Outlook Reminders Not Popping Up on All Computers for only one User

I just had this very rare issue that Google was not able to help me with.  I wanted to post it hear in case others have this same issue.

I have about 10 computers that have outlook installed on them and they are mix of mostly outlook 2010 and 2013, most are in cached mode but some are in online mode.  They are all connected to my user account which is the only place I was seeing the issue.

My issue was that no reminders were showing up and I was missing a lot of important tasks.  They were still showing up on my Android and iPhone but not on any of my Windows systems with Outlook.

I tried the following steps on some of my 10 machines, but it did not fix the issue.
- Checking to make sure Reminders are enabled by going to File > Options and confirming it is checked.
- Running the clean reminders switch. Outlook /cleanreminders
- Running the reset folders switch. Outlook /resetfolders
- I have downloaded and ran the MFCMAPI tool and followed instructions from Allan on this link:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvrclients/thread/f1894641-5c5c-49d5-971b-c829518f263e/

None of these steps fixed my issue.  This was only affecting my user and I manage the exchange server so I could not figure out what was going on.

Until I found a virtual machine in my environment that I had disabled outlook reminders on, not realizing that it would disable reminders on all of my systems running outlook.  This machine was in Online mode running Outlook 2010, but most of my other machines are 2013 in cached mode.

So the solution is to check all machines that are connected to the user to make sure reminders are enabled because if you disable it on one machine and that profile stays connected it will immediately dismiss all reminders and you will not see them on any other computers.

Here is the setting below:
- Checking to make sure Reminders are enabled by going to File > Options and confirming it is checked.

Annoying Google Chrome Freezes Entire Machine

So I'm sure many other people are experiencing issues with Google Chrome freezing everything on your computer for a couple of seconds nearly every 5-10 seconds. This only happens when Chrome is open though. Well for awhile I just didn't use Chrome and stuck with Firefox but I finally researched it and found out that it is an application conflict with Airfoil. Apparently Airfoil has an issue with its latest version v3.3.2 as of 10/25/12. The issue is with the instant on function of Airfoil. If your like me and enable it you will have problems. So I have disabled the instant on function of Airfoil and I haven't had any problems since. This isn't the first time that I've had these types of issues with Airfoil. I think I have finally learned my lesson to stop upgrading Airfoil every time it alerts me of a new update. It is very apparent that the Airfoil developers do NOT do very good testing on there product before releasing it with issues to the public. I hope this helps others out there.

SBS 2008 Server Annoying Error

Event Details:  
The application-specific permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID {61738644-F196-11D0-9953-00C04FD919C1} to the user NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE SID (S-1-5-20) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.

to NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE account as follows:

• In Administrative tools, open Component Services and expand Component Services, Computers, My Computer, DCOM Config
• Look for the IIS WAMREG Admin Service
• Right click and select Properties and then select the Security tab
• Click Edit under Launch and Activation Permissions
• Add the Network Service user
• Add Local Activation rights
• Click OK twice
• Close Component Services

http://www.seasideit.com/2009/01/dcom-error-10016-on-sbs-2008.html

How to disable Sirius XM Timeout

If you're like me and listen to the Sirius XM online radio 24/7, then the 90 minute streaming timeout really gets annoying.  We'll I've got the solution for you.  I have done this in Chrome and Firefox and it works great.

In summary to disable the streaming timeout you need to disable the JavaScript (JS) on the page after you have started the streaming session.  It won't work if you disable JS before logging in because it requires JS to log in.

I recommend using Chrome because the Extension from this location does a great job of disabling the java only on the Sirius XM tab and other tabs can continue to use JS.

The other option if you don't like Chrome is to use the QuickJava add-on in Firefox.  Some downfalls I have seen with this is that it diables JavaScript in all tabs, and it goes on to disable JS in your other Firefox installations if you have the QuickJava Add-On installed there and enable Sync in your Firefox browser.  To use this plugin you have to make sure you go to View --> Toolbars --> Add-on Bar then you can click on the JS at the bottom of the Firefox page.

SBS 2003 OWA failures

So I was starting to have issues with a SBS 2003 server that I manage.  For some reason the OWA service would stop working for exactly an hour, and sometimes more, then all of the sudden it would come back online.  Because I knew the time it went down and came back on within a minute I thought I would see logs during that time but that was not the case.

Well I  have finally found what was causing the issue.  It is ISA server that is blocking the connection because of a timeout issue.  I didn't make any changes but this just started happening out of no where.

Here is the error log that I was receiving in the ISA Monitoring logs:

Failed Connection Attempt	SERVER 10/24/2011 8:16:40 AM
Log type: Web Proxy (Reverse)
Status: 10060 A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.
Rule: SBS Web Publishing Rule
Source: External ( 64.141.100.136:0)
Destination: ( 65.41.114.173:443)
Request: GET https://mail.server.com:443/Remote/logon.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fremote%2fDefault.aspx
Filter information: Req ID: 16e41712
Protocol: https
User: anonymous

I have fixed this issue by modifying this time out in the firewall policy under the SBS Web Publishing Rule, In the advance setting under the SBS Web Listener Properties, I change the Connection Timeout from 120 to 620:


Let me know if you have any questions,
-Spader

Exchange 2003 Errors SBS 2003

I found a warning message in the Application logs on my Exchange 2003 server and here is what I did to get rid of the error within the logs.

*****************************************************************************

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeMU
Event Category: General
Event ID: 1040
Date: 10/19/2011
Time: 4:24:51 PM
User: N/A
Computer: SERVER2011
Description:
Metabase Update failed replication 5 times with error 80070003 (The system cannot find the path specified.). Please change the diagnostic logging level of MSExchangeMU to 'minimum' or greater to find the source of the problem.

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

*****************************************************************************

So I found some steps on the web which directed me us the MetaEdit tool to delete a key.  I ended up only deleting the DS2MB key and not touching the SMTPSVC/1/domain key.  This completely eliminated all of the warnings related to the issue and now OWA is working like a champ.

Download the tool here:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301386

Follow these steps:
1) Backup the IIS metabase
2) Stop the Ms exchange System Attendant service
3) Using Meta Edit delete/rename the DS2MB key (Metaedit is a free tool)

4) Using Meta Edit delete/rename the key SMTPSVC/1/domain
5) Restart the Ms Exchange System Attendant service
6) The above keys will be recreated


Below shows the errors and how they stopped at 4:39pm when I executed the steps above:

Hope this helps others!
-Spader

Dyndns Standard SMTP Service not working

All,
I experienced an issue this morning with my dyndns service.  I use them to send all of my email from my exchange server to external recipients.  It appears they forgot to renew their certificate on the their receivers.  These are the errors that I'm receiving on both exchange servers that I manage.

451 4.4.0 Primary target IP address responded with: "454 4.7.5 Certificate validation failure."

I also so in my logs event 11005 that stated this: Unable to validate the TLS certificate of the smart host for the connector MailHop Outbound. The certificate validation error for the certificate is CertificateExpired. If the problem persists, contact the administrator of the smart host to resolve the problem.

So I came to the conclusion that DynDNS forgot to renew their cert. Oops!

I notified them and they stated this:
I have received and acknowledged your concern regarding messages not being able to be sent through our outbound.mailhop.org server or generating a certificate-related error message.
At this time, Dyn is aware of a couple of our servers experiencing issues with their certificates and we are working towards a resolution of this issue.

To temporarily alleviate the issue, we kindly ask that you retry sending your messages with TLS turned off in your mail client. We will post an update to our status.dyn-inc.com site as soon as the issue has been resolved.

That said, if you are managing SBS 2008 or Exchange 2007 here is how to disable TLS quickly:

Just uncheck the "Basic Authentication over TLS" and viola!

Let me know if  you  have any issues with this.

-Spader

UPDATE 10-07-11: I am still having issues with my Exchange 2007 server, but the other server that I support which is exchange 2003 started working at 8:46am on the same day that the issues started 10-3-11.

I definitely which they would figure out how to be compatiable with exchange 2007, I'm sure many people are running this and having issues.  Here is the error message that I'm receiving on my exchange 2007 server (SBS 2008):

Log Name:      Application
Source:        MSExchangeTransport
Date:          10/7/2011 7:47:58 AM
Event ID:      11005
Task Category: MessageSecurity
Level:         Error
Description:
Unable to validate the TLS certificate of the smart host for the connector MailHop Outbound. The certificate validation error for the certificate is UntrustedRoot. If the problem persists, contact the administrator of the smart host to resolve the problem.

It looks like they are either using a self signed certificate or used a certificate authority that is not in the SBS 2008 trusted root CA list.

PLEASE fix DynDNS, I would like to enable my encryption!
-Spader

UPDATE 10-19-11: I randomly checked to see if DynDNS has fix their issue today and finally was able to send messages using encryption.  Thank you for finally fixing your issue DynDNS.  We are finally back to normal!
-Spader