Q: Exchange servers and Mavericks Mail

Appleinsider recently published a screen view of the 10.9.2 beta 3 release notes and there was nothing at all about Exchange. What am I missing?

Indeed I have never seen a single word publicly uttered, written or published by Apple, including on their own forum(s) acknowledging this fundamental issue that must be affecting hundreds of thousands if not millions of Mac users at this point, if Apple's significant and increasing penetration of the corporate market is to be believed.

If there is indeed a workaround why wouldn't they have published it over the past several months since Mavericks was released? If it is indeed a Mavericks bug, and nothing I have experienced or read suggests otherwise, why hasn't Apple at least acknowledged the fact?

Apple's reputation for being close mouthed is admirable as it relates to marketing, but insulting to its customers and very counterproductive as it relates to technical issues with its products.

Hi pnoble,

You're not missing anything, Appleinsider published what they were able to get their hands on.  And what they got their hands on is not everything resolved in the beta.  I might add that they are publishing confidential information anyway.

I am not familiar with any workarounds that resolve the issue with the Exchange EWS connectivity.  Since Exchange fully supports IMAP/SMTP, a workaround would be to use IMAP and SMTP.  Though, not every Exchange server is setup to support this, so it's only a workaround if you have it available to you.

For our clients, we've configured when needed.

I assume, since you posted here that you are having problems with Mac Mail and Exchange.  Maybe one of us can help you out, let us know what's going on.

Thanks

Bradhs,

I greatly appreciate your response. I think at this point I will wait for the 10.9.2 release and hopefully the matter will be resolved. Anything beyond requires sys admin involvement which can hopefully be avoided, especially since their current view of all things Apple is somewhat jaundiced!  If there is no resolution then I will certainly connect you and hopefully a workaround is possible.

I have found myself more and more utilizing my iPad (Mini Retina) for most everything. Not ideal for all purposes, but surprisingly good enough for most, give or take the constant crashing of Safari - evidently a 64 bit A7 memory management issue.

What astonishes me is that these big and obvious issues were never caught prior to either Mavericks or iOS 7 release. Wouldn't seem too hard for Apple to test OS X 10.9 Exchange compatibility, or use their new iPad Air or Mini Retina for a little web surfing, pre release!

Again, thank you!

Paul

Hi All, Only recently got my MacPro and have to use Microsoft Outlook web access to get company mail which is frustrating and i actually find it painfully slow as well as none productive.

I Tried to setup the mail on the mac but i get the error message could not connect to the smtp server. Our IT guy said today that The only possible way to access mails from a notebook or PC is to use the company VPN software, but it is only available for Windows operating systems. But Maybe i can setup a Windows VM on your Mac Pro. Not sure what this is yet.

read previous post that others have had issues connecting to web access but not sure if its the same issue.

any direction or suggestion to how to go about this as i dont want to have to get a windows machine

many thanks

I continue to follow this thread, since there have been several valuable posts from folks who are in the same boat as me. Thank you for your tips and tricks, and I know we are all waiting for 10.9.2 to hopefully solve some of this craziness.

I, too, have relied more and more on my ios devices since they have not been affected - if anything they are functioning better than ever! Conspiracy theorists may propose that this is a calculated move to shift over from mac os to ios, or to continue their convergence, which I believe is inevitable. For now, I use my ipad for real time email and it has worked quite well.

I used many of the tips on this thread, and currently am able to receive and send on my exchange account via Mail, albeit not exactly real-time (about 1-5 minutes delayed usually). I removed extraneous paswords, deleted and reinstalled the account, using my outwook web access url as the server (as with ios), and deselected the auto detect. That last step seemed to really help keep me in the 1-5 minute delay range.

I have not begged my admins to alter the exchange settings, mainly because I am afraid of losing the functionality I now have. The last time I went to them with a Mac problem, I ended up walking them through the issues amidst rolling eyes and snide comments about the bother I was putting them through.

Thanks especially to the contributors for updating periodically on their experience with Apple and network issues. Much appreciated! To those new to the thread, there are excellent posts from folks like Bradhs and Randy and others on the above steps I described.

Jonathon51 wrote:

 

Hi All, Only recently got my MacPro and have to use Microsoft Outlook web access to get company mail which is frustrating and i actually find it painfully slow as well as none productive.

 

I Tried to setup the mail on the mac but i get the error message could not connect to the smtp server. Our IT guy said today that The only possible way to access mails from a notebook or PC is to use the company VPN software, but it is only available for Windows operating systems. But Maybe i can setup a Windows VM on your Mac Pro. Not sure what this is yet.

 

read previous post that others have had issues connecting to web access but not sure if its the same issue.

 

any direction or suggestion to how to go about this as i dont want to have to get a windows machine

 

many thanks

I think that's a whole different problem to Mavericks Mail on MS Exchange servers. It may be better if you start a new thread.

let me second the thanks to Bradhs and Randy. I switched to IMAP access to Exchange and it worked fine.

ok thanks for the heads up

Hi peter_watt,

Agree on the new thread so that we can keep this one on point.

Mac's support Windows VPN and most other VPN protocols out of the box. Your IT group can google to find the answer.  Here's one link that will show you how to connect your Mac to a PPTP VPN: http://help.bol.ucla.edu/app/answers/detail/a_id/864

I can't comment on any other details because I dont fully understand your environment and don't want to make a recommendation that does not meet your IT objectives.  Look here at a previous post of mine for my email address.  (Should be on page 30.)  I'll see what I can figure out once I see your domain name.

Thanks,

Bradley

Man this is a long chain.  Count me in as yet another person dealing with the Mac Mail/Exchange Server pain.  I use Rackspace and have had problems with delays - like everyone here.  I did try to switch to Office365 but after having even more delays Rackspace told me that Office365 is not compatible with Exchange.  This makes no sense but I do have to say the delays when using Office365 were even worse then what I am currently experiencing with Mac Mail.

FWIW... Outlook 365 is probably THE slowest email service I have ever experienced.

thanks again for advising , ive added a new thread, hope to get some further help. thanks

Hi Brad,

I have been following this thread for weeks and have followed most of the recommendations you have made.  I have an in-house Exchange 2010 server.  SP3 and RU4 have been applied.  I have created a new throttling policy per previous recommendation and applied to mac user to disable all throttling for EWS, etc..  applied policy similar to this: 

https://migrationwiz.zendesk.com/entries/20006062-How-do-I-disable-the-Exchange- 2010-throttling-policy-

New macbook with Mavericks O/S version 10.9.1.  Using Mail program on macbook connected EWS.   User takes macbook into and out of office.  Autodiscover is turned off and mail settings are manually applied.   The macbook will connect and sync with Exchange both inside and outside of office.  This will last for a few days and then the macbook will no longer connect to Exchange.   If the SMTP servers are deleted and recreated from Mail and keychain, and then setup again in Mail the macbook will connect again and work for a few more days.  Then the problem returns.  Not seeing any error in event log on Exchange.

Any recommendations or suggestions?  Obviously hoping for early release of 10.9.2.  User refuses to consider Outlook 2011 even though he has it installed (he owns the company).   IMAP is configured on Exchange server and available but I would rather not revert to old technology as a temporary fix only to have to rebuild his entire mailbox again after 10.9.2 release.

Thanks!

Having been through two OS X dot releases now where Mail has 'broken', it genuinely concerns me that Apple has take no steps to improve the transparency between themselves and the IT staff who are on the hook to accommodate them.  Heck, my own manager was on the verge of quitting because of an OS X 10.6 glitch that broke Entourage 2008 connecting to Exchange 2007 back in the day.  Also EWS related.

I have a meeting this Tuesday with one CEO who is desperate to have a reliable calendaring solution because the Calendar app in OS X is inconsistently synchronizing against an Exchange 2010 server and I am on the verge of setting up a dedicated CAS server to try and isolate the variables involved.

I am willing to extend some blame to Microsoft at this point as well as I suspect that Outlook 2011 is using some EWS client protocols / queries that are not published to address some of these throttling issues.  But the truth is that if Mail, an essential part of the computing experience is breaking between point releases, then Apple isn't making it a priority for reasons I cannot begin to fathom.

Jay, have you looked at a Kerio Connect solution? If you are looking for a solution that works in a cross platform enviroment, GetSync'd.com could be the answer. Please feel free to reach out to me if you would like more information.