value used
  by the File Replication Service to determine how often to replicate the OAB files
  to the distribution point.
  b. On the URLs tab look at the Internal URL and External URL values to see if
  they are appropriately configured (We should know the correct values)

  7. check the OAB generation share:

  \Program files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ExchangeOAB

  Do you see a folder with a {guid} that matches the {guid} in the OAB URL shown
  in Outlook (Test E-mail AutoConfiguration)?

  8. Check the web distribution folder:

  \Program files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\ClientAccess\OAB\{guid}

  a. Does this {guid} match the {guid} in the share listed in step 7
  b. If not, what is the number of minutes specified for the Polling Interval? Is
  the File Replication Service running?

  c. check the Event log on the generation server

  Source: MSExchangeFDS
  Category: FileReplication

  Steps to generate a new Web distribution OAB
  ————————————————————————-

  1. In Exchange Management Console go to Organization Configuration – Mailbox
  2. Click “New Offline Address Book”
  a. Name = E2010 Web OAB
  b. OAB generation server = <E2010 mailbox server>
  c. Enable Web-based distribution
  Vdir = OAB (Default web site) CLT-E2k10
  d. Enable public folder distribution
  3. Right-click the newly created OAB and click Update
  4. Check the \program files\microsoft\exchange server\ExchangeOAB folder

  <result> you should see the {guid} subfolder just generated. This data will need to
  be replicated to the CAS server

  5. On the CAS server check \program files\microsoft\exchange
  server\clientaccess\OAB for web distribution

  <result> the files probably won’t be replicated here just yet.

6. Select Server Configuration – Mailbox

       Examine Mailbox Database properties

       Go to the Client settings tab

       Offline Address Book = <name of your new OAB> (browse if necessary)

7. Select Server Configuration – Client Access

       Select your CAS server in the top pane

       Select the “Offline Address Book Distribution” tab

       Right-click OAB (Default Web Site) and click Properties

       On the General tab check the Polling interval (set it temporarily low to
force FRS replication of the OAB files)

       On the URLs tab validate the Internal URL and external URL (for example,
the Intenal URL would just be https://cas_server/ )

8. Wait a minute or two (or whatever time you specified for the Polling
Interval)
9. On the CAS server, re-check \program files\microsoft\exchange
server\clientaccess\OAB for web distribution

<result> the files should now be in the distribution point on the CAS server

10. To force a regen of the autodiscover settings run iisreset (or just wait)

NOTE: Don’t run iisreset on a production server.

11. Start Outlook 2007 or 2010 with a cached mode profile.
12. Check the OAB URL in the Test Email AutoConfiguration dialog

<result> the URL should point to the the URL specified above plus /OAB/{guid}. For
example, https://server/OAB/d15381e6-ce14-4949-a147-2681e656744a/

Outlook 2010 OAB Analysis
======================

Troubleshooting
————————–

1. Check the Sync Issues folder

       Check the different Synchronization Log messages (with a red exclamation
point icon)

       Check for an error in the message under “Microsoft Exchange offline address
book”

2. Check the Olkdisc.log file (in the %temp% folder) for the listed OAB URL
3. Inspect the OAB URL with the Test E-mail AutoConfiguration tool

      Start Outlook

      Press CTRL, right-click the Outlook icon in the system tray and then click
Test E-mail AutoConfiguration

      Clear the two “Guessmart” checkboxes and click Test
Inspect the value for “OAB URL”

– If you using public folders for the OAB then this will say “Public
folder”

– If you are using Web distribution for the OAB this this will list the full URL to the OAB files. For example, https://server/oab/{guid}