[Solved in 11.4] 11.3 Outlook connector can't connect

[dyna]

If you look back through the posts you'll see a bug link i filed. In that Florian explains what is happening and what has changed.

I have read and understood:

The behaviour of Scalix Connect is as-designed, what happens is that on
successful Outlook connection, the servername in the profile is replaced with
the servers own notion of the servername, i.e. omcheckgc -h output (which, on a
single instance system will be equal to hostname -f).

That is what i meant by not a DNS lookup. It seems to use the omcheckgc -h value. Just changing hostname -f will not change anything in the connector behaviour. One probably needs to change the output of omcheckgc -h.

The value of omcheckgc -h is probably resolved from DNS when installing scalix, but i can't go back in time to change that.
Which i guess is the real problem here. Not that something changed, but that something changed that was set during the initial scalix installation and can't be easily changed after/now (or maybe it can be easily changed, don't know haven't tried, but since noone in this thread knows/has done it, i guess not).

Thanks for reporting it anyway.

[jaime.pinto]

As far as I am concerned, this 11.3 connector issue has *NOT* been solved, and I'm still *NOT* in a position in which I can widely deploy the current version to our Outlook clients.
So the wait remains. Looking forward to a fix in 11.3.1 or 11.4

[mikevl]

Hi

I have now installed / upgraded a few PCs to Outlook 2003 & 2007 on 11.3 with no issues at all (so far).

Mike

[jaime.pinto]

The latest
In 4 occasions already I attempted to have different users install the 11.3.0 version of the connector in their home computers and access our scalix server, without success. So I used the workaround mentioned before, and had them remove 11.3.0, install 11.2.0 instead, access the server properly at least once, and then overlay the 11.3.0 as an upgrade.

That for me is proof enough something is broken with 11.3.0, but once we get passed this hurdle everything else is fine, as long as we don't have a 2nd user try to setup a new scalix profile for a different account on the same computer after 11.3.0 has been installed. What a weird bug!!!

[tomster]

Please do not get confused with default gateway and DNS.

Being honest, reading this line brought back network basics to my mind.

In your workstation ip ...
... will be on your LAN.

Your DNS server should hold
An "A" record for the domain server.com (I make mine server.local cause this does not interfear with external lookups)

Did catch that drift, and fully ACK. So far I did not think about setting up a local DNS at all- what for?... IP addresses surely were enough till this point in time (11.2).

Then you need a CNAME record scalix-default-mail which points to your server i.e.
scalix-default-mail > mail.server.com

See, this originates from me not getting the point of setting up a local DNS. Not even gotten close picturing that 11.3's scheme theoretically, I thought having a DNS entry pointing to (my) mail.scalixserver.tld from around the world should do the trick.

Gateway and DNS being 2 sorts of things is now sorted out, Mike

Hope this helps

And to some degree it did, but then again there was some other quote...
"Anyone?... Anyone?... Buehler?..// //.. Anyone?"
I'd like to save Ferris but I'd somehow prefer a WiKi-near HowTo on setting up my server correctly to be able to use the Outlook 2007 upgrades as(s) promised in the change-logs. A 4-page's thread could easily get shortened with 1 single "sticky" post, don't ya think?

Just my 2 cents and besides a big beg-beg on Flo to drag his devs out a spare minute or two to get things straightenedt.

[GERMAN]
Jetz sag amal Flo,
bekommen wir einen Work-Around VOR der 11.4 oder nicht? Ansonsten wär ein HowTo vielleicht ned des Schlechteste...
[/GERMAN]

TOM

[techsharp]

jaime -

I have not upgraded to11.3 yet, but will this error happen if we still continue to use stunnel? We plan on keeping it for now, but do not want to run into the issue you are having.

Or should I just wait to do the upgrade until this is solved?

Thank you

[jaime.pinto]

We have stunnel on our server, and we are able to use SSL on the client if we wish. But as mentioned before, we only had problems the very first time we tried to configure the 11.3 version of the connector for a profile from scratch, hence the workaround. I don't think this is related to stunnel.

As for the "fix", I still have not seen anybody from scalix to at least acknowledge 11.3 client as an issue. I also didn't get a confirmation that this problem is consistent across all sites. It does happen with us and a few other customers that reported it here.

[techsharp]

OK thank you,

I had problems last time trying to do the upgrade, I will try again tonight and post any issues.

If I do happen to get it upgraded, I can always do the workaround until the problem is officially fixed.

[mr_smith]

Is there any way as a newer customer that I can get the older 11.2 connector while this issue is being resolved? I've searched around quite a bit and haven't managed to find any older versions as of yet. (Hopefully this isn't an inappropriate question).

[Valerion]

I suggest you take this up with Scalix Support. For me, and a few client I rolled it out at, the 11.3 connector is working correctly, I wouldn't downgrade my client for any reason.

[les]

Is there any way as a newer customer that I can get the older 11.2 connector while this issue is being resolved? I've searched around quite a bit and haven't managed to find any older versions as of yet. (Hopefully this isn't an inappropriate question).

11.3 will work if you have dns sorted. i've got it working fine on numerous sites. My ultimate bug-bear was that the change in 11.3 was not documented in release notes or docs.
This may mean in some cases you need to run both internal and external dns, but it depends on your setup.

you can always get the archive releases by going to the scalix download page and clicking the "Archive" link at the bottom of the page.

[blackied]

I've skimmed this thread, and i have the same issue. from what's been put down here, it's just a DNS thing, and can be fixed with a change in the host file. given the number of people using the setup i have, i can do the host fix, since i don't have a local DNS server. could someone tell me exactly what i need to put in?

[dyna]

Just wanted to say that the 11.4 connector works like a charm.

Set it up at location without any problems, when asked for server i inputted an IP just to see if it would be accepted, and it was. Still noticed it was resolved to something but i did really check to see what.

A few days later i start outlook over VPN and at first i got a message saying the server couldn't be found and i once again entered the local IP and it worked fine after that both on location and over VPN (tested from numerous locations already) with no more complaints about not able to find the server.

Also opening delegates agenda's over VPN is without problems now. So no more host file trickery.

Thanks for making it right Scalix.