Further to my previous posting on Office Communicator 2007 and Outlook 2007 Integration Errors, after recently trouble-shooting this problem, I have provided a check-list of all the situations I am aware of that can cause this error, and what to do about it.
Communicator integrates with Outlook (on the client machine) to retrieve availability data for Enhanced Presence (e.g. Calendar or Out of Office information). In Office Communicator 2007 R2 any Outlook integration errors appear as a red exclamation on the Communicator icon in the Windows task tray, and as a missed notification in the Communicator GUI (which you can click to get more details about the error).
#1) Has Outlook been successfully configured on the client and connected to Exchange at least once? I have read if Outlook is not started, Communicator will display an integration error. This is not true (at least in Office Communicator 2007 R2). The integration works fine if Outlook is not running, but Outlook must have been successfully configured (and run once) however.
#2) Make sure that the default Outlook profile, or the Outlook profile that was last used (if set to prompt), contains an SMTP Email Address that matches the users’ primary SIP address. If the default profile in the “Mail” Control Applet is unclear, you can always check it by looking in the registry at the “DefaultProfile” value in “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles”. Microsoft KB article 951644 has more information on how to resolve this situation.
#3) Check if the Microsoft Exchange Administrator tool(s) are installed the client machine. The Exchange Admin tools install a another version of MAPI (for use by the admin tool), and this can cause issues for Office Communicator 2007 integration. The resolution is to run fixmapi.exe (in C:\WINDOWS\system32\fixmapi.exe). This resolution has worked on 32-bit XP machines with SP2 and Sp3.
#4) Make sure that Office 2007 and Office Communicator are up-to-date (i.e. in terms of hotfixes) on the client machine. Specifically make sure the hotfix described in KB 936864 is installed. It is my understanding that this hotfix is rolled-up in Microsoft Office 2007 SP1 and SP2. The OCS and UC Client Update Resource Center can be used to ensure Communicator is up-to-date.
#5) Was there a temporary netwwork connection loss to the Exchange server? Momentary network outages cause an integration error. Clicking on the error details in Communicator 2007 R2 gives you the following error:
Just restart Outlook to fix this error.
#6) External (outside the firewall) authenticated clients may see the following integration error:
This error typically occurs if there was an issue with the user supplying credentials for Exchange integration during Communicator sign-in. The login process for Communicator when running external will issue a credential prompt that the user supplies their Domain credentials which are used to integrate with Microsoft Exchange (via Exchange Web Services). If this dialog is skipped, or incorrect credentials are supplied, the above error will be generated. Have the user re-sign-in again and supply their domain credentials when requested.
#7) If the integration error is an Address Book Synchronization Error, see this entry on the Microsoft Office Communicator Team Blog: Common Errors: How do I get rid of the red BANG?
#8) Check that the Exchange 2007 Web Services are Configured and Functioning Correctly. If all of the above fails it is probably time to do some troubleshooting. Ram Ojah has a blog entry which nicely describes how to do this (see Step #3).
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Some user specific SQL query to extract specific information from the Database are available at the below link:
http://techtips.opdubey.info/office-communicator/office-communicator-queries
Clarification: outlook DOES need to have been running a few minutes before you start communicator. (This may have been fixed in R2)
fixmapi works to clear the error message, “Integration Errors”. Click start->Run->type fixmapi
This works for xp client system.
I have seen this behavior is two deployments. It is my understanding that you can get rid of it, but I have not been successful yet, and it is on my list of issues to research more and blog about.
In the meantime, here is some information and references that should help:
There are 2 possibilities for external (non-domain) Communicator authentication pop-ups:
1) Access to Exchange 2007 Web Services to retrieve Calendar and Out-of-Office settings for your contacts, and,
2) Access to the OCS external web farm to provide Communicator with Address Book Download and Group Distribution Expansion functionality.
I believe the solution lies in the authentication settings in the respective IIS applications for #1 and #2 above, and/or ISA authentication settings (specified in the web publishing rules when configuring the ISA to allow external access to the internal OCS web component role for access to the Address Book and Group Expansion).
The 2 blog entries below are good and have some solutions to try – the comments at the end of both entries are more applicable to the non-domain (external) case.
Why is Communicator prompting me for credentials?
http://blogs.msdn.com/scottos/archive/2008/10/16/why-is-communicator-prompting-me-for-credentials.aspx
OCS 2007 – Continuous prompts for Address Book download
http://communicationsserverteam.com/archive/2007/12/17/52.aspx
In one deployment, the two prompts I have seen are both for access to Exchange 2007 (one for a mailbox role, and the other for a cas role).
Stay tuned and let me know if anything works for your case.
Great Article! I have been searching for quite some time. However I do have a question. For the scenario you describe in option 6, is there a way to prevent the popup for authentication? This only happens when users are external. When the same users are internal, this authentication popup does not happen. Is this a configuration setting within the ISA Listener that prevents this?
We are seeing the error you describe in 6) above in both our production as well as lab environments. When the users login on net (within the domain) the system does not prompt for credentials. It only happens (consistantly) when users are external. Is there an ISA setting that will allow the credentials to be passed properly?
[...] does not match the primary SMTP email address in their Outlook profile (see previous post “Office Communicator 2007 and Outlook 2007 Integration Errors”), so the primary email address will need to be updated to avoid this error. If the primary email [...]