iPhone 3.1 Won't Sync w/ Exchange

I'm getting the same error with the iPhone 3G. It's worked fine with 2.0 and 3.0. Immediately received this error after upgrading to 3.1.

I've tried deleting the account and re-adding with no luck.

I was having problems getting my contacts & calendar. I fixed the calendar by turning it off and then it slowing synced my stuff when I opened up the calendar app, but my conctacts didn't synce. I tried turning it off again in settings. It still didn't work. Then I turned the phone off by holding the top button and turned it back on. It WORKED! Just a thought to try this. Hopefully it will work for all of you.

We're getting a very specific error message popping up that states:

"Policy Requirement"
"The account 'account' requires encryption which is not supported on this iPhone."

I'm guess that our exchange server ActiveSync policy has encryption enabled and the iPhone ignored this up until 3.1. Since only the 3GS supports hardware encryption all 3G iPhones will no longer sync with Exchange that have this policy option enabled.

Seems like a mighty big 'oops' we forgot to tell you this would render your company's thousands of iPhone 3G's ActiveSync capability useless instantly.

I am having the same issue with Sync.

I had this issue earlier when I tried the 3.1 beta on my phone, and rolled back to 3.0 (which was a partial rollback).

When 3.1 was officially release today, i thought Apple would have fixed this problem by now, and silly me, i didnt check before updating.

Now i am stuck again.

Yep. Same problem here. It's driving me nuts.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure Apple can solve this. It's up to your Exchange provider to change their settings. My guess is that most security-sensitive IT departments aren't going to be willing to do this. *****.

Same here with me and trying to sync with Exchange Server 2007 at work. I found this..

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r22999133-iPhone-31-breaks-Exchange-Sync-for-pre 3GS-phones

which proves that unchecking the 'require encryption' box fixes the issue. I can't see my work doing that though. How do you rollback to OS 3.0?

We're seeing this on Exchange 2007.

I've tried downgrading to 3.0 without success, consistently get a 1015 error and the phone left in recovery mode.

I tried doing a hard reset (holding down the power button until I got the apple symbol), upon reboot my work email was back. It might work for some people.

Tried the hardboot but still having the same problem. The error message that I get says "The account " requires encryption which is not supported on this iPhone"

Reboot didn't work for me either. My company are having a debate as to the security of switching off that setting.

The annoying thing is that I've now now no contacts in my Phone book as I was using my Corporate Contacts as my Contact list.

A couple of points of clarification based on further reading:

Non-3GS phones which have been upgraded cannot be downgraded without jailbreaking because both the OS firmware and baseband firmware are upgraded, and there is no way short of jailbreaking to downgrade baseband fireware (this is the firmware that manages the cell radio/modem). The normal downgrade process only affects the OS firmware. I have seen claims that the 3.0 OS will run on the newer baseband, but it didn't work for me.

One possible albeit very limited workaround is to setup another mail account for IMAP access to the Exchange system (assuming that service is running). This doesn't help with calender and contacts, though.

We have an emergency call into the SE for our account, but haven't heard anything.

It seems to me Apple has several options:

1) Provide a method for downgrading baseband so that folks can revert to 3.0.1 (seems unlikely).
2) Release a patch reverting to the pre-3.1 behavior, which would be bad for security.
3) Release a patch which offers non-3GS phone owners the option of explicitly ignoring the ActiveSync Policy, which would also be bad for security, but would make the choice an explicit one by the users. This is bad for orgs who want to be able to centrally enforce security policies.
4) Tell orgs they need to upgrade to 3GS phones if they want Exchange support. This seems near suicidal for them in the enterprise market.
5) Tell orgs they have the option of disabling the encryption requirement on the Exchange side. This is bad because it affects all handhelds, not just iPhones.

I'm very interested to see how they handle this.

I have a 3GS with Exchange Sync problem as well since upgrading to 3.1
Inbox keeps saying Connecting, Checking for Mail....Updated, but it does not download new messages. I've tried deleting/re-adding the Exchange acct but same problem in the end. Strange thing is that other folders (i.e. Sent folder) are updating fine. How do I put 3.0.1 back?

I'm having the same problem - but I also are facing the message, that the phone can't activate the celular data network... I have to set ANP in settings/network/cellular datanetwork before I can reseive mails from the exchange...

Jens

What's the difference between the "encryption" which is apparently not supported on the pre-3Gs models, and the "SSL" option, which I have activated on my 3G and is apparently working, even after the 3.1 update?

My "Exchange" server is actually Z-push, which is an open-source front-end which uses Microsoft Active Sync protocol to allow the iPhone to get push email from an IMAP server by emulating an Exchange interface. In other words, my email server is really IMAP, but I define an Exchange account on the iPhone that talks to the z-push web front-end. So it's neither Exchange 2003 nor Exchange 2007, and I don't know which one it looks like. I don't have a checkbox to "require encryption", but it's an https interface, and the SSL option is turned on in the iPhone account, so I assumed that meant my email traffic was being encrypted. Is there some other form of encryption beyond SSL? Or is the SSL option just being ignored by the iPhone? In that case, how could it work on an https interface?

(Just noticed the OS selector hasn't been updated to allow iphone OS 3.1 yet, but that's what I'm running)