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apple mail and exchange online issues

Hi,


since we use exchange online (office 365) for mail hosting, we experienced several problems with the mail.app.

First, the mail.app freezes often, requiring to force shutdown of the app, and restarting.

Secondly, when we write emails and send it, there is often a copy of the email that stays in drafts, which is very confusing.

And at last, we have receiving issues, as the mail.app sometimes don't receive emails anymore (but can send them) and a reboot is required to receive emails again.


All this is very confusing and problematic, as these issues don't occur on the two computer that use Outlook, I guess it's a mail.app problem.


Anyone experiencing the same ? Any workaround ? Or do I just need to wait for bug fixes ?

iMac (21.5-inch Mid 2011), Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jul 6, 2012 4:29 AM

Reply
19 replies

Jul 9, 2012 3:41 PM in response to buzio

For the most part, I've been having the same issues (haven't had it freeze up on me). Sadly, I don't have any great answers for you.


My biggest annoyance is with it not receiving emails. I turned on Mail's Activity window and noticed that Mail seems to take a long time syncing folders from the Exchange server and every time it is in the midst of doin it, it will not receive any emails. You wait it out (which can take a ridiculously long time for folders with 4 emails in it) and the emails will eventually show up, but if I quit Mail they'll show up when I relaunch it before it starts syncing again.There's definately something funky with the folder syncing.


I'll let you know if I figure anything out.

Jul 14, 2012 8:57 PM in response to buzio

I have definitely been having the same issue. Right when I open mail, i see the most recent emails in my inbox but then they just dissapear.


After going into my preferences, I see that even though I set up the server as webmail.xxxxx.xxx etc it changes it to srvex01.xxx.xxx and thats when it stops working.


It does the same thing that Nick wrote in which it tries to sync the folder but nothing happens.


This seems like a very new problem.


Brandon

Jul 29, 2012 3:29 PM in response to blaterveer86

I'm having the same issue. Server name won't stick. It changes from the address I put in manually to the local server address. Even if I had the external server address it still will not work correctly. Didn't experience this issue until upgrading from Snow Leopard. I'm beginning to wonder if it relates to a DNS setting in the local network where the exchange server risdes. Or does have it something to do with Exchange's Autodiscovery? Hopefully there is a solution to this problem.


I will say this... I connect Mail to another exchange account as well and it doesn't experience this same issue. It works as desired. In fact, it uses the external DNS address to connect. That address shows in the interntal server field. The external server field remains blank. Both Exchange server's are 2007 so based on the results it seems isolated to certain setups.

Jul 30, 2012 9:52 AM in response to buzio

I am having the same issue, having updated to Moutain Lion, everytime I open mail the internal and extermal server path defaults to the internal address of our server not mail.xxxxxx.com which I need to conect to.

This and means I have to re enter the serve address everytime I open mail - not ideal!

If anyone has a solution I would love to hear about it.

Jul 31, 2012 7:28 PM in response to seanomiller

hello everyone. I got confused by "internal" and "external" servers you referred to.

I will assume you mean Incoming Mail Server and Outgoing Mail Server.

For the icloud --wait, they may be geographic about that...

Did you follow precisely the set up when you did mail?

Mail>preferences>accounts>account information description: iCloud {email address} edit email aliases Full name.

Incoming mail server (again, may be geographic) try imap.mail.me.com your user name, your cloud pasword

here is where it gets tricky. Even though when I used the set up when I bought this machine a month ago, and "they" put in the outgoing mail server iCloud(iCloud) at the end they say click the banner to show edit this server and make sure that it is the one you are setting up (I use also my ISP provided mail, so have more than one server) THEN click the box "use only this server"- then I had to go back and last of all put the iCloud back in. Doing others bumps cloud, so did it again for it (This too, while on each of the accounts you have- last thing is use only this server){ more clearly- edit this server ONLY for the account you are on,finish one, then click on the next account in left column} If the servers are mixed up here, you will get all kinds of requests for passwords and who knows what else. SOME of you will be cured by this. The folks on big windows networks- I am not sure. I hope this helps someone.

Aug 1, 2012 8:41 AM in response to seanomiller

Seanomiller et al,


I have been having this issue also, as has a colleague who is also a Mac user on the same Exchange server as I. After days of frustration with account settings changing on me and being disconnected from the mail server, I may have a solution. I don't know if this is a permanent fix, but it seems to be working for me. I'll see if the problem of the changing server address continues, but what I did is this:


When I initally set up the Exhange account with my new company's server, I did it through System Preferences/Mail, Contacts & Calendars based on instructions I found online. I let Autodiscovery find the server for the email account and then manually changed the server name from "svr***com1@******.com" to "webmail.******.com" where ****** is the domain name of the company. It appears that Mail remembered where the email address was initially found using Autodiscovery and wants to keep going back there. The IS administrator at the company tells me that only the webmail server will work with Mac and that IS has no interest in supporting Mac users.


So, what I did today is delete the company mail account on my Mac completely, first within Mail/Preferences and then from System Preferences/Mail, Contacts & Calendars, after moving all messages to folders on my me.com account. Then I set the corporate email account back up from within Mail/Preferences, not from System/Preferences, but this time entered the server manually as "webmail.******.com." It appears that at that point Mail re-indexed all my mailboxes, most of which are on me.com, then crashed. After it reopened, everything seems to be working fine and the mail connection to the company webmail server seems to be holding.


WORD OF CAUTION: If you decide to try this method and you have any important emails you need to archive or save them somewhere secure, do so before you delete and reinstall the account. Be very careful about keeping those messages secure. Not responsible for any lost stuff!

Aug 3, 2012 1:46 AM in response to kg4qwi

In reference the problem people are having with server names changing this is not an apple issue this is to do with the setup of the exchange server.

Exchange 2007 and 2010 have an autodiscovery feature where the server "publishes" the information needed by the mail cleint to connect. From what you guys are saying the server admin has setup autodiscovery so that the external name is the external dns name e.g "exchange.yourexternaldomain.COM" whereas the internal name is the internal dns name of the server e.g "exchange.yourinternaldomain.LOCAL".

The administrator need to change the intenal name to be the same as the external name and on their internal DNS server setup split zone DNS to resolve that name internally.


I don't think there will be anything you guys can do on your machines and there is not a whole lot Apple can do.


As background I'm a windows administrator and look after about 20 exchange servers, 2007 and 2010, and all of them are working with Mac mail just fine (at least in this regard)


Sorry if I've miss-understood the problem there does seem to be a few different issues on this post.

Aug 3, 2012 6:58 AM in response to chrisfromguildford

Chris, I am confident you are dead on with your suspicions. The internal server keeps changing to a EWCAP address but my internal remains as ".LOCAL". Unfortunately our IT department 'does not provide Mac support' as it is not our standard issued equipment. It appears I will just have to tolerate the issue. With that said, I still have concerns this issue leads to a crash in the mail.app program. I hope a future update will allow us to shut down the app and re-launch without needing to Force Close the app.

Sep 20, 2012 5:53 PM in response to chrisfromguildford

Chris,


We have done as you suggested but it feels like a work around. My understanding of how it is supposed to work is that my Mac should switch to the internal address when I'm on the office network and use the external address when I'm remote.


This obviously doesn't happen. My question is how is my Mac supposed to know which network I'm on? I've tried Apple support with this many times and can't seem to get a straight answer. Any thoughts?


Thanks in advance.

apple mail and exchange online issues

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