After many cups of coffee and lots of troubleshooting I have finally solved an Outlook, Office 365 connectivity issue.
I was given the task to migrate a client from Google Apps for Business to Exchange Online. Although they are both very good platforms this client wanted to switch over to Office 365 due to personal preference.
As an authorised re-seller for both products I know these services inside out, the migration process is rather easy so their cut over was seamless. My clients workstation configuration consists of Microsoft Windows 8, running Office 2013 (64 bit).
Basically from day one my clients experience using Office 365 was to say the least frustrating. They were experiencing connectivity issues to their exchange online service using Outlook 2013, there emails would run smoothly for about 5 minutes, then their outlook will stop receiving and sending emails. It looked as though Outlook was stuck, the Outlook notification area stated “Microsoft Outlook is requesting data from the server” and the bottom outlook status bar showed “Connected To: Microsoft Exchange”. During this period no incoming or outgoing emails could be received or sent.
This issues occurred constantly, the only way you could get outlook to send a receive was to close it and re-open again. This would solve the issue for 5 -10 minutes and then pop up again requiring an Outlook restart. At first I thought its was an issues with the Office 365 service, possible an outage. After checking the Office 365 service status portal there were no know outages or connectivity problems. I logged a case with Microsoft and they suggested to troubleshoot the issue as per steps below.
- Create new outlook profile
- Run a repair in Microsoft Outllok account settings
- Run SCANPST.exe
- Manually hit send and receive
- Run is outlook Safe Mode
- Disable all Outlook add-ins
- Temporarily Disable firewall
- Temporary disable Anti-Virus
Let me tell you none of them worked!
The next steps were to troubleshoot PC hardware, check connectivity, network latency NIC settings, cabling, switches and the list goes on….. no luck.
My final test was to connect directly to the ADSL modem via Wi-Fi…… what do you know it worked flawlessly!! It turns out the modem TP-LINK TD-W8960N was dropping packets, how? I have no idea! No firewall, QOS or security features enabled on the device. For some reason this particular modem can’t handle connecting to exchange online. After switching their modem/router issue was resolved immediately! no more connectivity issues.
After doing more research on this issue there seems to be reports of some ADSL modems that can’t handle the connection to Exchange online, so before you go about tearing out your hair check your hardware first as this may save you many hours spent troubleshooting and contacting support.
For more information on Microsoft Exchange Online Services click here
Is there a list somewhere of the modems/routers that have had issues?
Hi Darlene unfortunately I don’t have a list. The modem I had issues with was the TP-LINK TD-W8960N. Are you currently experiencing the same connectivity problems. What mode/router are you using? Have you tried to update the firmware?
Can tell a Draytek VigorPRO 5300 has the exact same problems, took me hours of my life 🙂
Hi Sander, thanks for the update, yes it seems that there are other model modems out there experiencing the same issue.
Did you try a firmware update on the Draytek modem?
OMG!!!
I just read this thing and you’re my saviour man!!!!
I’m having exactly the same issue with a customer recently migrated to Exchange Online and they have exactly the same router.
Thanks very much for posting this my friend!!!
Hi Frank,
Glad it helped sort out your Exchange Online issue!
You may also want to check for firmware update as they may have sorted this issue.