Resource hogs??? Get rid of Flash and JAVA.
Or use GlimmerBlocker to block the abuse of both.
I'm OK with ML, even with only 4GB RAM.
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Microsoft Offers Workarounds for iOS 6.1 Exchange Bug
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Resource hogs??? Get rid of Flash and JAVA.
Or use GlimmerBlocker to block the abuse of both.
I'm OK with ML, even with only 4GB RAM.
Glad I held off on upgrading. This would have crippled me.
EDIT: Actually, it wouldn't. This only affects Exchange 2010 and Office 365. We run a more - ancient - version of Exchange.
EDIT: Actually, it wouldn't. This only affects Exchange 2010 and Office 365. We run a more - ancient - version of Exchange.
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They removed IMAP for global mailboxes/folders, which isn´t needed anymore. If you care about that, you´re still running Exchange 2003, which isn´t affected by this iOS bug at all. And yes, there are different version of Exchange, like with any other software.
If you had to deal with iOS devices and Exchange 2007/2010 daily in a big company (2000-5000 people), your view would be a lot different. I promise.
The problems with a complex IT infrastructure (BYOD is making everything even more annoying and hard to manage) is always attributed to people who don´t have the necessary knowledge or time to run or support it. Today, one major factor that adds to that is complexity.
I´ve worked with several companies as an IT Systems Engineer (e.x. Exchange Messaging environment) and I have rarely seen such big problems like with Apple iOS devices in the whole IT (communication) infrastructure. There obviously is a problem with Apple, who doesn´t seem to communicate their releases and/or just doesn´t test them throughfully, because they just don´t care about MS or other products. They want their services to work first and at the very end of the list, there´s "other" products. At least it seems that way.
Normally you would throughfully test a new release like 6.1, especially if it´s mainly a bugfix release. If there´s barely any new features it should under no circumstances break anything that has worked before.
However, with almost any release since iOS 5.0 there were some Exchange related problems, which I personally have verified through intensive testing and working very close with MS, giving feedback to MS as well as Apple. These bugs weren´t there because of installed Exchange hotfixes, Exchange SPs or configuring problems with Exchange. They simply appeared after you connected an iOS device with an users mailbox, used the calendar on the iOS device and approved or declined a meeting request (and that´s only one problem) that was send e.x. with Office on another client to Exchange. We´ve always had to tell everyone not to process calendar items such as meeting requests on iOS devices since iOS 5.0, to be safe.
Also, there was some annoying bug, where whole meetings got deleted as a whole, which was very concerning. All this was fixed when 5.1.1 was released. 5.1.1 was an extremely good release, it just worked.
Now the part were it gets interesting:
"Real" Macs like Macbooks or Macbook Pros weren´t affected at all. Every single problem was an iOS problem and it could be reproduced, some needed a couple of dozen steps to reproduce them, because iOS seems to work very differently than MacOS, when it comes to their mail code.
Another thing, while you made it sound like MS is at fault here:
Of course there are different versions of Exchange, but if you´re a company you don´t care at all, because you shouldn´t mix Exchange versions forever, while being in a live production environment. You only do that while you´re in the migration phase (which can last very long in big companies) and then you have to mix, otherwise you cannot migrate. This is not MS related at all, that´s just the way it´s being done in IT, because you cannot migrate everything in one single step if the company is too big.
I´ve rarely seen such a good working and supported product as Exchange is. Especially if you take into account how extremely complex a messaging infrastructure is, with various hardware and OSes communicating with it. People just like to blame Microsoft for everything, because of their huge market share in the past (and with Exchange, they still are big). MS was everywhere. MS was an easy target.
Yes, MS also does a lot of things that just seem stupid or are annoying from a single user perspective, but if we´re only talking about software, software will always come with bugs, it´s just a matter of how important they are or how they affect the big picture. Some bugs are there, but they will never be found, because they just don´t matter.
Apple needs to stop that madness that is constant Exchange iOS bugs, while MacOS works perfectly fine.
PS: It´s like Apple´s iOS WLAN problems that are there since 6.0. I have had like a couple dozens of 5.1.1 devices with the same professional WLAN capable devices like firewalls, access points or routers that just worked perfectly. After I´ve upgraded to 6.0, there were reception problems, constant lockups of the iOS WLAN (needed to restart or reset the device, sometimes even a full restore) or the device just didn´t find the WLAN at all. At home, when I enable to hide my SSID, 5.1.1 finds my WLAN, 6.0 just doesn´t care. So I needed to disable that option in my router, just because Apple wants it that way.
I just don´t get why Apple makes constant changes to their WLAN code and breaks things, I just don´t get it. Looks like a job opportunity.
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AFAIK, for Apple to maintain Rosetta, they should have to make a lot of changes to it to conform to the newer APIs. A lot of older APIs were deprecated and could no longer be backwards compatible.
Apple allowed plenty of time to developers to migrate their apps to the Intel platform.
Keep in mind that Rosetta could not run any apps that utilize the G5 instruction set. It was only compatible with the G3 and G4. So imagine how old it was!
Also, There's been a need to standardized on keyboard shortcuts. Until recently, keyboard shortcuts were a mess. There was no uniformitity. There were instances where a Global keyboard shortcut would interfere with an app's keyboard shortcut and vice-versa.
Unless I'm wrong, 'Save As' now uses a different shortcut than before. In many cases, keyboard shortcuts can be customized.
I say it is a bug at both sides.
Apple changed something that causes the error at the client side.
But as MS is the server-side it should be able to handle faulty clients better.
Even in the event that an iOS device is polling too much at the server this should never lead to memory problems at the server side.
Apple changed something that causes the error at the client side.
But as MS is the server-side it should be able to handle faulty clients better.
Even in the event that an iOS device is polling too much at the server this should never lead to memory problems at the server side.
Yes, I agree. Very good post.
However, that doesn´t negate that Apple must have changed something again with 6.1. Since I am currently not able to verify it in a testing environment, I better hold back until I know for sure.
The main benefit, but also problem with Exchange 2010 is that MS optimized it in such a way that it does almost everything in memory to be a lot faster than Exchange 2007 and the ones before it. It relies heavily on fast memory and only writes big sequential blocks to the tiered harddrives. Cheap SATA 7200rpm drives are more than enough for this, which is impressive. That something like that can be "exploited" is of course a thing MS needs to fix for sure. Currently you can limit the memory resources of Exchange on any server to a fixed value, that change alone would protect every Exchange server from becoming too slow. That´s at least being done in bigger companies already.
MS doesn´t limit it by default, because they want everyone "to have the best experience". That´s of course BS, because when limiting your services at the OS level, you gain the benefit of protecting your servers from potential problems like this one, without making it any slower, because an IT admin knows pretty well, how much memory the OS can access on the server and he will use something like 60-80% of that memory just for Exchange. I will probably never understand why MS thinks like this.
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This bug took my inbox out for a whole day, while I tried to figure out how to fix it. I had two invites that had both been duplicated over 2000 times - and they each wanted to send a confirmation email when I tried to delete them from outlook :-(
A bit of an unproductive day..
That is why regression testing should be done for each release. This will run a vast number of mainly automated tests to check all aspects of the OS. If they are not doing this then that is VERY bad.
Wow, just wow! I can't let this pass without replying. Exchange is a bloated, buggy, monolithic mess, to put it politely, with a horrible user experience. It doesn't play well with much of anything, even itself.
The problem is the alternatives aren't much better (for the things that Exchange does right)...
There are alternatives like MDaemon, which supports IMAP with mailboxes as well as public folders. It´s constantly updated, too.diamond.g said:The problem is the alternatives aren't much better (for the things that Exchange does right)...
To call Exchange bloated and a buggy mess without even going into details is just silly. You didn´t even mention what versions of Exchange.
Exchange 2010 works great out of the box and plays very well with the MS AD and Office. It´s an enterprise product which is scalable from very small installations to extremely big installations and it has a lot of great features. You don´t really seem to know anything about Exchange at all. And if Exchange installations are "a mess" at your company, you´re doing something terribly wrong.
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We run Exchange 2010, and I wouldn't say it's a mess. But I will say it's not worth what you pay for it. For the cost of the Windows Server, Exchange Server, and various CAL's is over priced for what it does. The Management Console is also crap. In 2013 they're going to a "Web Browser" approach; but the advanced functions will only work with IE which is also crap.
We're looking at alternatives for our next iteration. We've been testing some Linux IMAP/Cal solutions, and so far they've actually worked well in a small/medium site scale...
I can recommend MDaemon, we´ve used it several times already as an alternative to MS products. It´s pretty easy to setup, yet very powerful. It´s still Windows though. They also have great support (free via e-mail).
I agree with the cost argument on Exchange. It is pretty expensive indeed for small/medium sized companies if you factor in all the CALs. There´s alternatives like the SBS, though, which may be enough if you don´t have more than 75 users at your site.
The management console along with it´s dozen additional tools could indeed be improved. What I hate is that they don´t just integrate the public folders management into the main console. The web-based approach is indeed very disturbing. There was a bug (maybe it´s still there, I´m not exactly sure) that you couldn´t close the MMC completely, because there is/was a bug in the IE engine itself that didn´t want to close. I believe it happened after upgrading to EX2010 SP1. Work-around: Terminate the MMC process. ETA for that fix was like half year after SP1, which is laughable.
Thanks on the MDaemon, I'll take a look. We're at about 250 mailboxes, so the SBS was out for us. We're also looking at a serverless File server setup. Have tested some, and so far so good. If I could go completely NON-MS I would.
Ya, it seems over the last 5 years MS does nothing more than cobble together patches, and band-aids to their Ent products. They become a bloated mess over time, and buggy. Slow to fixes as well...
I am a developer and I found this bug a while ago and submitted it to Apple. It is a terrible bug that drains your battery at about 1% per minute.
Here is the sure way to fix it temporarily if it happens to you:
-You know if it happened to you if the same calendar invite came up quite a few times in a row and your phone is getting hot.
-Go to Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendar
-Turn off Calendar in the exchange account you have.
-Turn your phone off and turn it back on.
-Go back into settings and turn the Calendar back on for your exchange account.
Here is the sure way to fix it temporarily if it happens to you:
-You know if it happened to you if the same calendar invite came up quite a few times in a row and your phone is getting hot.
-Go to Settings->Mail, Contacts, Calendar
-Turn off Calendar in the exchange account you have.
-Turn your phone off and turn it back on.
-Go back into settings and turn the Calendar back on for your exchange account.
I'm curious, what do you find crap about Ex2010 management console (they had web version then too) and what advanced functions in 2013 require IE? Feel free to pm me.
The current MC is slow, and poorly laid out/written in my opinion. I also think MS is heading in the wrong direction with a combination of using the MMC for some things, and resorting to the PowerShell for others. One or the other really...
The MMC is gone in 2013. Many of the tools that have been ported to the Web version are tying into IE only. I don't have the list handy, but I'll find it and post once I do. It's like the Office 365 pieces; you can use some of the items on a non-IE browser, but not all are available [e.g. Skydrive File Sharing].
As a project manager, I've learned to not setup never ending reoccurring meetings. They create havoc with other systems such as lotus notes. If I'm running a long duration project with an unknown end date, I'll setup meetings for 1 year at a time (finite end). That seems to resolve my meeting bugs.
BYOD World
As others have mentioned, it's a BYOD world. Exchange handles ActiveSync fairly well. I can't think of any Android versions that have caused excessive transaction log growth. But I do recall this being an issue with pre-iOS 6. So Apple has a widespread OS that "broke" Exchange, released a newer version that did not, then released yet a newer version that "broke" it again.
As network administrators, we're responsible for a stable mail environment and addressing issues as they arise. I've been very impressed with the robustness of Exchange 2010 and Microsoft's ongoing support for it - through Rollups, regular service packs and the huge community using it. In a few days, Microsoft (and many folks far more techy than I am) have suggested some great workarounds (we're using throttling for now). Apple's response after several days has been "no comment". Its own website offers no clues whatsoever that there's any problem with iOS 6.1 and Exchange.
Apple has millions of devoted consumers, but the IT community is starting to roll its eyes and say "crap, iOS again" when it comes to interoperability with Exchange.
As others have mentioned, it's a BYOD world. Exchange handles ActiveSync fairly well. I can't think of any Android versions that have caused excessive transaction log growth. But I do recall this being an issue with pre-iOS 6. So Apple has a widespread OS that "broke" Exchange, released a newer version that did not, then released yet a newer version that "broke" it again.
As network administrators, we're responsible for a stable mail environment and addressing issues as they arise. I've been very impressed with the robustness of Exchange 2010 and Microsoft's ongoing support for it - through Rollups, regular service packs and the huge community using it. In a few days, Microsoft (and many folks far more techy than I am) have suggested some great workarounds (we're using throttling for now). Apple's response after several days has been "no comment". Its own website offers no clues whatsoever that there's any problem with iOS 6.1 and Exchange.
Apple has millions of devoted consumers, but the IT community is starting to roll its eyes and say "crap, iOS again" when it comes to interoperability with Exchange.
I don't know if a hidden shortcut can be customized. Speaking of that, why did they hide it? That's just weird. Anyway, I haven't tried changing it since Rosetta keeps me at Snow Leopard, but even if I did change it, using a friend's computer would drive me nuts. Shift+CMD+S seems to conform to the shortcut system anyway, with CMD+S being regular save.
I think that as with other commands, "Save As" is an alternate function of the "Save" command. So in this case using the OPTION key would bring it up.
At this point, maybe you should just wait until the new OS X 10.9 comes out.
I upgraded to ML the first day it came out, and while it's true there were some changes, I got used to it. Of course, in your case it may depend on several factors whether you upgrade or not.
What application are you running in Rosetta that's holding you from upgrading?
Various little things. I don't remember very many specific ones since I never pay attention, but there's a Latin dictionary and word parser, Excel 2004 (since I can't stand the new versions), and the best PC game ever, Age of Empires II, to name a few.
What a surprise:
"Apple has identified a fix and will make it available in an upcoming software update."
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4532
Let´s see how long it will take them to fix it.
"Apple has identified a fix and will make it available in an upcoming software update."
http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4532
Let´s see how long it will take them to fix it.
bugs and iOS
I hate to say it but lately the new products and updates released by Apple has not had the QA that Apple had been known for and I am kinda disappointed in the problems. Mountain Lion on the MBP w/ retina display and my iPhone5 with the newest iOS update both seem to have SEVERAL bugs. Seems Apple may have outsourced QA lately with the QA team at Microsoft.
Hopefully after all of these issues with the Wave13 products from Microsoft, the iOS bugs, the Java exploit these big companies will start to insist on better QA testing for the future updates and products.
I hate to say it but lately the new products and updates released by Apple has not had the QA that Apple had been known for and I am kinda disappointed in the problems. Mountain Lion on the MBP w/ retina display and my iPhone5 with the newest iOS update both seem to have SEVERAL bugs. Seems Apple may have outsourced QA lately with the QA team at Microsoft.
Hopefully after all of these issues with the Wave13 products from Microsoft, the iOS bugs, the Java exploit these big companies will start to insist on better QA testing for the future updates and products.