Much has been written about troubleshooting Microsoft Office Communicator issues. In this blog entry I wanted to highlight and simplify two steps that will help you catch most problems without having to do more time consuming troubleshooting.
1) Know Which DNS Records are Being Used by Communicator
Communicator relies heavily on DNS to figure out which OCS server to connect to. Knowing how Communicator uses DNS, and what DNS records are being returned with the client DNS settings, is the key to debugging most issues.
My previous post, DNS Records and Office Communicator Automatic Client Sign-In, summarizes how Communicator uses DNS to connect to the server.
My Automatic Sign-In Troubleshooting Tool will query the local client DNS for all the DNS records Communicator might use, and display which ones match.
Knowing what DNS records are being used and which server Communicator is connecting to will help you understand the logging files in the next step.
2) Turn on and Use Communicator Logging
a) Turn on Communicator Event Logging (Options | General | Turn on Windows Event logging for Communicator)
This will produce explicit Application event log entries for any issues Communicator is experiencing. For example: “Communicator could not connect securely to server sip.example.com because the certificate presented by the server did not match the expected hostname (sip.example.com)”. There may be additional Informational or Warning log entries that provide additional context.
b) Turn on regular Communicator Logging (Options | General | Turn on logging in Communicator)
This generates a debugging log file in %userprofile%/Tracing (e.g. the filename will look something like “Communicator-uccapi-0.iccapilog”). This log file will give specific details about what Communicator is doing internally. For example, we can clearly see in this log file there is a DNS hostname lookup failure:
- 06/05/2009|10:26:45.553 700:EE8 INFO :: QueryDNSSrv – DNS Name[_sipinternaltls._tcp.example.com]
- 06/05/2009|10:26:45.563 700:FAC INFO :: domainName:quest.com: serviceName:sip: transportName:tls:
- 06/05/2009|10:26:45.563 700:EE8 ERROR :: QueryDNSSrv GetDnsResults query: _sipinternaltls._tcp.example.com failed 9
- 06/05/2009|10:26:45.563 700:EE8 ERROR :: DNS_RESOLUTION_WORKITEM::ProcessWorkItem ResolveHostName failed 8007232b
(Note this file can be opened in Notepad even though it does not have a .txt file extension).
Taking these first steps will go a long way in understanding how Communicator is behaving.
The Microsoft TechNet Library has a more good information on troubleshooting specific Communicator R2 Features: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb963945.aspx.
Finally, if you are troubleshooting an issue with Communicator R2, take advantage of the built-in diagnostic information. See the previous post regarding the ”Great New Office Communicator R2 Troubleshooting Feature” for more information.
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Philip, one more idea – in the external clients you can hardcode the FQDN hostname of your Lync or OCS Edge server (in Options, Advanced Sign-In) and attempt to sign-in.
This will tell you if it is DNS issues or some other issue.
Curtis
Philip, there could be many reasons besides DNS that external users cannot sign-in.
From the information you provided, if you would like external users to sign in automatically using the SIP domain ABC.com, you will need one of these domains resolvable to the access Edge externally in DNS: _sip._tls.ABC.com or sip.ABC.com. Neither of those records are returning a match in DNS based on the results you provided.
I noticed the domain your using in my tool is actually “pgclync.ABC.com”. If that is the external SIP domain you want to support you will need to use that domain instead (i.e. _sip._tls.pgclync.ABC.com or sip.pgclync.ABC.com).
Hope that helps,
Curtis
Please advise, we have 2 SIP domains
ABC.local (ad default)
ABC.com
Please see my results below & advise, what must I do to correct my scenario. All the internal users can sign-in. External users cannot.
OCS DNS Records Found
OCS DNS Records Not Found
_sipinternaltls._tcp.pgclync.ABC.local *** Request to UnKnown timed-out
_sipinternal._tcp.pgclync.ABC.local *** Request to UnKnown timed-out
_sip._tls.pgclync.ABC.local *** Request to UnKnown timed-out
_sip._tcp.pgclync.ABC.local *** Request to UnKnown timed-out
sipinternal.pgclync.ABC.local *** Request to UnKnown timed-out
sip.pgclync.ABC.local *** Request to UnKnown timed-out
sipexternal.pgclync.ABC.local *** Request to UnKnown timed-out
OCS DNS Records Found
OCS DNS Records Not Found
_sipinternaltls._tcp.pgclync.ABC.com *** UnKnown can’t find _sipinternaltls._tcp.pgclync.ABC.com: Non-existent domain
_sipinternal._tcp.pgclync.ABC.com *** UnKnown can’t find _sipinternal._tcp.pgclync.ABC.com: Non-existent domain
_sip._tls.pgclync.ABC.com *** UnKnown can’t find _sip._tls.pgclync.ABC.com: Non-existent domain
_sip._tcp.pgclync.ABC.com *** UnKnown can’t find _sip._tcp.pgclync.ABC.com: Non-existent domain
sipinternal.pgclync.ABC.com *** UnKnown can’t find sipinternal.pgclync.ABC.com: Non-existent domain
sip.pgclync.ABC.com *** UnKnown can’t find sip.pgclync.ABC.com: Non-existent domain
sipexternal.pgclync.ABC.com *** UnKnown can’t find sipexternal.pgclync.ABC.com: Non-existent domain
Hi Curtis,
There is a user in our company server team give him Audio Video access on OCS, but while using his system user unable to use these features, then i recreate user profile on same system it not works. So i check on local admin on same system using his id it works. So, we check on other system using his id this feature works on his id. So will you suggest me what’s the issue with his profile and need your suggestion on this. Please mail me on ershaktimoudgil@hotmail.com.
Thanks,
Shakti Moudgil
Without knowing anything about your situation or environment (e.g. just external contacts or all contacts?, OCS 2007 R2 or Lync on the server side?, was it working at one time and the presence unknown just started?) it is hard to recommend anything.
I can tell you that there were hotfixes released quite some time ago (+1 years) on both the client and server side that have fixed this problem.
Making sure your Communicator 2007 R2 Clients and OCS/Lync Servers are completely up-to-date is a great first step.
Curtis
Contacts in Microsoft office communicator 2007 R2 are showing presence unknown. please suggest