Exchange under Mountain Lion

Hi zarrsten,

the issue is not the exchange server or exchange cluster or autodiscover. everything on exchange side has a correct setup and is working with Outlook on Mac or Windows or is even working on iOS devices.

the issue is that the Mail app from Mountain lion wants to connect to the internal server and not to the external one.

so for external users the only correct workarround currently is:

modify your /etc/hosts

include the internal servers here with the ip of the external server

ignore cert issues in mountain lion apps.

Any other solutions will not work for external users.

In short if you want exchange on mountain lion you have to be sure that your internal servernames have a working dns resolution.

Thomas - I believe you posted step by step instruction on this. Can you link us back to that post? I think you've nailed it.

Hi awdavis55,

first of all you need to get the names of your internal exchange server and your external exchange server from the mail app.

if you have this information start the terminal app. be sure your account has administator rights.

no type host -t a external exchange server to get the ip adress of your external exchange server.

next type sudo nano /etc/hosts

if required enter your password now.

insert an new line with ip space internal server name to the /etc/hosts file

e.g. if your external exchange server has ip 80.67.16.195 and your internal exchange server has name efe01.exchange.local insert the following line:

80.67.16.195 efe01.exchange.local

save the file and quit nano.

to be sure that the host file is working. try to ping your internal exchange server now.

quit the terminal app.

if you have an exchange cluster with more than 1 internal exchange server all internal exchange servers has to be included in the /etc/hosts

Best Regards,

Thomas

I thought I would add to my earlier comment about the host file edit working. This may or may not apply to folks other than just me, but a few days after editing my hosts file to have Mail always point to the external server I started having the empty folder issue (inbox and other folders as well). After resisting the urge to throw my laptop out the window, I took a deep breath and read a few more posts. In addition to Mail not being able to find the server and pull down new mail or send a message, I started to try to reason why every time I switched to a different folder in my Exchange account it would be empty. Even a mailbox rebuild wouldn't bring the mail back. What made it more confusing was that I could ping the internal server name sccessfully from outside the office (thanks to the hosts file edit) so I know that I had connectivity to the proper address. After reading a few other posts, I surmised that Mail had lost track of where all of my previously downloaded messages were. This lead me to try the following:

1. Close Mail

2. Back up my mail store at /user/library/mail/v2/EWS-username@servername

3. Delete the folder

4. Reopen mail

Worked like a champ. Mail re-downloaded all of my messages and could now send mail. Don't ask me why Mail losing track of where my messages were stored caused me not to be able to send email, but it did.

So in summary, for my situation with the symptoms above, editing the hosts file to always point to the external address, even if I was in the office, and deleting the mail store and letting it re-download did the trick. YMMV but I thought I would share.

I am all for bringing this to Apple's attention, but I'm also one that will do my best to find a workaround so that I can keep on working while they are working on a fix. For those of you not savvy with terminal, or like me, a fairly new Mac user, here's a link to a great program that adds an option in your System Preferences to easily add/remove a hosts file entry. This program makes it super simple. http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/40003/hosts/

Is this just for Mail or for Outlook 2011 as well.

Hi AveryCNesbitt,

as far as I know you do not need to edit the hosts file if you want to use Outlook 2011 only. the /etc/hosts workaround is only if you need the mountain lion Mail app

Outlook 2011 for Mac does not have the autodiscover issue. Outlook 2011 for Mac works very well in ML. If you are having issue with Outlook, there's somethign else going on unrelated to the MLMail issue.

I am very happy to see a lot of people having fixes and workarounds, but maybe not everybody is able to use the workarounds as it is sometimes too technical, especially when people start to talk in technical abbreviations. As an end user with some knowledge it is absolutely necessary that Apple should react with eather a communication as mentioned by YIIT.

I work as a freelancer and it is very unprofessional to switch mail accounts everytime this kind of issues rise. I need to keep track of my communication and using several accounts back and forth is annoying and confusing.

But anyway, thanks to Thomas for being constructive...but not useful for me...

While researching ways to turn off autodiscovery or change settings for autodiscovery for Mail.app I found this.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macoutlook/autodiscov er-service-is-changing-server-url/bccef715-9255-4409-9865-c0b2dbb10df1

According to this article, Outlook 2011 can experience the exact same issue of the server name changing. There is a suggested fix using Apple Script to tell Outlook to disable background autodiscover. Could this be done with Mail.app as well?

when changing the URL once manually in outlook 2011 autodiscover never changed this url again.

needless to say that outlook 2011 has only the external server url configured within autodiscover.

mail app has both from autodiscover and always uses the internel server url. that's the big issue.

Not to add fuel to the fire here but....

This really isn't a bug in Mountain Lion as much as it was a missed feature (or bug) in previous versions of OS X. In the llink below you will see this behaviour is how autodiscovery in Mail.app should have worked from the beginning. Based upon this information provided by Micrsoft, the autodiscovery feature in Mail.app actually was broken in all previous versions of OS X, with Mountain Lion the first version to get it right. By design it's suppose to check the server for changes in server name or location of mailbox.

http://mac2.microsoft.com/help/office/14/en-us/admin/item/af2a88b0-bed1-412f-830 4-36b3afbeef5c

For me this is fine and has not yet created an issue. The bigger issue or bug is the loss of email folders when using two Exchange accounts on the same server. Since Autodiscovery is now working properly, both my accounts get set to the same server name and therefore breaks the original workaround of using two different server names.

Same issue here, 27 imac from Mid 2010. After a reboot it works fine, once I let her go to sleep, she wakes up on the wrong side of the bed with the spinning rainbow disc. Only way to get out of it is a hard reboot.

Hi smittyrocks,

once again. when you are not inside der exchange LAN or you are unable to resolve the internal exchange server name via DNS or hosts file the mail app in ML is not working because the mail server can not be connected. this is an issue in ML not in autodiscover. indepentent from the client the autodiscover.xml is always the same on the server.

in my case the relevant part is:

<Protocol>

<Type>WEB</Type>

<External>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Fba">https://exchange-mailbox.eu/owa</OWAUrl>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Fba">https://exchange.df.eu/owa</OWAUrl>

<Protocol>

<Type>EXPR</Type>

<ASUrl>https://exchange.df.eu/EWS/Exchange.asmx</ASUrl>

</Protocol>

</External>

<Internal>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Basic, Fba">https://efe01.exchange.local/owa</OWAUrl>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Basic, Fba">https://efe02.exchange.local/owa</OWAUrl>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Basic, Fba">https://efe03.exchange.local/owa</OWAUrl>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Basic, Fba">https://efe04.exchange.local/owa</OWAUrl>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Basic, Fba">https://efe05.exchange.local/owa</OWAUrl>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Basic, Fba">https://efe06.exchange.local/owa</OWAUrl>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Basic, Fba">https://efe07.exchange.local/owa</OWAUrl>

<Protocol>

<Type>EXCH</Type>

<ASUrl>https://efe04.exchange.local/EWS/Exchange.asmx</ASUrl>

</Protocol>

</Internal>

</Protocol>

and mail app tries to connect to efe04.exchange.local instead of exchange.df.eu thats the big issue. so why is microsoft outlook 2011 able to handle this correct and the ML mail app not? Do you really think microsoft is not able to implement their own protocol correctly on their client apps?

apple has a big bug in ML mail app that's all.

for example see also:

http://support.itsolutionsnow.com/index.php?_m=knowledgebase&_a=viewarticle&kbar ticleid=141

it seems that apple always uses the internal server instead of the external server. so you have to modify this per hand for itsolutionsnow and other providers. in ML you are not able to fix this because the autodiscover feature will override the values.

Personally, it's an absolute joke for Apple to post a thread saying the Exchange issues are not their fault and blame Microsoft (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4363)... Look here Apple, you POS.. Exchange and Mail worked just fine for me before the upgrade. Don't have me search through all these blogs and decipher this computer lingo and jargon, like I'm watching The Da Vinci Code. If I upgrade to Mountain Lion to have something that used to work, not work..that **** IS ON YOU!

I mean, this below.. are we for real??

<Protocol>

<Type>WEB</Type>

<External>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Fba">https://exchange-mailbox.eu/owa</OWAUrl>

<OWAUrl AuthenticationMethod="Fba">https://exchange.df.eu/owa</OWAUrl>

<Protocol>

<Type>EXPR</Type>

<ASUrl>https://exchange.df.eu/EWS/Exchange.asmx</ASUrl>

</Protocol>

</External>

<Internal>

Did I sign up for a new foreign language class Apple? No. I didn't. So while you can post something, saying it has nothing to do with you.. IT 100% HAS TO DO WITH YOU. I just want to be able to have my work emails filtered through my Mac. That is all. But you don't give a ****.. you'd rather post something that offers no help, and place blame on others. Thanks. Thanks for caring about loyal consumers. Just continue to produce overly rushed, half-***** upgrades and software until WIndows 8 steam rolls your ***.

And how can you give us an upgrade that's barely compatible with our iPhones until the iOS 6 upgrade? Absolute Joke.

PS: Isn't the: "Our products are so sick and far beyond any others, there is no way it's a Mac issue. It's all Exchange and their **** services" such a classic Mac move?

<Edited By Host>

I tried just that, but then Mail would fetch any messages at all... I tried it several times, rebooted inbetween but that seemed to have broken Mail on ML even more. I copied that folder back to ~/Library/Mail/V2 and after a rebuild for each and every folder in my Exchange account, all the messages were visible again. New messages are displayed fine. Sending is not a problem either. But after a few minutes, folders in my Exchange account appeared as empty again...

And yes I have verified the Exchange server settings, Autodiscover settings, using the /etc/hosts trick for all available CAS-servers, but to no avail. No matter what I try: Mail on ML will keep on doing what it's not supposed to do.

Mail is seriously broken, Apple.