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Exchange OWA access no longer working ... mail.app log file?

M

mark2kweb

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Hey all

Let me preface this by saying, I've looked all over the web, read all the stuff about certificate problems, OMA enabling, syntax issues with the login names, and so on.

At any rate, I am determined to fix this problem, or, if I can't fix it, at least figure out why.

I am in a corporation which does not support the iPhone and so therefore, approaching them about this issue is not an option.

I had Exchange email configured with the corporation on my iPhone with no problems since day one. However, today it suddenly stopped working, and I have tried to reconfigure the account and it fails to verify my identity.

I have also noticed that the corporation did change something in Outlook web today, because when I log on to Outlook web, there are actual subtle differences on the webpage in Explorer now.

So, first thing I want to do to see what's happening "behind the scenes" is to see what problems are happening with mail.app that are not letting it verify and connect with the Exchange account anymore. And that's the reason I post this in "hacks", because I'm going to start with a simple question(s):

Is there a way to enable logging in mail.app?
If it's already enabled, where is it in the iPhone shell?
How can I start to determine what's happening with the Exchange account verification process that's making it fail? I need to see logs in mail.app.

If anyone can point me to such a thing ... please respond!

In thanks.
 
If you're not already, try changing your server name to match the address of your OWA server. For example, my organization used to use Exchange 2003. I used the address of our Exchange ActiveSync server. When my mailbox was moved to Exchange 2007, I could still use the old server name until it was disabled, however, now I use the same server as the OWA server, "webmail.mydomain.com"
 
SHIFTLife said:
If you're not already, try changing your server name to match the address of your OWA server. For example, my organization used to use Exchange 2003. I used the address of our Exchange ActiveSync server. When my mailbox was moved to Exchange 2007, I could still use the old server name until it was disabled, however, now I use the same server as the OWA server, "webmail.mydomain.com"
Click to expand...
Unfortunately, that's the only way I've ever done it - using the same as the OWA server.

When it worked, that's what I used. Now, it just suddenly stopped working.

I am wondering about possibly hex editing mail.app to change the name of the device reported. Is that possible?
 
That won't get you anywhere. There's no way to block a specific device from using Exchange ActiveSync/Microsoft Direct Push to my knowledge. If the device is ActiveSync/Direct Push capable, you can use it.

The only thing I can think of would be perhaps your IT department disabled the ActiveSync option in your Active Directory profile. That way, they can remove your ability to connect ANY ActiveSync capable device to your network.
 
SHIFTLife said:
That won't get you anywhere. There's no way to block a specific device from using Exchange ActiveSync/Microsoft Direct Push to my knowledge. If the device is ActiveSync/Direct Push capable, you can use it.

The only thing I can think of would be perhaps your IT department disabled the ActiveSync option in your Active Directory profile. That way, they can remove your ability to connect ANY ActiveSync capable device to your network.
Click to expand...
Actually, there is a way to block particular devices from accessing Activesync. It is documented here: http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/09/05/449757.aspx

Further, the fact that the corporation has OWA access enabled, suggests that they are allowing access from the outside. I have no problem getting into the OWA account through Explorer or Safari. As I understand it, ActiveSync over OWA just uses the content delivered through the OWA port (which is 443 if it's SSL) and delivers it to the client interface - so whether you use Explorer, Safari, the iPhone Mail App, the newer versions of Outlook ... it's still using the same ports and the same protocol as OWA.

Unfortunately, without access to a MobileMail log, there's just no way of seeing what's going on here. I need to test this some other way. There's GOT to be a debug switch or SOMETHING with Mail that you can use. Or else, how do people know what errors are happening when you connect to POP, IMAP, etc. sites without seeing the log?

Help!
 
I know you said your company doesn't support the iPhone but does that mean they are prohibiting the use of it or just won't help you with setting it up?

The reason I ask is if it isn't prohibited, why not just ask your sys admin if they changed something that would be causing a problem. Most IT guys are helpful and if the user is trying to fix the problem themselves and is just looking for information I don't see why they wouldn't give you that.

Are other users using devices that use activesync or are they on Blackberrys? If the company policy is to use Blackberrys they could very well have turned off activesync without affecting OWA.
 
When the phone came out, they sent out a memo about a week or two later saying that they do not support the iPhone due to security issues if the phone were lost, and that "the iPhone will not be used" to access corporate email. However, they stopped short of declaring it prohibited. Therefore, as helpful as most IT guys are, I think their hands are tied in this case because of that memo.

You claim that they can turn ActiveSync off. But my contention to that is, if you can still access the actual email CONTENT via Explorer or Safari, then that content is available. As far I understood it, OWA just provides the actual interface for that content to be displayed - through HTML code. Whether you access that content via another client, or whatever, you're still accessing the same port - the same data.

That's why I feel, that if I could only see a log file, my questions would be answered. If no one on the forum knows how to activate one, maybe there would be an Apple developer or something who I could be pointed to?

Maybe there's a switch from the commandline of the mail app? Something? Argh!!!!!
 
What devices are other employees in your company using? It could be a certificate issue as well. In other words, they may require a certificate for mobile devices that want to connect directly to the exchange server. Just spit ballin here.
 
StoneColdSober said:
What devices are other employees in your company using? It could be a certificate issue as well. In other words, they may require a certificate for mobile devices that want to connect directly to the exchange server. Just spit ballin here.
Click to expand...
They use BES.

I have tried the certificate route too 🙁 to no avail. I went to the OWA site, saved the cert in Windows, emailed it to my phone. It installed. Still no workie.

And also, tried the iPhone deployment method using the program from Apple. Nada.

I am thinking that basically, they've turned off ActiveSync. There are some solutions out there like Thunderbird that will actually download through OWA with a plugin via WebDAV (which is what I was hoping I could just coax iPhone mail to do). There's also a little utility I stumbled across called eDuo which also scrapes the content through WebDAV on OWA and uploads it to an IMAP account of your choice.

Crude methods, but if I want access, I got to do it somehow. I think I might be SOL at this point for native iPhone WebDAV OWA access. You think?
 
mark2kweb, I know this conversation is somewhat old but are there any updates on your situation? I'm in the exact same boat as you and I started this thread...
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=7135012
I was getting my work email through my iPhone and then all of a sudden it wouldn't work. I was using the OWA web address as the server and everything worked great until one day it couldn't connect to the server. When I tried to set the account up again I kept getting the error "Exchange Account Verification Failed". I did talk to someone in IM briefly and he said they disabled ActiveSync because of security and bandwidth issues (neither of which I believe is a good reason).

So I totally agree with you, if we can get our email through OWA there should be a way to set up the iPhone to get the email. If there is no way for that to work I would like to at least build a case to present to IM to enable this feature again. Any ideas or thoughts?
 
mark2kweb said:
They use BES.

I have tried the certificate route too 🙁 to no avail. I went to the OWA site, saved the cert in Windows, emailed it to my phone. It installed. Still no workie.

And also, tried the iPhone deployment method using the program from Apple. Nada.

I am thinking that basically, they've turned off ActiveSync. There are some solutions out there like Thunderbird that will actually download through OWA with a plugin via WebDAV (which is what I was hoping I could just coax iPhone mail to do). There's also a little utility I stumbled across called eDuo which also scrapes the content through WebDAV on OWA and uploads it to an IMAP account of your choice.

Crude methods, but if I want access, I got to do it somehow. I think I might be SOL at this point for native iPhone WebDAV OWA access. You think?
Click to expand...

I'm in the same position. Can you please elaborate what is the certificate route. I've looked but cannot seem to find.
 
Same thing happened to me.

I was also locked out of exchange although webmail is still working. I now leave a computer running with entourage and sync between entourage and my mobile me account that is on the iphone. So I can sync contacts and appointments. I have a rule in entourage that moves incoming emails from webmail to the mobile me inbox and they just show up on the phone. The issue is replying to mail since they will show the .me email instead of the corp email account. I'm in the process of trying to put together an applescript that takes a message from my draft folder on mobile me and sends in back out using my webmail credentials. So I receive a message on my home machine through webmail then it is moved to my me inbox then I can read it hit reply on the iphone but instead of hitting send I hit cancel and save it as a draft. It will then show up in the draft folder on my home machine where the apple script can resend it using the exchange account. Everything works perfectly except I've had a hard time getting a script that will open an email in entourage and then send using a different account.

You can also try syncronica to get your mail, I've had some issues with it when did though. The service seems to work fine but causes me to get locked out of my companies webmail everyday due to password isssues. I don't know why since i can leave my home machine connected to exchange for weeks and never get a password lockout.

In either case I determined to find a solution and I'd prefer not to you a service like syncronica or syncmymail since the company would probably not like email be routed through a third party. If anyone can help with suggestions on how to tweak entourage to send the message using a different account it would be appreciated.
 
joserpaq said:
I was also locked out of exchange although webmail is still working. I now leave a computer running with entourage and sync between entourage and my mobile me account that is on the iphone. So I can sync contacts and appointments. I have a rule in entourage that moves incoming emails from webmail to the mobile me inbox and they just show up on the phone. The issue is replying to mail since they will show the .me email instead of the corp email account. I'm in the process of trying to put together an applescript that takes a message from my draft folder on mobile me and sends in back out using my webmail credentials. So I receive a message on my home machine through webmail then it is moved to my me inbox then I can read it hit reply on the iphone but instead of hitting send I hit cancel and save it as a draft. It will then show up in the draft folder on my home machine where the apple script can resend it using the exchange account. Everything works perfectly except I've had a hard time getting a script that will open an email in entourage and then send using a different account.

You can also try syncronica to get your mail, I've had some issues with it when did though. The service seems to work fine but causes me to get locked out of my companies webmail everyday due to password isssues. I don't know why since i can leave my home machine connected to exchange for weeks and never get a password lockout.

In either case I determined to find a solution and I'd prefer not to you a service like syncronica or syncmymail since the company would probably not like email be routed through a third party. If anyone can help with suggestions on how to tweak entourage to send the message using a different account it would be appreciated.
Click to expand...


Great update. but is there a windows alternative like syncronica?
 
navigates said:
Great update. but is there a windows alternative like syncronica?
Click to expand...

Syncronica is not an app it's a service, you can sign up for a free trial on there site and you can then get the paid service from one of there service providers called syncyourmail.xxx and it works. The service is like $54 per year.
 
joserpaq said:
Syncronica is not an app it's a service, you can sign up for a free trial on there site and you can then get the paid service from one of there service providers called syncyourmail.xxx and it works. The service is like $54 per year.
Click to expand...

I tried the demo and it didn't work. I didn't think it would work in the first place as my company has a vpn requirement before you get into their owa access too. Its a pain. A service such as syncronica would work if I would host it being vpn'd to the network but then again I'd have to vpn from my phone too.

Are there any other tips/addressees we can try to make exchange sync work?
 
Folks, I've recently had this exact same issue. It appears to have coincided with the company's upgrade to OWA 2007.

Has anyone had any luck without involving their IT team?
 
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