# Outlook still "Disconnected"



## JKnowles (Jul 19, 2010)

referencing this thread

This issue seems to come and go, and only for this one user. Since my last post, this user was using Outlook just fine. This afternoon, he had to restart his laptop. When he logged back in, he was now "Disconnected" and could not connect again.

I went onto the mail server and increased the MAPI connection limit from 32 (default) to 100 to make sure he wasn't being bogged down by that, and it didn't help.

I cleared the security logs as well, and he still cannot connect.

I'm running out of ideas here, and I know this forum is always a great help. Any ideas, or other places to look would be greatly appreciated!

Thank You


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## Corday (Mar 3, 2010)

Did you try DJaburg's suggestions from the last post?


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## JKnowles (Jul 19, 2010)

I didn't actually. I will have my user try using the IP address, but I'm confused about the subnet mask thing.

The user doesn't have the ability to change his subnet mask, and this issue just started happening. Is it still possible that he could be seeing a conflict in subnet masks out of the blue like that?

I'll have him check it either way, but just wanted some clarification for my own knowledge on that one.

Thanks! I'll update the thread once I have him try this.


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## JKnowles (Jul 19, 2010)

This user has 2 different subnet masks, one for his Ethernet adapter and one for the VPN connection he has to the server.

These are the same as on the server. I checked my laptop (from home, connected via VPN) and my laptop has the same subnet masks, but I do not have any issues with Outlook. 

He was unable to change the IP on his email. I take it he has to remove his account and recreate it? If so, I'll have to let him know that.


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## clyde123 (Apr 10, 2008)

I don't know the details from last post. But have this experience I will share.
Using Outlook connecting to Exchange Server :
check the TCP/IP settings in the network adapter. Check the DNS setups. You should have ONLY primary DNS setup, and that configured to the IP address of your Active Directory server.
A common problem seems to be where a secondary DNS is entered, as an external public DNS. I've seen that situation cause "not connecting" issues with Outlook.


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## Kesher (Feb 16, 2011)

It sounds to me that you have two DNS servers at play. One is giving you the internal IP Address for the Exchange server, and the other is giving you an external address.

This is what I think is happening.

When it started working, he was using the Working DNS Server and that continued to work as normal. When he restarted, the DNS Cache was Flushed and it needed to look up the IP address again. When it did that, it contacted the Incorrect DNS server and got that wrong IP address.

Get him to load up Command Prompt, and type in "IPConfig /all" (without the quotes).
Ask him to tell you what the DNS Servers entries are. Remember that if he has two entries, it might be on two lines. Compare it with yours and see if there is a difference. 

If there is a difference, use Command Prompt on his computer and use nslookup to compare the results.

Hope that helps


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## djaburg (May 15, 2008)

JKnowles said:


> I didn't actually. I will have my user try using the IP address, but I'm confused about the subnet mask thing.
> 
> The user doesn't have the ability to change his subnet mask, and this issue just started happening. Is it still possible that he could be seeing a conflict in subnet masks out of the blue like that?
> 
> ...


My point had to do with subnets, not the subnet mask. I'll try to explain.

If the remote user has a router, for the sake of example a linksys, and it's handing out IP addresses 192.168.1.x and the network in the office that he's connecting to ALSO has network addresses in the 192.168.1.x subnet, you can have major issues finding computers on the office network when connected remotely. The computer isn't necessarily sure which network you want to look at when you're looking for addresses/computers, such as the exchange server. Hopefully that makes sense. I'm not sure what kind of router you're using in the office, but some routers (like the sonicwall I have) will not allow you to even connect via VPN if you're using the same subnet, whereas linksys routers like the RV042 WILL allow you to connect, except you can rarely find anything on the network because it's always looking on the local network, not the office network.

The reason I think this could be a factor is that you (and presumably other remote workers) can access the exchange server fine, but he can't. I'd start looking at whether he can even see the exchange server from his computer while connected via VPN. Try pinging the server from his computer and see if he can even "see" the server.


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