Exchange under Mountain Lion

They will have to

• fix Mail problem where you can't quit because it is hung looking for an exchange server that is not there.
• fix calendar cach corruption that keeps the calendar from exchanging data with MS Exchnage severs until you delete the cache and rebuild it.
• fix the mail problem where it allows you to press the "accept" button in an Exchange calendar event email, deletes the email and never posts the calendar event... and corrupts the Calendar Cache file in the process
• fix the mail problem where if it cannot access iCloud it cannot in any reasonable time pull up an email address from Active Directory
• fix the calendar problem where any Contacts server entry not reachable, Active Directory for example, can keep any email addrss from populating in an invitee add. You can literally go to the Contacts app, find the contact, copy their email, flip to Calendar and then paste it in before the Calendar ever returns from the type-to-search

Mind you, if you reemove any and all MS Exchange or MS Active Directory accounts form the machine, all these problems magically go away...

Guys, thanks for your indoctrination. But I'm sorry, we DO have Exchange 2007 and acc. to our administrator SP3 is installed as well - my fault. So my previous thought was updating to 2010 or 2013 and wether this could be the solution or not.

Sarcasm is a funny thing, but I still have the problem of diappearing mails in folders and deletion of my "send" folder. What do you say now?

I should mention, that we hava 17,600 mails in our inbox currently and another 16,000 mails in out sent box. I know huge mailboxes are counterproductive and we're archiving our mailbox every three months. But that shouldn't be the problem?

Outlook isn't an alternative as well...

@davidpetree@Csound1What you might not realize is that getting major organizations to update to any new Microsoft product is a non-trivial affair.

Consider all the problems you know of in MS software. Then think about how the hype machine works for products like MS Vista and now MS Windows 8. Organizations updating because of faith in MS engineering and design have taken it on the nose while organzations dragging their feet with MS Exchange 2003 and MS Windows XP remain running and operational.

This is not a justification for running antique software but rather that it is trying to put MS World in perspective. People pick MS products, not because they are superior, but because nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft. MS Failure has an MS Excuse. But that excuse only lasts so long after IT has chosen to upgrade to the next MS product version only to find that the choice (Vista, Windows 8, IE 8, others) was a mistake.

Seeing the Mac day to day just working, no fuss no muss, takes the fear away. Having problems with business critical Mac applications like Mail, Calendar and Contacts multiplies the fear and the recalcitrant MS Worker and MS CIO feels justified in not using Mac OS X over MS Windows... because failure or not, nobody gets fired for choosing MS products.

The MS compatiblity in Mail, Calendar and even Contacts is really poor and has been since it's inception. The implementation that allows for Mail to chew up 100% of the processor while it incessantly tries to access a server, any server which is not available absolutely absurd from a software engineering perspective in general.

So before anyone pops off with a trite reply, consider that the person who is struggling enough to come to this forum to ask you for help has likely been taking plenty of criticism for not choosing MS Outlook on MS Windows.

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

For those stuck in MS Exchange 2003 which uses a protocol that resembles WebDAV or for those in MS Exchange 2007 which implemented "Exchange Web Services" or EWS, you have an option in an open source product called DavMail. It is a gateway application which translates proprietary MSsyness into standard IMAP, SMTP, CalDav, CardDav, and LDAP. This can help work around the worms in Apple's core communications products for some.

Cerniuk wrote:

@davidpetree@Csound1What you might not realize is that getting major organizations to update to any new Microsoft product is a non-trivial affair.

Of course I know, and I also know how much time and money is lost as well as frustration generated by continuing to use obsolete equipment.

It's an excuse to cover poor decision making.

In early pages of this discussion I recommended that people regularly use an email archiving prorgam like Mail Steward if they manage to get their Exchange accounts working. I try to use Mail Steward once a week. It also overcomes the problem of software updates to Mail not recognising old Time Machine backups.

But back to the main topic - has OSX 10.8.3 fixed some Exchange problems?

I'm desperate here - Mail is driving me nuts. I have the same problems we had before the release of 10.8.2:

Disapearing of mails => mail needs to download all mails again

And there's a new problem since 10.8.3:

Sent folders of Exchange accounts get deleted - I need to delete the whole account and reinstall. After closing & starting Mail again same problem

Am I the only one with this problem? Automatic server detection is disabled and the server adress is safed in external adress field.

I really need help here.

Exchange Connectivity Analyser

Are you kidding? I am NOT entering any login details (user, password) on a third pary website. Pfff...

Microsoft is the 3rd party, it's one of their tools. But don't test if you don't want to, it's your choice.

Excellent lead. Made me go looking and found this:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj851141(v=exchg.80).aspx

Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer Tool

The Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer Tool is a downloadable client program that is used to identify connectivity issues that occur between email clients and a server that is running Microsoft Exchange Server. The tool can also be used to identify connectivity issues between email clients and Office 365. The tool can be used both by email users, to identify common problems, and by IT Administrators, to troubleshoot issues that are affecting their Exchange Server deployments.

Can't run it until tomorrow but it might help...

Guys,

I think I may have found a work around. Please see these instrcutions. Although they are for Snow Leopard, I think they will work. I have my solution working with the hosts file hack, but I think this is a better option.

For those that can't even set up their account, just try to add it from Mail (not from Settings | Mail, Caladar & Contacts) then when it tries to find the server, just click cancel - it should go ahead and add the account, even if nothing works. Then uncheck "Use autodiscover" in the settings, and try this change.

http://support.exchangemailhosting.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/127 /4/exchange-hosting---mac-mail-on-snowleopard-for-exchange-2010

This solved the problem for me. I had to manually change password for external Exchange server in Keychain. No EWSConnection assertion errors since then :-)

mmysliwiec wrote:

This solved the problem for me. I had to manually change password for external Exchange server in Keychain. No EWSConnection assertion errors since then :-)

That's fantastic news... Looks like we may have a fix. I plan to update my config tonight.

PS: Too bad Apple couldn't figure this out. Some small third party Exchange hosting provider got it in the end...

Keychain "solutions" were discussed in the first few pages of this thread (last July!). It seems to have worked for some but not others.

A book could be written about all the ways that people contributing to this thread have approached the problem. Some time ago I suggested it would be useful if someone with more tech knowledge than me could write a checklist of items to try to eliminate the problems (what to tell exchange server administrators, what to change in Mail settings, Keychain entries etc)

With trepidation I am about to "upgrade" to 10.8.3, even though Exchange is working for me.

Clone your drive prior to upgrading, that way you can quickly get back to where you are now, in case of problems.