Outlook hangs indefinitely while downloading the Outlook Address Book (OAB)

[Bob]

Exchange 2007 / Outlook 2007

All clients are hanging when they go to Tools->Send/Receive->Download
Address Book. The dialog sits on the task

"Offline address book Connecting to Microsoft Exchange"
or
"Copying offline address book template file."

until the task it cancelled. My tests reveal the OAB is configured
correctly. Using the Test Autoconfiguration function in Outlook shows my
AutoDiscover gives me this URL for the OAB:

<OABUrl>http://www.mydomain.com/OAB/96cbb061-e708-498b-863e-f7fcb452c8c9/</OABUrl>

I can navigate to
http://www.mydomain.com/OAB/96cbb061-e708-498b-863e-f7fcb452c8c9/oab.xml in
IE and see the XML just fine. For the sake of testing I have disabled all
security and allowed anonymous access to the OAB virtual directory. In
Exchange I have configured both the InternalUrl and ExternalUrl to be:

http://www.mydomain.com/

And AutoDiscover is appending OAB/<Guid>

Both internal and external clients (whether VPN'd or not) are experiencing
this problem. If not VPN'd, clients are using RPC over HTTP to connect to
Exchange. The IIS log gives me a little feedback:

2007-11-27 21:56:23 W3SVC1 EXTERNAL1 172.16.0.31 GET
/OAB/96cbb061-e708-498b-863e-f7fcb452c8c9/oab.xml - 80 - 10.0.3.7
Microsoft+BITS/7.0 www.mydomain.com 206 0 0

It appears the OAB.xml is being retrieved, but the status code is 206
(Partial Get). Why would the result only be Partial?

Research on the internet has not helped at all. I have found lots of people
having this exact problem but no solution works:

1) Deleting the CAS files for the OAB and rebuilding the OAB does not help.
2) Deleting OAB files on client machines does not help.
3) Disabling all virtual directory security does not help.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks

[Bob]

Correction... the subject should read Offline Address Book, not Outlook
Address Book.

Anyway, another piece of info I left out is that this occurs for all
machines, internally and externally, regardless of whether or not the
machine is part of the domain. Location and domain membership does not
change the outcome: IE downloads oab.xml with HTTP status code 200, and
Outlook fails to entirely download it with HTTP status code 206 and this
ultimately causes Outlook to hang until the task is cancelled.

Thanks for any help...

[Bob]

I used NetMon to examine exactly what is transpiring with Outlook and IIS.
The communication log is below:

OUTLOOK->IIS
===============================
GET /OAB/96cbb061-e708-498b-863e-f7fcb452c8c9/oab.xml HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: identity
Range: bytes=0-14251
User-Agent: Microsoft BITS/7.0
Host: www.mydomain.com
Connection: Keep-Alive

IIS->OUTLOOK
===============================
HTTP 206: {Bytes 0-14251 of oab.xml}

OUTLOOK->IIS
===============================
GET /OAB/96cbb061-e708-498b-863e-f7fcb452c8c9/oab.xml HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: identity
Range: bytes=14252-21596
If-Unmodified-Since: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:28:16 GMT
User-Agent: Microsoft BITS/7.0
Host: www.mydomain.com
Connection: Keep-Alive

IIS->OUTLOOK
===============================
HTTP 206: {Bytes 14252-21596 of oab.xml}

NO TRAFFIC FOR 3 SECONDS
===============================

OUTLOOK->IIS
===============================
GET /OAB/96cbb061-e708-498b-863e-f7fcb452c8c9/oab.xml HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: identity
Range: bytes=0-55956
User-Agent: Microsoft BITS/7.0
Host: www.mydomain.com
Connection: Keep-Alive

IIS->OUTLOOK
===============================
HTTP 206: {Bytes 0-21596 of oab.xml}

NO TRAFFIC FOR 25 SECONDS
===============================

OUTLOOK->IIS
===============================
GET /OAB/96cbb061-e708-498b-863e-f7fcb452c8c9/oab.xml HTTP/1.1
Accept: */*
Accept-Encoding: identity
Range: bytes=0-83062
User-Agent: Microsoft BITS/7.0
Host: www.mydomain.com
Connection: Keep-Alive

IIS->OUTLOOK
===============================
HTTP 206: {Bytes 0-21596 of oab.xml}

It is important to note my oab.xml file is exactly 21597 bytes. It seems
Outlook requested the oab.xml in segments. I verified the XML was returned
in it's entirety over the two segments. After IIS returned to Outlook the
last segment of the oab.xml, it waited a couple seconds and requested the
XML again but with a larger data range (55956 bytes). IIS again returned to
Outlook the entire oab.xml (partial result because the oab.xml is only 21597
bytes). Once again Outlook waited, increasing the wait time to 25 seconds
and doing a request with an even larger data range. It seems there is a
pattern here where Outlook is increasing the wait time and downloading
again. I validated the XML which was acquired from IIS is the full valid
XML file, and Outlook should be satifisfied with what is returned, but
isn't.

So IIS is properly returning the oab.xml file to Outlook, but Outlook
doesn't use it. The only two possibilities I can think of are:

1) This is an Outlook bug.
2) The configuration of Exchange makes it write something in the oab.xml
which Outlook isn't satisfied with so it ignores it.

Chances are #2, though this doesn't explain the behavior of Outlook where it
is increasing the wait time and data range.

Does anybody please know what the problem is or how I could resolve it?

Thanks

[rkelley]

Bob,

Were you ever able to find a solution for this? I am having the exact same
issue. Maybe two heads are better than one if you haven't.

Thanks,

Ryan

[Onder Erunsal]

Hello;

You can use the oabinteg tool to troubleshoot this issue.
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/PSS/Tools/Exchange%20Support%20Tools/OABInteg

Onder Erunsal
Exchange MVP

"rkelley" <rke...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:DB8753C4-F84E-43DC...@microsoft.com...

[rkelley]

I downloaded the oabinteg tool and have run all the tests, but am unable to
find any errors. Have you got any other solutions by chance? Or maybe I just
don't know what I am looking for in the logs from oabinteg.

[Onder Erunsal]

Can you run this check and send me the log file.
I can check it out for you.
oabinteg.exe /s:ExchangeServerName /t:oabfldcheck

Thanks

Onder Erunsal
Exchange MVP

"rkelley" <rke...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

news:A841C7B0-1505-41B6...@microsoft.com...

[rkelley]

Onder,

Here is the result of the test:

OABInteg (Offline Address Book Integrity Checker)
Version : 1, 0, 0, 1
OABInteg
Microsoft Corporation, Copyright (C) 2005
=====================================================

c:\OABinteg.txt has been opened for writing.

Registry scan started at: 02:37:23 PM

Checking for the (HKLM) Exchange Provider Registry Key
Checking for the DS Server registry value: The DS Server registry value not
found - this is ok.

Checking for the (HKCU) Exchange Provider Registry Key
Checking for the DS Server registry value: The DS Server registry value not
found - this is ok.

Checking for the DSAccess Profile Registry Keys
Default DSAccess profile key not found - this is ok.
Default DSAccess profile (UserDC1) key not found - this is ok.
Default DSAccess profile (UserGC1) key not found - this is ok.

Checking for user MAPI profiles.
Profile found: Ryan
Profile found: testing

Checking for Exchange system MAPI profiles.
WARNING: No exchange server profiles on this system. This is ok.

Registry scan ended at: 02:37:23 PM

Starting Test 8 - OAB System Folder Check
OAB System folder check started at: 02:37:23 PM
Sort Locale being used by the server is: 1033
Code Page being used by the server is 1252

*******************************************************************************************************
WARNING: Unable to retrieve the property for PR_PROFILE_HOME_SERVER from the
profile.

Windows Message Subsystem profile registry subkey
dca740c8c042101ab4b908002b2fe182 has no values.

NOTE: This is the server we will be using to connect to the active directory
via NSPI for queries.

The very first time you log in with your profile this registry value will be
blank and Exchange will
ask the global catalog server for a referral and then populate this key.

You can take a netmon trace while logging in if you want to see the global
catalog server we are using.
*******************************************************************************************************

Opening the Exchange Public Folder Store.
Retrieving the message store table.
Obtaining store table properties.

Trying to retrieve the property for the PR_ADDRBOOK_FOR_LOCAL_SITE_ENTRYID.
Property for PR_ADDRBOOK_FOR_LOCAL_SITE_ENTRYID found.
System folder opened.

Scan Completed
+------------+
Message Class Normal found: 3
Message Class Differential found: 34
Message Class Unknown found: 0
Message Attachments found: 343
Messages found but unable to read the properties: 0
System folders found: 4
Highest sequence number found: 17
Lowest sequence number found: 2
Biggest attachment found: 6709 Bytes
Smallest attachment found: 107 Bytes
Biggest message found: 653849 Bytes
Smallest attachment found: 107 Bytes
Smallest message found: 306 Bytes

Scan Ended at: 02:37:25 PM
OABInteg (Offline Address Book Integrity Checker)
Version : 1, 0, 0, 1
OABInteg
Microsoft Corporation, Copyright (C) 2005
=====================================================

Scan Completed
+------------+
Message Class Normal found: 3
Message Class Differential found: 34
Message Class Unknown found: 0
Message Attachments found: 343
Messages found but unable to read the properties: 0
System folders found: 4
Highest sequence number found: 17
Lowest sequence number found: 2
Biggest attachment found: 6709 Bytes
Smallest attachment found: 107 Bytes
Biggest message found: 653849 Bytes
Smallest attachment found: 107 Bytes
Smallest message found: 306 Bytes

Scan Ended at: 02:37:31 PM

<<<<< END RESULTS >>>>>