Annoucement: Updated Network Assessment Tool released on 12/8 - added network connectivity checks

Microsoft

Hi,

 

I'm happy to announce we have just released an updated Network Assessment Tool for Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. Download link is: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53885 (version 2017.1.0.51)

 

This new version has the following new features:

  • Perform connectivity test to all of the IP addresses and ports used in Microsoft Teams calls/meetings. This enables you to ensure the firewalls or other network equipment are correctly configured. The tool auto updates the list, so if any addresses or ports changed, the next time the tool is run, the new addresses will be included.
  • Tool is now delivered as an .exe which will install the appropriate runtime dependencies. This should help ensure the tool runs as expected. As part of this, the default path the output files are written to has changed.
  • Updates to support changes in relay management

Refer to the usage.docx file included with the tool for usage/etc.

 

Important: Starting around 12/15, older versions of the tool may stop working and will report an issue with the relay configuration. Please update accordingly.

 

The download site takes a few hours to replicate, so if the link doesn't work today (12/8), pleased try again in a few hours.

 

thanks!

 

/william

39 Replies
Its high priority on our list to get this release updated to address this and a couple other items of feedback we've received. I am not committing to a specific ETA or date, but I'm aiming for week or two provided everything goes well.

Same case as Trevor

Maybe a tool that may become useful after some update one day ?

or another tool for network assessment is in preparation somewhere ?

 

By the way, I notice there are plenty of Microsoft tools checking O365 needs, but I'm not sure if one is really working. If there is one to use, which one is it as I'm lost between all tools that are not working, deprecated, abandoned, ... ?

@William Looney

Question - Any update on new version ETA?

 

Additional issue below:

The "/connectivitycheck" param appears to query for hosts in five domains:

*.dc.trouter.io
*.msg.skype.com
*.broker.skype.com
*.cc.skype.com
*.conv.skype.com

 

Problems with this are as follows:

  1. The domains bolded black are only listed as "Required" for Teams on the Office365 URL/IP support page.  There is no mention at all of these domains for Skype4B.  For organizations that adhere to strict DNS recursion configurations based off the Office365 URL/IP support page, when they are not deploying Teams and only Skype4B, the "/connectivitycheck" param flat out does not work.
    • Note:  The network assessment feature still works - albeit with the caveats listed in this thread - so that remains unchanged.
  2. The domain bolded red is not listed anywhere on the Office365 URL/IP support page.  For organizations that adhere to strict DNS recursion configurations based off the Office365 URL/IP support page, this domain will not be available since it is not documented.
    • Note:  This domain isn't even listed anywhere in the RSS feed, either.

 

I cannot overstate how disappointing and frustrating it is for partners and customers to have to deal with these issues.  Even more frustrating is the fact that we're now nearing two months since the version was released with no updates to fix the initial issues.

 

Please, please, PLEASE, get these issues (both technical and documentation) fixed ASAP.

Hello,
Any update on this issue?
Thanks.
Quang.

Opened a ticket with MSP and pressing on this question.

Microsoft has released the update for the Network Assessment Tool on March 5th. It is version 1.1.0.0.

 

It's at the regular download page:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=53885

 

Has anyone had a chance to try it out yet?

@Alexander Grinman

Initial issue encountered was that attempting to install the new version over an existing version (if there was already an existing version installed) resulted in the new version bits never being installed.  The NTFS timestamps on all the files remained showing the Dec version.  Using the assessment tool after the attempted install also resulted in the same issues already listed in the thread.

 

As of today, I uninstalled the Dec version.  Then installed the new Mar version and thus far I have not had issues with packet sent/received being reported as 283.  All of my smoke-tests today have been positive, with packets sent/received being reported as >848.

On the *.broker.skype.com, MS is looking into reconciling the tool and/or the URL/IP for Office 365. No date given yet.

I can confirm that uninstalling and reinstalling seems to have fixed the 283 packets bug.  Thanks Trevor.

Microsoft has updated their Monthly URL and IP addresses for O365 to include *.cc.skype.com. This replaces any reference to *.broker.skype.com showing up with the SFBNA tool 1.1 There were no changes to network ranges for Teams.

Do we have change log available for latest release?

 

I do see initial connection request is changed. Old version was connecting to "s2s.config.skype.com" and new is connecting to "config.team.microsoft.com" to fetch media location.

You seems to have released a new version again in May.

 

Basic command says:

C:\...>NetworkAssessmentTool.exe /?
Skype for Business - Network Assessment Tool

Is this tool for Skype only or for Teams also?

 

The results from this:

C:\...>NetworkAssessmentTool.exe /connectivitycheck

.

.

Verifications failed.

 

But no need to say, my Skype/Teams is working. I'm and perhaps many other of your customers are in corporate networks. Liked or not, the standard corporate networks does not allow external connection directly from the workstations, but via the corporate proxies. So Skype and Teams, both are working (somehow) through the proxy, but why your testers does not do so?

 

hello @rovert506 @William Looney - What was the fix for the "ERROR: No data in input file. Please check that at least one record exists."  I've tried with one and multiple iterations only to encounter the same error.  Uninstalled and reinstalled tool didn't help.  I never encountered this error on the initial release of this tool, only on the updated versions included the latest as of this post.  

I had the error on the initial release. I had it initially on the 1.1 release until I uninstalled all previous versions. After that no error. http://lynciverse.blogspot.com/2017/12/hands-on-with-updated-skype-for.html?m=1
+1 to Randy Chapman's response. Initial version was only version that I had issues on. However...the later version(s) cannot be installed over an existing 1.0 install, otherwise you will continue to have issues. You must uninstall the 1.0 version and then reinstall the latest version to get around the issues.

Thanks Randy and Trevor. Thing is this is a new machine that did not have the previous versions installed.  I installed the latest version straight away and it produces the errors.  

Hi @Dino Caputo. I checked with the team and this particular error message: "ERROR: No data in input file. Please check that at least one record exists" should only be outputted by the ResultsAnalyzer.exe when the tsv generated by the NetworkAssessmentTool.exe is run. I was able to generate this error if I delete the rows from the tsv file and run the ResultsAnalyzer.exe.

 

My suggestion would be is to check the file the NetworkAssessmentTool.exe produces (it reports the path it using, in the console output when the tool runs) and verify there is data in the TSV before running the ResultsAnalyzer.exe.

Yes that’s correct. I get this error when attempting to analyze the results. I have changed the iteration to 5 and 7 and validate that the out file file does contain 5 and 7 rows of actual data however I continue to get the error. I have even tried moving the TSV file to the same directory as the assessment tool with no change. What I can say is if I change the packet sizes to anything north of 800 for both send and receive them the results analyzer works with no error. This seems to indicate the original bug many people encountered. Any other thoughts??

@William Looney Any idéa why the tool fails today?
What has changed?

DNS-failure.jpg