HCHTech
Well-Known Member
- Reaction score
- 4,203
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA - USA
tldr: Oh, how I hate iPhones....
I'm sure you can hear this coming. I have a small customer running an aging SBS2011 server, so Exchange 2010. The new server and move to hosted exchange isn't scheduled until next year, and it took me a year to get them to budget for that.
So, fine. Fine that is until the owner (who else) gets a new iPhone the other day. The helpful folks at Verizon copied his data from the old phone, which included the exchange email and calendar. It wouldn't connect to the exchange server at the store, but the old data was there from the migration. I dread this call because I know one of the possibilities is that IOS 12.01 wants more security than Exchange 2010 can muster. I try to set the expectations low and schedule a visit.
So...I go to his place yesterday to see if I can get the exchange account working. I confirm we have the right password, try with and without the domain for the username (domain/username as well as just username), try it with SSL on and off. I tried it over wifi and cellular. Those are about the only options you have. I reboot the phone and try all of them again. No dice. Unable to connect. I decide NOT to delete the Exchange account and recreate because that would delete the data that was already there from the old account.
I go to check if he has exceeded his 10-device limit in Exchange, but I can't load either OWA or Exchange Management Console, inability to initialize or some such message. The server hasn't been rebooted since July and it's 7 and a half years old, so I tell him I need to reboot it - "You can't do that in the middle of the day, everyone is working!" So, I tell him I'll remote in after hours and reboot it and that will probably let me into Exchange proper where I can see what's up.
Can't you do something now to get my email working until it is fixed? (Um.....) Well, maybe we could set rule in Outlook (which is working fine) on your desktop to forward all of your mail to a new gmail account that we could setup on your phone.... So I setup a new gmail account on his iPhone, then create a rule in Outlook to forward the email. Amazing, it works. So email but no new calendar entries. Good enough until we can get into Exchange.
I get about 10 minutes away and the phone rings. "All my contacts are gone!" "All my calendar entries are gone!". Oh, awesome. I'll bet this is Google helping by setting itself as default or something. I turn around and go back, and the contacts are actually there, but the issue is that recent phone calls are now showing numbers instead of contact names. Some days I love this job more than others. Also, the calendar is indeed empty now - all of those past Exchange events are gone even if you choose to display only the exchange entries. And, it still won't connect to Exchange, as expected. Awesome, I took a bad situation and made it worse.
So I turn off contacts and calendar for Gmail (thanks for defaulting those, google), but that doesn't bring anything back - also as expected. I apologize and convince him to wait until I can reboot the server, then we'll see where we are.
Last evening, I remote in, reboot the server, and install 3 waiting updates, then reboot it again, just for good measure. I can indeed get into Exchange now. I see that he has 6 devices on his 'mobile phone' list in OWA. I remove all but the most recent one, and I also change his AD user password, just for kicks.
So, I'm going to have another shot at this when he gets home this evening. I get a text today, though that he took the phone back to Verizon and they restored it again so his past calendar entries are there again. I wish he hadn't done that because now I have the chance to erase them again if the activesync won't connect, and the real solution is to wait until we get them on hosted Exchange. God I hate iPhones for this nonsense. I'm also not enamoured with clients that won't spend the money to keep their infrastructure up to date, then complain when things don't work like they should.
So, how is your day going?
I'm sure you can hear this coming. I have a small customer running an aging SBS2011 server, so Exchange 2010. The new server and move to hosted exchange isn't scheduled until next year, and it took me a year to get them to budget for that.
So, fine. Fine that is until the owner (who else) gets a new iPhone the other day. The helpful folks at Verizon copied his data from the old phone, which included the exchange email and calendar. It wouldn't connect to the exchange server at the store, but the old data was there from the migration. I dread this call because I know one of the possibilities is that IOS 12.01 wants more security than Exchange 2010 can muster. I try to set the expectations low and schedule a visit.
So...I go to his place yesterday to see if I can get the exchange account working. I confirm we have the right password, try with and without the domain for the username (domain/username as well as just username), try it with SSL on and off. I tried it over wifi and cellular. Those are about the only options you have. I reboot the phone and try all of them again. No dice. Unable to connect. I decide NOT to delete the Exchange account and recreate because that would delete the data that was already there from the old account.
I go to check if he has exceeded his 10-device limit in Exchange, but I can't load either OWA or Exchange Management Console, inability to initialize or some such message. The server hasn't been rebooted since July and it's 7 and a half years old, so I tell him I need to reboot it - "You can't do that in the middle of the day, everyone is working!" So, I tell him I'll remote in after hours and reboot it and that will probably let me into Exchange proper where I can see what's up.
Can't you do something now to get my email working until it is fixed? (Um.....) Well, maybe we could set rule in Outlook (which is working fine) on your desktop to forward all of your mail to a new gmail account that we could setup on your phone.... So I setup a new gmail account on his iPhone, then create a rule in Outlook to forward the email. Amazing, it works. So email but no new calendar entries. Good enough until we can get into Exchange.
I get about 10 minutes away and the phone rings. "All my contacts are gone!" "All my calendar entries are gone!". Oh, awesome. I'll bet this is Google helping by setting itself as default or something. I turn around and go back, and the contacts are actually there, but the issue is that recent phone calls are now showing numbers instead of contact names. Some days I love this job more than others. Also, the calendar is indeed empty now - all of those past Exchange events are gone even if you choose to display only the exchange entries. And, it still won't connect to Exchange, as expected. Awesome, I took a bad situation and made it worse.
So I turn off contacts and calendar for Gmail (thanks for defaulting those, google), but that doesn't bring anything back - also as expected. I apologize and convince him to wait until I can reboot the server, then we'll see where we are.
Last evening, I remote in, reboot the server, and install 3 waiting updates, then reboot it again, just for good measure. I can indeed get into Exchange now. I see that he has 6 devices on his 'mobile phone' list in OWA. I remove all but the most recent one, and I also change his AD user password, just for kicks.
So, I'm going to have another shot at this when he gets home this evening. I get a text today, though that he took the phone back to Verizon and they restored it again so his past calendar entries are there again. I wish he hadn't done that because now I have the chance to erase them again if the activesync won't connect, and the real solution is to wait until we get them on hosted Exchange. God I hate iPhones for this nonsense. I'm also not enamoured with clients that won't spend the money to keep their infrastructure up to date, then complain when things don't work like they should.
So, how is your day going?
