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Every now and again I get a call from someone connected to our remote desktop server saying that they have just started Outlook 2010 and it won't load properly i.e. can't connect to the Exchange 2010 server. It just sits there saying "loading profiles" then eventually displays a message saying there is a network problem. All other users on the same remote desktop server that already have Outlook running have no problem and can continue to use it normally but if they close Outlook and try to restart it then they will have the same problem.

Staff running Outlook 2010 on other computers have no problems and can close and restart Outlook without any problem at the same time as the remote desktop server users are having the problem.

Staff on other computers can connect to the Exchange server using OWA. Staff on the remote desktop server cannot connect using OWA.

So it seems like just that one computer, the remote desktop server, is being blocked from having a connection established to the Exchange server.

When the problem occurs I have tried rebooting the DC (no change), rebooting the Exchange server (no change) and finally rebooting the remote desktop server which appears to fix the problem until it eventually reoccurs.

I have also tries restarting the Exchange RPC service but that just disconnected all the unaffected users and didn't solve the problem.

During the same time I can ping the Exchange server from the Remote Desktop Server and have no dropped packets.

Can anyone suggest a solution to this that is less disruptive than kicking all the users off the remote desktop server and rebooting or any way I can diagnose what is going wrong.

thanks in advance Jeff

Jeff C
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1 Answers1

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First of all I have to mention that exchange 2010 has no dynamic mechanism of blocking incoming traffic from clients, so something else is going on.

It sounds clearly like a firewall issue. Do you have any firewall or IDS on the network that maybe interfere with the connection? Have you tried to ping the ip and fqdn of the server and both are working when the issue occurs? I would suggest to open an outlook from the terminal server go to "connection status" and by clicking reconnect to see in which host tries to connect and if it gets any response. Then open a wireshark on the exchange server and capture the traffic in order to see if you get any attempts from the source of terminal server and if they are blocked.

Thanks

Alexios Pappas
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  • I did test the Outlook connection status while the problem was happening. The following link shows a screenshot of that. [link](http://imgur.com/DX1fqgO) – Jeff C Jul 07 '17 at 08:11
  • The third item in that connection status window would occasionally connect, show a Req/Fail of something like 10/4 and then disconnect again. Clicking on the reconnect button did nothing. When working properly the connection status window looks like the following screenshot link [link](http://imgur.com/DcLTh1g). While having the issue I could ping the exchange server by both fqdn and IP both worked fine. There is no firewall (other than the standard windows 2008R2 server firewall) between the computers. – Jeff C Jul 07 '17 at 08:33
  • They are both on the same network segment on the internal network connected with an simple unmanaged HP switch. There's nothing in the event log other than the event 26 Outlook is disconnected type events. Just to repeat, Outlook and OWA were "blocked" on the remote desktop server but connections from both on all other computers where fine the whole time. Do the connection status screens suggest where in the process the problem is happening? I will try the wireshark capture next time it occurs. – Jeff C Jul 07 '17 at 08:33