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Spurious firewall error at SharePoint Workspace startup

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Update, July 5, 2011: This issue is fixed in the the Office 2010 June CU for SharePoint Workspace. See this article for details: Office 2010 Cumulative Update for June 2011

 

Firewall error at startup - again

Some of our customers in more security-conscious domains have been noticing an issue with the SharePoint Workspace firewall exception check. At every startup, many users are getting a warning message that starts like this:

SharePoint Workspace is unable to communicate through your firewall and will run with limited functionality. To resolve this problem, enable SharePoint Workspace as a Windows Firewall exception...

(How it continues from there depends on your configuration.)

However, despite this message, SharePoint Workspace works through the firewall.

Why does this happen?

We want to warn the user if SharePoint Workspace is blocked by Windows Firewall, so when the program starts up, it makes the following checks:

  • Is Windows Firewall enabled?
  • If so, is there an exception for SharePoint Workspace in the local firewall policy?

If Windows Firewall is enabled and SharePoint Workspace doesn't have an exception in the local firewall policy, it returns an error to warn the user that program functionality may be limited.

But it works!

SharePoint Workspace only checks the local policies. Many organizations - especially ones that maintain tight security - manage firewall exceptions at the IT level and distribute them via domain policy. If you have a domain policy that pushes a Windows Firewall exception for SharePoint Workspace to domain members, the startup check will not see it. However that exception will work, allowing SharePoint Workspace to communicate through the Windows Firewall.

How do I stop it?

Although program functionality is not affected, this message still worries end users, and by requiring a user acknowledgment, it delays program startup. We recognize that this is a problem for many customers. For the moment, the best workaround is to duplicate the domain firewall exception to the local policy branch.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Hi Colin, I cannot comment on timelines for future updates, but we recognize the frustration level and do consider this issue an important one to correct. I will post (and add a note to this post) when an update is available.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    It doesn't appear that the hotfix or Office 2010 SP1 did fix this issue. I've confirmed all files are newer then the hotfix on my devices.. We have a firewall rule of SharePoint Workspace from Domain policy that provides an exception. The Firewall GPO will turn off the firewall when locally on the domain and turn on the firewall when the device is off the domain. But it appears the rule is seen to then block. If I stop the firewall service, then SharePoint Workspace launches without error.  Any idea?

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    What can I do to stop Sharepoint workspace broadcasting on 1211 to my TMG server? We're testing Sharepoint workspace for use with Office365, and my TMG logs are full of broadcasts to 255.255.255.255 on port 1211. I know this is off topic, but have not found any help anywhere.

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Sean, We are working on fixing the problem, of course, but there is not an update yet. I will add a comment here when one becomes available. However, if the workaround I provided doesn't stop the message in your environment, you may have a different issue. You can open a support case at support.microsoft.com/.../default.aspx.

  • Anonymous
    April 29, 2011
    That's the best that can be done, really????

  • Anonymous
    April 29, 2011
    By the way, tried the fix and it doesn't work for me :(

  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2011
    So when are you fixing this? Your making my users hate your product and I want them to love it.  You are not making my life very easy at all. :(

  • Anonymous
    May 02, 2011
    Thank you for the the reply.  Hope it is sooner rather than later.

  • Anonymous
    May 05, 2011
    "Although program functionality is not affected," is not really a true statement. My Sharepoint windows all shutdown automatically whenever I get this error. It is very annoying, expecially when it happens while I am checking out a file. I have to reopen all the Sharepoint windows where I am working.

  • Anonymous
    July 15, 2011
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 01, 2011
    The comment has been removed