Missing Autodiscover information in your Exchange Autodiscover XML Response?

Recently I have a case for Federation free/busy on Exchange 2010, than external company are not able to autodiscover the customer domain to retrieve external EWS URL.

When we use Remote Connectivity Analyzer (https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com/) to test Outlook Autodiscover, all the External URL (items below the <Type>EXPR</Type> lines) was missing.

Normal Autodiscover response:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<Autodiscover xmlns:xsd="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="https://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/responseschema/2006">
<Response xmlns="https://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/outlook/responseschema/2006a">
<User>
<DisplayName>John Mak</DisplayName>
<LegacyDN>/o=First Organization/ou=First Administrative Group/cn=Recipients/cn=john</LegacyDN>
<DeploymentId>2d00e1bb-74fd-49c2-bcac-dcd18e4aa95f</DeploymentId>
</User>
<Account>
<AccountType>email</AccountType>
<Action>settings</Action>
<Protocol>
<Type>EXCH</Type>
<Server>CLT-E2010-CAS01.exchange.contoso.com</Server>
<ServerDN>/o=First Organization/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Configuration/cn=Servers/cn=CLT-E2010-CAS01</ServerDN>
<ServerVersion>7380827F</ServerVersion>
<MdbDN>/o=First Organization/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Configuration/cn=Servers/cn=CLT-E2010-CAS01/cn=Microsoft Private MDB</MdbDN>
<ASUrl>https://clt-e2010-cas01.exchange.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx</ASUrl>
<OOFUrl>https://clt-e2010-cas01.exchange.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx</OOFUrl>
<OABUrl>https://clt-e2010-cas01.exchange.contoso.com/OAB/83099da3-46bc-49e3-9e35-4353f0f95268/</OABUrl>
<UMUrl>https://clt-e2010-cas01.exchange.contoso.com/EWS/UM2007Legacy.asmx</UMUrl>
<Port>0</Port>
<DirectoryPort>0</DirectoryPort>
<ReferralPort>0</ReferralPort>
<PublicFolderServer>CLT-E2010-MBX01.exchange.contoso.com</PublicFolderServer>
<AD>CLT-DC.exchange.contoso.com</AD>
<EwsUrl>https://clt-e2010-cas01.exchange.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx</EwsUrl>
<SharingUrl>https://clt-e2010-cas01.exchange.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx</SharingUrl>
<EcpUrl>https://clt-e2010-cas01.exchange.contoso.com/ecp/</EcpUrl>
<EcpUrl-um>?p=customize/voicemail.aspx&amp;exsvurl=1</EcpUrl-um>
<EcpUrl-aggr>?p=personalsettings/EmailSubscriptions.slab&amp;exsvurl=1</EcpUrl-aggr>
<EcpUrl-mt>PersonalSettings/DeliveryReport.aspx?exsvurl=1&amp;IsOWA=&lt;IsOWA&gt;&amp;MsgID=&lt;MsgID&gt;&amp;Mbx=&lt;Mbx&gt;</EcpUrl-mt>
<EcpUrl-ret>?p=organize/retentionpolicytags.slab&amp;exsvurl=1</EcpUrl-ret>
<EcpUrl-sms>?p=sms/textmessaging.slab&amp;exsvurl=1</EcpUrl-sms>
</Protocol>
<Protocol>
<Type>EXPR</Type>
<Server>exchange.contoso.com</Server>
<ASUrl>https://exchange.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx</ASUrl>
<OOFUrl>https://exchange.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx</OOFUrl>
<OABUrl>https://exchange.contoso.com/OAB/83099da3-46bc-49e3-9e35-4353f0f95268/</OABUrl>
<UMUrl>https://exchange.contoso.com/EWS/UM2007Legacy.asmx</UMUrl>
<Port>0</Port>
<DirectoryPort>0</DirectoryPort>
<ReferralPort>0</ReferralPort>
<SSL>On</SSL>
<AuthPackage>Basic</AuthPackage>
<EwsUrl>https://exchange.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx</EwsUrl>
<SharingUrl>https://exchange.contoso.com/EWS/Exchange.asmx</SharingUrl>
<EcpUrl>https://exchange.contoso.com/ecp/</EcpUrl>
<EcpUrl-um>?p=customize/voicemail.aspx&amp;exsvurl=1</EcpUrl-um>
<EcpUrl-aggr>?p=personalsettings/EmailSubscriptions.slab&amp;exsvurl=1</EcpUrl-aggr>
<EcpUrl-mt>PersonalSettings/DeliveryReport.aspx?exsvurl=1&amp;IsOWA=&lt;IsOWA&gt;&amp;MsgID=&lt;MsgID&gt;&amp;Mbx=&lt;Mbx&gt;</EcpUrl-mt>
<EcpUrl-ret>?p=organize/retentionpolicytags.slab&amp;exsvurl=1</EcpUrl-ret>
<EcpUrl-sms>?p=sms/textmessaging.slab&amp;exsvurl=1</EcpUrl-sms>
</Protocol>
<Protocol>
<Type>WEB</Type>
<Port>0</Port>
<DirectoryPort>0</DirectoryPort>
<ReferralPort>0</ReferralPort>
</Protocol>
</Account>
</Response>
</Autodiscover>

 

After some troubleshooting we found that when we run Get-OutlookProvider we only see EXCH, WEB, but missing EXPR.

We needed to run New-OutlookProvider EXPR to recreate EXPR in order or the Autodiscover to return external URL in the <Type>EXPR</Type> section of the Autodiscover XML response.

My guess was that Outlook Anywhere was enabled but they decided they don't want users to be able to Autodiscover externally and setup Outlook Anywhere automatically
and found out that if they remove that Outlook Provider it stop the configuration from being included in the Autodiscover response, but that also broke Federation free busy because Autodiscover on the other external companies are not able to retrieve the EWS External URL.

Let me know if this information is helpful and leave comments below.

Thanks,

John

Comments

  • Anonymous
    November 08, 2012
    Hi, do you have the " New-OutlookProvider EXPR " steps ?

  • Anonymous
    April 02, 2013
    Yes, that is the command.