Exchange under Mountain Lion

@smittyrocks - single Exchange and single mobileme account

Do you guys use a 2003 or 2008 exchange server? Since Apple mail officially does not support exchange 2003, could this be the reason for the "bug"?

Exchange 2008..so I do not think this is the issue...Thanks for thinking along with us.

At this point I've had several conversations and have spent a large amount of time on the phone with the first line of defense at Apple. They take my information, try and help me trouble shoot by mirroring my machine and taking logs of the computer activity, then go away and call back the next day with a "message from engineering."

Giving credit where credit is due, the individuals at Apple I have been working with have been really fantastic, understanding, and are taking my (our) problems seriously.

But they don't have an answer except to say that the mail app is designed to auto-populate with information provided by the exchange server host. Apple continues to say that this information is "wrong" which is why we are having a problem. Maybe they are right - which doesn't change the fact that it worked well in the last two releases of OS X. If they "fixed" something they should break it again - or at least that is what I told the representatives.

I am NOT hopeful for a fix in the next release, but we'll see. Either Apple is right and we'll need to start pounding on our Exchange hosts, or Apple is wrong but convinced they are right - and in that case we will never change thier mind.

This does seem to be a problem that primarily affects those of us with externally hosted exchange accounts - mine is through GoDaddy for example.

Good luck everyone.

Joeri El Hazimi wrote:

Exchange 2008..so I do not think this is the issue...Thanks for thinking along with us.

MS have released 2003, 2007 and 2010 versions of Exchange but not 2008, so what is your version.

As per some peoples reporting of success with changing the Exchange server settings, I contacted my IT managers about this. They use a third party company to handle all the mail servers and VPN and they are generally unwilling to change anything that currently works for 99.9% of it's user base and that is fully understandable.

Because of this, the imperative is on Apple to make this work out of the box.

Again, this works in Lion/Snow Leopard so for Apple to kick the can down the road with ML is less than helpful.

BiffqrgRwrzhwrerz wrote:

Do you guys use a 2003 or 2008 exchange server? Since Apple mail officially does not support exchange 2003, could this be the reason for the "bug"?

FYI

There is no Exchange 2008.

Well, If Apple is so convinced about their implementation, then let them use the same Autodiscover implementation in iOS 6. Let's see how soon they will revert their "improvements". I'm sorry, but I simply cannot believe it's got nothing to do with something Apple changed. Why do all the Outlook (Anywhere), ActiveSync, Android, iOS devices, Snow Leopard and Lion clients have no problem? "just because of an improper setup?"

No way, absolutely no way.

I don't understand apple. that's an epic fail on the side of apple.

dear apple software developers what is preventing you from implementing the following:

1. check if the internal exchange server is accesible

2. if not check the external exchange server

3. if the external one is accesible use this one and ignore the internal one

this is so sample.

so what the **** is preventing you from implementing it?

D43m0ns

they will break it in iOS 6 as well and then they will blame microsoft for it and wait until microsoft implements a workaround for the broken apple implementation.

this is a big shame for apple.

D43m0ns - you are absolutely correct. It's very surprising actually that they would even say that out loud because it's completely illogical. When an equation breaks and only one variable changes then it's obvious what the problem is.

Maybe it's Apple propaganda? Maybe they know it's their problem and they will fix it in the next update, but they will just never, ever, ever, admit fault? That wouldn't be surprising. Actually, I'm hopeful that is what it is because then at least all of us would get to work again.

@awdavis55

"This does seem to be a problem that primarily affects those of us with externally hosted exchange accounts - mine is through GoDaddy for example."

No, absolutely NOT true: our 2010 Exchange server is NOT hosted by a third party vendor, and Exchange through Mail does not work on ML, period. We have now 2 categories of Mac users: people that are still using Lion, and Exchange thru Mail works perfectly well. Then, we have the second category, aka people like me who upgraded: same Exchange server, same settings, different OS, and Exchange with Mail does not work (but Outlook 2010 does work). People have said it many MANY times on this forum, and as much as I like blaming and joking about MS, this is NOT a MS Exchange issue: something is broken in ML, and it is up to Apple to fix it.

All of the Exchange enabled apps worked fine in Lion because the user was able to enter the appropriate server address and call it a day. While I can understand Apple's desire to improve ease-of-use by fully supporting the "autodiscover" feature of Exchange, the fundamental issue with the implementation is that they removed the ability to override it. I'm sorry, but this was simply a boneheaded ill-conceived decision. What's a user supposed to do when the "autodiscover" feature returns incorrect information? And then insists upon overwriting the correct information you enter manually? Telling users to contact their IT department and request that they modify the Exchange configuration is simply NOT a viable option for many Mac users. In many organizations the network administrators view Macs with derision and scorn. Or perhaps as a nuisance at best. So they are often not very inclined to make configuration changes to accommodate such a small percentage of users. This is why it is critical that the Exchange enabled apps do not try to be too clever by half and change functional settings that the user has already entered.

Totally this.

Here's an idea:

How about a checkbox in Mail > Preferences > Accounts > [Exchange] > Advanced

[ ] Use Autodiscovery

That would seem to solve the problem, no?

Thomas - On my Macs that is what is wrong. Mail will not ignore the Internal address that is not reachable unless I am connected VIA local or VPN and move on to the external address.

Bottom line is you have to let it autodiscover what ever the address is and leave that address in place. Find the IP address used to connect external and then make the host file entry that has been explained many times on this thread and the issue is resolved. It worked for me and has been working since day one of upgrade.

This is a workaround not a good fix.