Decommission Exchange 2016 after migration to Exchange 2016

Question

Yes the title is accurate.

The first Exchange 2016 server (ex1) was in an state where I was unable to update to the latest CU. I stood up Exchange server 2016 on ex2 and applied the latest CU. I've migrated everything, updated DNS, autodiscover, etc. As a test I've turned off ex1 to see if all runs smoothly without it but Outlook 2016 clients hang out, sometimes unresponsive for 5-10 minutes or even longer before loading the profile, while others open but stay in a disconnected state. I've looked through event viewer on the client and ex2 but find nothing relevant to Outlook. I'm not an Exchange guru to know where to look immediately so I need some logs to show me what's going wrong to troubleshoot. At this point I'm just guessing and here to ask for some assistance - please.

1. Where can I find relevant logs or related info to troubleshoot my Outlook client connection problems?
2. Am I missing anything when decommissioning the first Exchange server?

Answer 1

Hi @Mb5o5 , please try using below command to get the configuration of outlook anywhere.

get-outlookanywhere |fl *host*, *auth*  

1. make sure the external host name of Outlook Anywhere is reachable in public DNS
2. check the configuration of authentication method like below

ExternalClientAuthenticationMethod : Negotiate
InternalClientAuthenticationMethod : NTLM
IISAuthenticationMethods : {basic, ntlm, negotiate}

Here is also a thread discussed the similar issue: Exchange 2013 - RCA reports RPC Proxy can't be pinged (404), the issue was caused by certificate which not reported by the tool

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Answer 2

Hi @Mb5o5 , according to your information above: you have installed a new Exchange 2016 on sever ex2, then you migrated all the mailboxes and other contents to the new server, and you have updated all the DNS records (MX, A, CNAME...) as well, however the outlook will hang out if you turn off the old server ex1.

Have you tried removing the old outlook profile then creating a new one to test the result again?

Please try accessing the url of AutoDiscoverServiceInternalURI: https://autodiscover.domain.com/ Autodiscover/Autodiscover.xml, check if it returns the code 600

It is also suggested using the ExRCA tool to help determine whether the issue is related to Exchange server side, choose the Outlook connectivity

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Answer 3

Thanks for your suggestions @Joyce Shen - MSFT . Your initial statements are correct.

I have deleted and recreated the Outlook profile but this did not seem to make a difference.

Accessing the autodiscover URL produced the error code 600 like you included.

Using the ExRCA tool was successful on the port, certificate and IIS, but fails on RPC over HTTP connectivity.

Attempting to ping RPC proxy [domain].
RPC Proxy can't be pinged.
Additional Details
An unexpected network-level exception was encountered. Exception details:
Message: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.
Type: Microsoft.Exchange.Tools.ExRca.Extensions.MapiTransportException
Stack trace:
at Microsoft.Exchange.Tools.ExRca.Extensions.MapiRpcTestClient.PingProtocolProxy(String endpointIdentifier)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Tools.ExRca.Tests.MapiPingProxyTest.PerformTestReally()
Exception details:
Message: The remote server returned an error: (404) Not Found.
Type: System.Net.WebException
Stack trace:
at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse()
at RpcPingLib.RpcPing.PingProxy(String internalServerFqdn, String endpoint)
at Microsoft.Exchange.Tools.ExRca.Extensions.MapiRpcTestClient.PingProtocolProxy(String endpointIdentifier)