No information. No free/busy information could be retrieved.
lindsay.k...@queencreek.org
Yesterday we started having a problem with creating meeting requests
in Outlook. Starting on Aug 1st there is "No information. No free/
busy information could be retrieved." being showed for almost all of
the users. You can see everything up until Aug 1st but after that
everything is \\\\\\\\\\\\\s. We are using Outlook and Exchange
2003. I've searched through the posts and haven't been able to find
anything that has helped so far. Thanks in advance for your help.
Steve B
controlling this setting using Group Policies?
lindsay.k...@queencreek.org
> How many month(s) of free/busy information are you publishing? Are you
> controlling this setting using Group Policies?
>
>
>
I don't think we're controlling this using Group Policies, and I'm not
sure how to tell how many months we're publishing..... I'm the Jr
exchange person and I'm kind of new to the position (and the boss is
on vacation). I know of several users who have scheduled appts for
the recurring meetings for the next 2 years and they have been able to
see that far in advance prior to yesterday. By fiddling with the
accounts I was able to get a couple of the meeting rooms to show up to
Sep 1st, but after about an hour it reset back to Aug 1st.
Steve B
Sorry bit long this reply but it would be worth giving you a bit of extra
information.
1) All free/busy information is stored in a dedicated system public folder
called SCHEDULE+FREE BUSY. This can be seen through Exchange System Manager /
Folders / Public Folders / Right-Click / View System Folders.
2) This folder contains a separate subfolder for each Exchange
administrative group.
3) When a user publishes his free/busy data, Exchange posts this information
in a message in the appropriate subfolder.
4) For Outlook users (which you are having problems with), the generation of
the Free Busy data is the responsibility of the client not the server. This
is an important point to understand!! In addition, when publishing, Outlook
updates the entire free/busy message instead of just adding changes to the
existing message. Another important point to understand!
5) For OWA users, MSExchangeFBPublish is responsible for the generation of
the Free Busy data. This is a process that runs as part of the System
Attendant (i.e. the server is responsible for generating the data).
Now troubleshooting you problem:
Free/Busy problems typically come down to either the message is not there,
has not replicated, or is replicating slower than expected.
From what I've read your indicating that the message (i.e. the Free/Busy
data) is not there today but was there yesterday. In addition, you mention
""able to get a couple of the meeting rooms to show up to Sep 1st, but
after about an hour it reset back to Aug 1st.".
This indicates that you are actually having problems with "shared
resources".
What I suspect is happening is that your Outlook clients have different
Publishing intervals (i.e the number of months of Free/Busy data to publish).
Lets go through an example:
1) User 1. The Outlook profile is configured to publish 36 months (this is
the maximum value) of Free/Busy data. User 1 sets up up a meeting in one of
your shared rooms for the next two years for every Tuesday between 2pm and
4pm. The Outlook client publishes this to the Free/Busy folder on the local
Exchange Server. Hence, the Outlook client will generate a free/busy map for
this resource that spans from now to 36 months in the future with every
Tuesday 2pm to 4pm being shown as busy.
2) User 2. User's 2 Outlook profile is configured to publish 2 months (the
default value) of Free/Busy data. User 2 books the same meeting room from
10am to noon every Tuesday (don't forget Tuesday 2pm til 4pm will be showing
as busy). The Outlook client publishes this to the Free/Busy folder on the
local Exchange Server. Hence, the Outlook client will generate a free/busy
map for this meeting room that spans from now to 2 months in the future. 34
months of data is not 'missing' from the server.
3) User 3. User's 3 Outlook profile is configured to publish 3 months (user
has set their own value). User 3 books the same meeting room from 2pm to 4pm
every Tuesday from September. Unfortunately, the meeting room will be
showing as being free in September since User 2 was the last person to update
the free/busy map for this resource. Since User 2 only published 2 months -
then only 2 months of data will now be showing. Ooops!!!
- Hence, I would recommend that you use Group Policies (you will need the
adm files for your version of Outlook) to configure a uniform number of
months of Free/Busy data to publish. If necessary, I can send you a cut down
version of the adm file that I've used in the past. (take a look at this link
http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2004/06/10/152698.aspx).
You can tell how much free/busy data you are publishing by using Outlook.
Within Outlook, go to Tools / Options. On the Preferences tab,click Calendar
Options. Next click Fee /Busy options. In the resulting dialog box you'll see
two values. First one is the Public x months of Free/Busy data and the
second value is how often to publish this data.
Hope this helps.
If not, give me a shout and I'll move on to the next stage of
troubleshooting.