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Push Mail and GAL Lookup missing when syncing to Exchange 2003 SP2 with a MSFP Device.

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Push mail and GAL lookup missing even when syncing to an Exchange 2003 SP2 Server with a MSFP device.

During deployments you may run into the issue where your server is up and you are syncing without a problem but you aren’t getting the option to sync as items arrive as well as the option to do Lookup Online is missing. This is normally caused by a firewall issue where the Options verb is being blocked.

We see we are not returning the expected response for the OPTIONS command from the below entry on the device logs.

(Enable Verbose logging on the devise from server settings in Advanced in device to see below logs)

==================================
=-= Build 14847 =-=
=-= No XIP Information Available =-=
Mail.company.com
=-=- [12/10/2006 2:28:59.0] -=-=
=-=-=-= Client Request =-=-=-=

OPTIONS Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync?User=dptest&DeviceId=6F24CAD599A5BF1A690246B8C68FAE8D&DeviceType=PocketPC

Accept-Language: en-us
X-MS-PolicyKey: 0

-=-=-=- Start of Body -=-=-=-
=-=- [12/10/2006 2:29:4.0] -=-=
=-=-=-= Server Response =-=-=-
HTTP/1.1 500 Internal Server Error ( The system cannot find the file specified. )
Connection: close
Pragma: no-cache
Cache-Control: no-cache
Content-Type: text/html
Content-Length: 2014
===========================================

The above HTTP 500 is the response from the server for the OPTIONS command sent by the device.

We normally get this response if URLScan is blocking the verb.So we have to check for URLScan in the server.  If URLScan is present, then we can add OPTIONS to the AllowVerb section of URLScan.ini file.

The above symptom is confirmed from the IIS logs as well.

From the IIS logs as below.

==============================
2006-10-10 04:01:13 W3SVC1 SCIDUBMSG01 10.251.99.165 POST /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync User=username&DeviceId=02563C023942F3E168000050BF1977E0&DeviceType=PocketPC&
Cmd=Sync&Log=V1TCaSSC:0A0C0D0FS:0A0C0D0SP:1C3I3040S122000R0S0L0H0P 443 consoto\username 209.95.228.19 HTTP/1.0 Microsoft-PocketPC/3.0 - - mail.company.com 200 0 0 326 516 249
==============================

Notice the entry Log=V1 in the above log entry.

It indicates that Airsync protocol version 1.0 is being used, whereas with Push functionality Airsync version 2.5 is the latest and to be used.

Ideally we should use Airsync protocol version 2.5 which will be represented as Log=V4.

So permitting the OPTIONS verb in URLScan or whatever software is blocking it should resolve the issue.

Sample Server response=-=- [16/9/2006 1:15:23.0] -=-=
=-=-=-= Server Response =-=-=-
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 19:45:21 GMT
Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0
X-Powered-By: ASP.NET
Pragma: no-cache
Content-Length: 0
Public: OPTIONS, POST
Allow: OPTIONS, POST
MS-Server-ActiveSync: 6.5.7638.1
MS-ASProtocolVersions: 1.0,2.0,2.1,2.5
MS-ASProtocolCommands: Sync,SendMail,SmartForward,SmartReply,GetAttachment,GetHierarchy,
CreateCollection,DeleteCollection,MoveCollection,FolderSync,FolderCreate,
FolderDelete,FolderUpdate,MoveItems,GetItemEstimate,MeetingResponse,
ResolveRecipients,ValidateCert,Provision,Search,Notify,Ping

Based on the list of commands returned by the server as above, the device will decide which version of AirSync protocol to use. Different features like Direct Push or AUTD etc depend on the version of the protocol being used for communication.

Check for URLScan on your Exchange server and check if any other device or software device is blocking OPTIONS command.

URLScan is an add-on tool that can be used by Web site administrators. The administrators can control the actions of URLScan and can restrict the type of HTTP requests that the server processes. URLscan.ini file is the configuration file of this tool and URLscan tool will not function after we rename this file and once we rename it back it will start working again, nothing else will be affected.

For more information Using URLScan on IIS (https://support.microsoft.com/kb/307608/), the purpose of this article is to ensure effective distribution of the Internet Information Services (IIS) security tool URLScan.

After you edit your URLSCAN.ini file a Server reboot is not required just restart the IIS & WWW services.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2006
    Perfect.  Thanks for outlining this as I have two customers with this EXACT problem. ALSO, fresh new look on the blog. I like it.

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2006
    Notice the entry Log=V1 in the above log entry. I don't see it in the log above?  

  • Anonymous
    October 21, 2006
    The comment has been removed