Exchange servers and Mavericks Mail

s1000rrnapo

mmm, looks nice, i ll try it.

but nevertheless apple need to fix the issue. also i think microsoft need to do some effort to throttle the policies better for mac users. (it s not only apple that has a buggy mail client).

@dammitjim, imap is a completly different protocol, has nothing to do with EWS.

That's like asking Toyota to build there cars with gear boxes that can fit Mercedes. No pun inteneded😉

inked at dolltattoos wrote:

Complain all you want, it won't solve the problem and - here's another fact: OS X Mavericks Mail + Exchange works for many, many people.

Here's another fact: Mail + Exchange doesn't work for many people. Hence this 35 page thread.

I'm glad it works for you, but it's pretty unreliable for me. In my case, sending messages isn't the problem, it's *receiving* messages. The activity window shows that it's taking forever to synchronize with the Exchange server, and even when that task completes it usually doesn't show mail that I know is there, i.e. mail that shows up immediately in the iOS version of mail, and in other Mac mail clients. Apple has admitted that this exact problem exists:

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5367

The workaround suggested is to go offline and back online. Not only is that a hassle for something that should just work, it doesn't always solve the problem for me at least.

If it's fixed why don't I see any change? Why do others continue to experience the same? Why are there other similar discussions like this? https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5969450?answerId=25086176022#25086176022. Dated March 4.

And respectfully, 'Resolves an issue that prevented Mail from receiving new messages from certain providers' does not seem to equate with 'fixes Microsoft Exchange server problems.' Apple wasn't shy to mention the fixes for Gmail in the last release.

And yes, iOS uses SSL and works just fine. Always did.

And you are right, inked at dolltattoos, I don't have any suggestions and I haven't gotten any either yet that worked. And no, I'm not going back to MS, but I'm not the only one who has to rely on Exchange server for email. Apple's (mail) Server has a corporate market share of, round numbers, 0.

Respectfully, if I went to my car dealer and he did a firmware update to my car, which then promptly stalled as I drove off his lot, I wouldn't be blaming it on the gas in my tank, unless the dealer had warned me to change the octane rating.

Follow the advice from MattMacPro, repeated below. It worked for me perfectly. Part of the problem is that, at least when I did it with Matt's guidance, it looked like the EWS contained some legacy glitch. When you delete it and then re-establish your Exchange account, a new EWS will be created and all will be well.

"I would like to refine this solution and remove some of the steps I think are unnessasary - and add one of my own ...

• Make sure I had a good backup in Time Machine (including system settings) in case something goes wrong
• Quit Apple Mail
• Delete the Exchange account using "System Preferences > Internet Accounts"
• Using Finder, locate and delete the folder(s) and all their contents:~/Library/Mail/V2/EWS-(your exchange acct info)

  Delete any EWS account folder you find there.

• Empty the Trash
• Reboot the computer
• Open "System Preferences > Internet Accounts" and setup Exchange account as if it were the first time.
• It will take some time for all your email to sync again (especially if you have a large amount of email). If your email Inbox appears to not be showning the latest email you can select the Exchange Inbox folder within your InBox and select from the menu bar - MailBox > Rebuild. Select from the menu bar - Window > Activity - and you can watch the progress of the re-sync of your email."

I've been having the same problems but I think I finally fixed it for me. I wasn't able to use the search in Mail, but I was able to use the account at least. When I updated to 10.9.1 hoping Apple had fixed the problem, I suddenly couldn't even access my Exchange account.

Here's the steps that finally worked for me:

1. Went back to my old Macbook Pro, verified and repaired disk permissions via Disk Utility.
2. Backed up the old machine using Time Machine (I hadn't done that before but someone I work with did and he wasn't having the same trouble with Mail).
3. Erased my new Macbook Pro.
4. Did an internet recovery of the latest copy of Mavericks (10.9.1)
5. Use the migration assistant to pull in the backup of the old MBP from Time Machine.

This appears to have solved the problems with the search in Mail not working, and the fact that my Exchange account wasn't working at all.

I hope that helps.

Hi Pavvad,

Yes, Mavericks broke Exchange connectivity in many ways. Since you are on 365 you can use IMAP. When 10.9.2 comes out you can switch back to Exchange. The interesting twist to this is that IMAP was broken with Microsoft hosted solutions, though, all should be well now. (Article re broken IMAP on 365: IMAP throws Error 9 - Server error when fetching mail)

Anyway .... Here's some information to get you going.

Configure IMAP/SMTP here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/settings-for-pop-and-imap-access- HA102908389.aspx

Incoming mail server settings: These are your incoming (POP3 or IMAP4) server settings.

• If you’re connecting to your Office 365 email, use the following settings.

If you’re not using Office 365, see Find your server settings later in this article.

Outgoing mail server settings: This is your SMTP server name.

• If you’re connecting to your Office 365 email, use the following settings.

That's grat to hear JohnnyDeLuxe! It appears you are running Exchange 2007, if you do not mind please do one of the following on the Exchange server so we can get an idea of which ** (Cummulative Update) is currently installed.

Option 1) To view the server properties in the Exchange Management console, follow these steps:

1. Start the Microsoft Exchange Management console.
2. In the navigation pane, expand the Server Configuration objects until you locate the server object, and then select the server object.
3. On the right side, notice the Exchange version number.

Option 2) To view the server properties in the Exchange Management shell, follow these steps:

1. Start the Microsoft Exchange Management shell.
2. Run the following command at the command line:

   get-exchangeserver

This further bolsters my stats which suggest this to be an issue isolated to those who are running Exchange 2010.

peter_watt,

Publically this is all you are going to get. See item #5.

• Adds the ability to make and receive FaceTime audio calls
• Adds call waiting support for FaceTime audio and video calls
• Adds the ability to block incoming iMessages from individual senders
• Improves the accuracy of unread counts in Mail
• Resolves an issue that prevented Mail from receiving new messages from certain providers
• Improves AutoFill compatibility in Safari
• Fixes an issue that may cause audio distortion on certain Macs
• Improves reliability when connecting to a file server using SMB2
• Fixes an issue that may cause VPN connections to disconnect
• Improves VoiceOver navigation in Mail and Finder
• Provides a fix for SSL connection verification

There were several improvements in 10.9.3 but Mavericks Mail.app remains subpar compared to all previous versions. In particular, all of the following problems are widely reported among hundreds of local users:

1. Inbound Exchange mail will 'cork' -- I've watched 2-3 hours of mail never show up until Mail.app is restarted
2. Outbound Exchange mail will randomly delay 10 minutes to 2 hours, sometimes requires full reboot
3. Inbound IMAP mail is consistently slower than any previous version. My ML desktop and my android phone see new mail 1-2 minutes before Mavericks every time, and sometimes up to 5 minutes faster. All of them are set on IDLE and tcpdump on Mavericks shows the IDLE messages are received and accepted, but the results don't appear in the inbox until minutes later.
4. Deletes often fail to synchronize to IMAP servers. You'll see messages you deleted and which were copied to the Trash folder successfully reappear in the Inbox or folder a few minutes after they were removed. Debugging on the server side shows the flags were never set.
5. Mail.app entirely freezes up and requires Force Quit at least once a week.

There are a significant number of problems which are inconsistent from person to person. The general conclusion is that Mavericks Mail.app is fragile and prone to internal deadlocks.

I hope that you receive this response in e-mail, as posts containing technical content about bugs in Apple software get Disappeared here.

jorhett wrote:

1. Inbound Exchange mail will 'cork' -- I've watched 2-3 hours of mail never show up until Mail.app is restarted
2. Outbound Exchange mail will randomly delay 10 minutes to 2 hours, sometimes requires full reboot
3. Inbound IMAP mail is consistently slower than any previous version. My ML desktop and my android phone see new mail 1-2 minutes before Mavericks every time, and sometimes up to 5 minutes faster. All of them are set on IDLE and tcpdump on Mavericks shows the IDLE messages are received and accepted, but the results don't appear in the inbox until minutes later.
4. Deletes often fail to synchronize to IMAP servers. You'll see messages you deleted and which were copied to the Trash folder successfully reappear in the Inbox or folder a few minutes after they were removed. Debugging on the server side shows the flags were never set.
5. Mail.app entirely freezes up and requires Force Quit at least once a week.

None of those things occur in my office, all Mavericks, all Exchange clients.

Csound1 wrote:

jorhett wrote:

1. Inbound Exchange mail will 'cork' -- I've watched 2-3 hours of mail never show up until Mail.app is restarted
2. Outbound Exchange mail will randomly delay 10 minutes to 2 hours, sometimes requires full reboot

...

Mail.app entirely freezes up and requires Force Quit at least once a week.

None of those things occur in my office, all Mavericks, all Exchange clients.

Given that I've talked to every other large installation in the SF Bay Area and they have all seen these problems, and that Apple has officially acknowledged these issues to us, clearly indicates that the issues do exist.

Very recently I was talking with someone who claimed he wasn't seeing any issues. While we were talking, his phone binged with a new mail. We stood there and waited 9 minutes before it showed up in Mail.app. So I think perhaps the "no issues" crowd may simply not be paying attention 😟 I mean heck, most people prefer less e-mail 😉 so perhaps they simply aren't complaining. As stated before, I have PCAP files showing the problems.

jorhett wrote:

Csound1 wrote:

jorhett wrote:

1. Inbound Exchange mail will 'cork' -- I've watched 2-3 hours of mail never show up until Mail.app is restarted
2. Outbound Exchange mail will randomly delay 10 minutes to 2 hours, sometimes requires full reboot

...

Mail.app entirely freezes up and requires Force Quit at least once a week.

None of those things occur in my office, all Mavericks, all Exchange clients.

Given that I've talked to every other large installation in the SF Bay Area and they have all seen these problems,

Do you think I am stupid?

Good luck with your tale.

I'm having a similar issue. My exchange account seems to be causing a run-away process on Mavericks similar to one that was present a few releases back. After a while my Late-2008 MacBook Pro just starts going nuts trying to check accounts, and this all stops when I remove the Exchange account.

It's a shame this one has reappeared. I'd guess someone didn't port the Exchange fixes properly 😟

Same issue also. Found this which seems relevant. Suggests that iCloud keychain is the likely cause.

https://jamfnation.jamfsoftware.com/discussion.html?id=8747

Havent tried removing exchange account as yet as previous experience suggests this can be painful in and of itself.

Same issue as JeanVis and others. Has anyone on this thread filed a bug with apple regarding this issue?

Tried switching to outlook for mac but that's not usable at all. (It just crashes or hangs whenever I try to use it.)

I thought part of the problem might be my mailbox size; total for my account is 18gb. But it seemed to work fine before upgrading to Mavericks.

Anyone else with similarly large mailboxes out there?