Outlook autodiscovery issue after Exchange service pack 1 upgrade error 0x800C8203

Today let us discuss an issue that may occur once you upgrade your exchange 2013 to SP1.

Symptoms

• Partial or full outlook connectivity issue to internal and external users.
• Address book downloading issue.

Diagnosis

Once you face these similar issue we can start diagnosing from the client side.

There is a nice feature in outlook to check the connection status and test email auto configuration.Let us try this.

• Press Ctrl key and right click outlook icon in task bar,this will give you some additional options such as Connection status and Test Email auto configuration.Please have a look at both of these options and try to configure the mail id using auto configuration window.

If you see an error similar to this while running auto -configuration

Attempting Url https://myserver.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml found through SCP

Autodiscover to https://myserver.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml starting
Autodiscover to https://myserver.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml FAILED (0x800C8203) Autodiscover to https://myserver.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml starting
Autodiscover to https://myserver.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml FAILED (0x800C8203)
Autodiscover to https://autodiscover.myserver.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml/ starting

Please try to disable any antivirus/firewall in your system and retry.

Outlook 2013 normally uses RPC over http for connecting to the exchange but after SP1 up gradation Exchange will use MAPI over RPC and this might be block by the firewall /Antivirus.

Solution

MAPI over RPC is a great feature in Exchange 2013 SP1.It gives us a lot of advantages such as fast reconnection,more security,more speedy syncing etc.

As a solution we can do any of the following:

1. In the antivirus we can create an exception to pass these traffic.

2.Registry edit to forcefully use RPC over HTTP

• Locate and select the following key in the registry.HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange
•  Point to New,      
• Select DWORD Value.
• Type MapiHttpDisabled as the name of the DWORD Value, and then press Enter.
• Right-click MapiHttpDisabled, and then click Modify.
• In the Value data box, type 1, and then click OK.

3.Change to RPC over HTTP in Server side.

    In the Exchange management Shell issue the following command:

           Set-OrganizationConfig -MapiHttpEnabled $True

     If you want to change back to RPC over HTTP use :

           Set-OrganizationConfig -MapiHttpEnabled $False

Hopping that this article will help to save some hours troubleshooting.Thanks for reading.

Chat server with audio/video chat and screen control

Openfire Video/Audio chat with remote screen control.

Hi all in my previous posts I have mentioned the step by step procedure on installing openfire in Centos minimal and integrating openfire with Active directory.

Today let me describe steps to create a fully functional chat server with Audio/Video chat facility and remote screen sharing and control.

The plugin that we are using for this is Redfire and the client is Spark.

Step 1

• Download the redfire plugin from here
• Once the download is completed use WinSCP or any other sftp client to upload the plugin to the openfire plugin directory.

            The openfire plugin location :  /opt/openfire/plugins

•   Restart openfire service once the upload is completed.

              service openfire restart

Step 2

If everything is successful you will get the below screen in the url : serveripaddres:7070/redfire

So everything is done the remaining part is to install the redfire plugin needed for Spark chat client.

You can download the plugin from the bottom of  redfire page.

And of course you can do many things such as conference,screen sharing and chat from this window.

Step 3

Let us install the redfire plugin in spark.

• Browse to the spark installation directory.
• Copy the downloaded plugin.
• Restart Spark.

 If the plugin installation is successful you can see a couple of new icons in the chat window of spark.

• The first button is used for Audio/Video chat
• The second one for Screen sharing and control.

 Note : Please install latest flash player for internet explorer.

Thanks for reading and start your research.

Top Microsoft Exchange 2013 server interview questions

I am adding some basic questions that will help you while attending interviews related to Exchange server.Now i am only adding questions you have to research a bit to find the answers.

In a later time will  post questions along with answers.

1. Roles in Exchange 2010 & 2013?
2. Architecture difference between Exchange 2010 & 2013?
3. Can we use Edge server role in Exchange 2013,explain?
4. The most complicated issue related to Exchange that you faced?
5. Explain a bit about DAG?
6. What is the importance of CAS role in Exchange?
7. What is in place e discovery and hold?
8. How many mailbox database can we create in Exchange 2013 standard SP1?
9. What are the pre-requesists to install Exchange 2013 in 2012 server OS?
10. How to reseed a broken database copy?
11. What is GAL & OAB,explain briefly?
12. How to manually update a Global Address List in Exchange 2013?
13. What is witness share?
14. What is the database technology using in Exchange 2010?
15. What is public folder?
16. What is virtual directory?
17. What are the methods that we can use to manage Exchange 2013?
18. Importance of Exchange management shell in 2013?
19. How many nodes we can add in exchange 2013 DAG?
20. What is quorum?
21. What is the difference between distribution & dynamic distribution list?
22. Back-up methods that you are familiar with?
23. Retention policy and tag in Exchange 2013?
24. How to create a global address list and make it default GAL in Exchange 2013?
25. What is the difference between port 465 & 587?