Forum Discussion
Exchange 2013/2019 coexistence and client connectivity to new 2019 problem
Hey all,
Some details first:
Forest/Domain functional level: 2012 R2 (only one domain)
2 x Exchange 2013 CU 23 Servers in a DAG (both on Server 2012)
1 x Exchange 2019 CU 12 server (Server 2022)
No load balancers or anything between clients and the Exchange Servers
Outlook 365 on Windows 10
Have installed Exchange 2019 into an Exchange 2013 environment.
All dns still pointing to the 2013 servers so everything is functional for users. The scp for the new 2019 server is pointing to the 2013 environment.
Client connectivity to the new server doesn't appear to be working though, or the new server can't proxy requests to the server holding the mailbox. I have a test PC that I change the hosts file on to point autodiscover.domain.com and webmail.domain.com to the new server. Upon opening Outlook 365 it opens but there is no mailflow to/from the client. Outlook cannot update folders. Outlook connection status does not show any connection to the new server.
From the test pc, pinging the 2 urls produces the correct IP address and if I browse to https://webmail.domain.com/ecp I get the console for the 2019 server.
The 2019 server shows in the list of servers alongside the 2013 ones in the ecp so I assume coexistence is functional.
I have looked through various logs but cannot see anything that would indicate why Outlook 365 is not be able to communicate with the 2019 server. No firewall issues that I can see.
In the iis logs on the 2019 server I can see what I assume is my Outlook 365 client communicating as I am seeing "POST /mapi/emsmdb" with my PC's IP and the user agent "Microsoft+Office/16.0+(Windows+NT+10.0;+Microsoft+Outlook+16.0.16327;+Pro)"
Can anyone think of what the issue may be, or where else I can look to troubleshoot?
thanks
jc
7 Replies
- I'd start with the Exchange Deployment Assistant and make sure you've followed all the required steps https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/exchange-deployment-assistant?view=exchserver-2019
You can also test autodiscover in Outlook and have a look at the current Outlook connection status and this might give some ideas https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msoffice/forum/all/mailboxes-test-e-mail-autoconfiguration/19f9c90a-4640-46c4-a574-dbec29bdb8baThanks for the reply Dan_Snape
I had gone through the Deployment Assistant you linked.
I have also run the Test Autodiscover and it shows successful. It was showing this even when itself Outlook wasn't connecting.
Strange. I decided to let Outlook run for a while and it seems to be connected now and stable.
Is it perhaps normal for it to not connect initially as it perhaps searches for my mailbox, seeing as my mailboxes database isn't on the server I am connecting to? It took a while though (I wasn't watching it so not sure exactly how long, but at least 20 minutes). I have a couple of shared mailboxes attached so that may increase the time of the search?
Is there a way to confirm Outlook is definitely using the 2019 server for client access? I flushed my dns after changing the hosts file and pinging our namespaces returns the IP of the 2019 server.
I assume the version displayed below is for the mailbox rather than the client access part?
thanks
- Generally client connectivity is controlled by DNS. The version does give a good indication though. Try the test email configuration utility and that will show you what URLs are returned to the client for connectivity.
