Howdy,
I’ve been busy with too many deployments and onsite support and when have time try to help out the Lync Community via Lync TechNet forum.
While doing that I noticed how many open threads and questions are out there about integration problems between Lync client and Outlook 2010 / 2013 clients.
So I decided to gather all problems, how to troubleshoot and solutions about this particular problem and put them in one article and will be updating this post whenever I find something new regarding this topic some steps are suggested by me, some by other Lync expert out there.
Common Problems
So will start be listing common problems that I faced in my day – to – day work
- Authentication Prompt
- Warning icon in Lync
- Conversation History not saved
- Cannot reply with IM or see the presence of user in outlook
- Cannot schedule an Online Meeting
- Lync Client not showing Missed calls
- Cannot lookup users in Lync Client
- Duplicate contacts in Lync when search for someone
I will be updating this post as more problem / solutions are reported or faced that were not mentioned above.
Basic Troubleshooting Steps First thing to do
Before going any deeper in what is causing the problem, make sure that Lync – outlook is integrated before wasting any time trying to locate the problem while it might be that Lync add-in not installed correctly.
- Start regedit.exe
- Go to HKLM\software\Microsoft\office\outlook\addins\UCAddin.LyncAddin.1
- Make sure that value of “LoadBehavior” is = 3, if not then change it to 3
Note: It might be under HKLM\software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\office\outlook\addins\UCAddin.LyncAddin.1
- Hold Ctrl key and right click the Lync icon in the taskbar and click on “Configuration Information”
- Scroll down till you find “MAPI Information & EWS Information” and check the status is reporting “OK” and “deployed”, if showing otherwise then check the Exchange web services not deployed / Authentication prompt / Presence Information / Lync Client not Showing History section down in this article
Lync Conversations not saved in Outlook
Carry on the following troubleshooting steps:
Solution 1
- Make sure that this option is enabled in Lync client, In your Lync client, click on tools >> options
- Go to Personal Tab and make sure “Save IM Conversation in my Email Conversation History Folder” box is checked
Solution 2
- In your outlook, make sure that ONLY ONE Conversation History folder exist and that you didn’t accidently delete or move it.
- From Exchange side, make sure that user does not have 1000 or more folders in his mailbox using PowerShell command
- c:> (Get-mailboxfolderstatistics “mailbox”).count
- If more => 1000 item them instruct the user to delete some folders
Solution 3
- Exit Lync Client
- Backup your old “Conversation History” folder contains in Outlook (export it to a file)
- Delete the “Conversation History” folder and close “outlook”
- Make sure that Lync and outlook are completely closed and no processes are running in the Task Manager
- Start “run” and type in outlook /resetfolders
- Start Lync, and test (wait 10 minutes for the folder to start saving)
Solution 4
- Start regedit
- Go to HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator or HKLM\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator
- Set the value of the ImAutoArchivingPolicy from 0 to 1
- Restart your Outlook and Lync
Solution 5
- Go to Control Panel >> “Programs & Feature” or “add/remove program”
- Select Microsoft Office
- Click “Change” and when installation wizard starts, choose “Repair”
- Wait for it to finish and test
Exchange web services not deployed / Authentication prompt / Presence Information / Lync Client not Showing History
number of things I noticed about this problem is that
- Occur mainly when users connected from outside the company’s network
- Only happen when outlook was closed
- User SIP address is different than SMTP address
Understand how Lync work:
Lync client depend on the Exchange web services for the integration with Outlook and it will use the user’s SMTP domain to search for the DNS records for the Autodiscover and web services, so it will look for:
https://<smtp domain>/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml
https://autodiscover.<smtp domain>/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml
http://autodiscover.<smtp domain>/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml
As well as your autodiscover SRV record (_autodiscover._tcp.smtpdomain)
It is often that Lync client configuration status don’t shows the internal and external URL of the EWS and the EWS information shows “EWS Not Deployed”, and this causes some integration problems between Lync and Outlook like prompting for username and password, not populating your presence information from outlook calendar
Check Client Side
You can check the EWS status via registry key
Lync Client
For Lync 2010 Client Locate HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Communicator\user.smtp.address\Autodiscovery
For Lync 2013 Client Locate HKCU\Software\Microsoft\office\15.0\Lync\user.smtp.address\Autodiscovery
Make sure the following enteris are correct
ExternalAvailabilityServerUrl
InternalAvailabilityServerUrl
ExternalEwsUrl
InternalEwsUrl
ExternalOofServerUrl
InternalOofServerUrl
If this key does not exist on your machine this mean Lync was unable to locate DNS records or SRV for the Autodisvoer services, so go ahead with checking your Exchange server side
Check Exchange Side
You will need to check
1. Required internal & External DNS records are configured
- For each SMTP domain you company using you need 2 DNS records to be created as following:
- CNAME record for “autodiscover.domain.name” pointing to exchange CAS array or CAS server in case of no array
- Service Record _autodiscover._tcp.domain.name port 443 pointing to exchange CAS array or CAS Server name in case of no array
2. Authentication Type on the Autodiscover & EWS Virtual Directory
- Set the authentication type of your Autodiscover Virtual directory to “BasicAuthentication by running the following command
- Do the same with Exchange web service Virtual directory using the set-webservicesVirtualDirectory cmdlet
3. Internal & External URL for EWS is configured
- Check if the internal & external URL for your EWS virtual directory is configured using Exchange PowerShell command
- If they are not defined you may want to define them using the following command lines
The Email address of the User is different from the SIP address of the users:
Some organizations uses different Email and SIP address, to overcome this issue you can do the following:
Lync Server Side
- Start Microsoft Lync management Shell as a member of CSAdministrator or RTCUniversalServersAdmin
- Use the set-CsClientPolicy to disable the Email / SIP comparison
C:> Set-CsClientPolicy -Identity name -DisableEmailComparisonCheck $true
User Machine (Previous step should be enough)
- Start regedit.exe
- Go to “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator” or “HKLM\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Lync”
- Right click and select New >> DWORD Value
- Type “DisableEmailComparisonCheck” and press Enter
- Set the value of the it to “1”
- Restart the Outlook and Lync clients.
In Case of Problem with Presence
- For Outlook 2007, go to Tools >> Options >> Others and make sure “Display Online Status next to name” box is checked, also that “Display online status in the To and Cc Fields only when mouse pointer next to name” box is checked.
- For Outlook 2010, go to File >> Options >> Contact, and make sure that “Display Online Status next to name” box is checked.
- For Outlook 2013 go to File >> Options >> People, and make sure that “Display Online Status next to name” box is checked.
Also check the “EnableEWSFallback” and “DisablePresenceNote” registry keys
- Exit both Outlook and Lync clients
- Run >> regedit.exe
- Go to “HKLM\software\policies\Microsoft\Communicator” or “HKLM\software\policies\Microsoft\Lync”
- Check the value of the EnableEwsFallback is set to 1
- The Value of the DisablePresenseNote will be set to 1, change it to 0
- Start your Outlook and wait till it is open and connected.
- Then start your Lync
Duplicated Contacts in Lync/Outlook 2013 marked as read only and cannot delete them
This is a known issue for Outlook 2013 that waiting for Microsoft to fix it, but as a work around you can try one of the following:
You can disable Lync from saving your buddy list as a contact in outlook
- Go to Lync Client Options
- Select “Personal” tab
- Clear the check box “Save My Lync Contacts in my Personal Contact Folder on the Exchange Server”
Also try:
- Go to Lync Client Options
- Go to Personal tab.
- Change the “Personal information manager” value to None.
- Go to your Outlook >> People
- Delete the Lync Contacts folder
- Change the “Personal information manager” to “Microsoft Exchange or Microsoft Outlook” again.
- Restart both clients and wait for the Synchronisation to finish.
Source: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2000886
October 7, 2014 at 3:32 pm
nice
October 27, 2014 at 6:19 am
You are awesome 😀
October 27, 2014 at 11:59 am
Thank yall 🙂
March 11, 2015 at 2:55 am
This is very useful . Thank you
May 28, 2015 at 9:30 pm
So I have all my users within my organization setup to use Lync. How do I make it so every user can see who is all in our organization to contact them?
June 8, 2015 at 9:33 am
Hi Krista,
the good thing about Lync is that users can lookup their colleagues using the search bar, either with the full name, one name or even two letters and Lync will List all users that matching those letters
June 2, 2015 at 4:53 pm
Can a whiteboard created in a Lync meeting be retrieved if it is closed without saving it? Is a draft verson saved somewhere?
June 8, 2015 at 9:41 am
Hi Garlene,
you can if you enabled it for archiving, check this article it is what you need http://blogs.technet.com/b/dodeitte/archive/2013/04/24/archiving-options-in-lync-server-2013.aspx
June 29, 2015 at 7:59 am
Hello,
Thanks for this very useful piece.
But I miss some explanation about point 5: “Cannot schedule an Online Meeting”
I have this problem and it is really annoying.
Thank you in advance
July 1, 2015 at 10:25 am
Hi J.R
What is the problem you are facing and what troubleshoot steps have you taken? Maybe I can help
July 1, 2015 at 10:37 am
when I’m in a call and i want to create a conference (by drag and drop someone else in my contacts) it shows an error, and this error does not contain information online (error ID 16389, Source ID 0).
But also noticed that when I try to use the Outlook “New Online Meeting” plugin, it does also not work.
I have tried to uninstall Lync (which intalled the plug-in), delete all configurations, and intall it again, but this doesn’t solve the problem.
Do you have any idea I can try?
July 3, 2015 at 9:11 am
Hello,
Thank you for this article…
I still cannot understand how lync2010 operate and communicate with exchange client access role ….
July 14, 2015 at 4:01 pm
I’m also with JR on this – you didn’t really explain what to do if I can’t schedule a meeting in Outlook for Lync/Skype for Business.
I seem to be the only person in my organization (that I know of) that doesn’t have an option to schedule Lync/Skype for Business meetings in Outlook. REGEDIT values are correct, settings in the app are correct, and yet I still don’t have the meeting option.
At first, I thought it was because I was running the 2016 preview, but I have 2013 on my laptop and I still don’t have the option.
The option doesn’t appear in COM Add-ins and apparently, other than buying a product that is already being used and installed, no one seems to know the answer to this. Are you able to answer this or provide a solution? I’m not the only one who is having this issue.
July 22, 2015 at 6:41 am
At least my IT-crew suggested me to delete the user and setup it again, because the problem occurs only with this one user (other users in the same PC doesn’t have the problem).
So I’ll say that you can try it also: create (or log on with) another user in the machine, and look if the problem persist.
Also try: log in with another user in Windows, but with your own email address on lync.
If in this booth cases the problem does not appear, then is your windows user corrupted and you need to delete the user and create it again.
Information on how to delete a user can be found here:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/delete-a-user-account
and here:
http://superuser.com/questions/63017/how-do-i-delete-a-user-profile-on-a-windows-7-machine-that-is-part-of-a-domain
J.R.!
August 13, 2015 at 12:36 am
The option for “anyone (no restrictions)” is not available in the “these people don’t have to wait in the lobby” dropdown menu. Is there a fix to this?
August 28, 2015 at 10:14 am
What is the version of outlook and Lync are you using?
August 18, 2015 at 3:11 am
HI all,
i have an issue with my LYNC 2013. Display name of LYNC is others name, we have tried many steps but no luck. It works once i rename the SIP folder, but re occurs again when restart the machine. Kindly suggest on this
August 28, 2015 at 10:11 am
Hi Udhay,
I’m not sure I fully understand your problem, what display name you talking about? The user display name in the client itself or you talking about the other Lync contacts display names ?
August 26, 2015 at 1:28 pm
Dear Sir:
We have Skype for Business on premises, but missed calls only are not showing on telephone sets or in outlook
Can you help me in trouble shooting this issue, the strange thing that it’s shown on lync mobile app
August 28, 2015 at 10:13 am
Hello,
When you check the client configurations, does it show the EWS URLS and/or shows integration with outlook is “OK”?
August 30, 2015 at 8:57 am
Thank you for your replay, yes the integration with outlook is OK
All call logs or history is shown in outlook and on the phone sets (HP,Polycom) except for miss calls, the strange thing is that on mobile app (iphone) missed calls are shown
Please advice
August 30, 2015 at 9:07 am
Hi,
that’s strange, I know it does not make sense but try uninstalling the iphone app, and make sure the user you testing with is not logged in any mobile app and test again.
also make sure the UM policy on Exchange allowing Missed call notifications, as well as the CSClientPolicy have the “CallLogAutoArchive” set to True
August 30, 2015 at 11:22 am
Thank you for your replay, I did as you told me. still not luck
When calling a user we have may face the following scenarios
Call is complete and one leaves a voice msg
Caller hangup before he reaches the voice mail. (here I think skype for business should be able to send the notification to the phone)
Also what if the user has a extesion but he doesn’t have a mail box? I think he should also be able to see a missed call notification on the phone!
Best regards
August 31, 2015 at 1:50 pm
Any Idea where can check to see why only the missed calls are not shown?
August 31, 2015 at 2:03 pm
Maybe i should’ve asked this first, is the problem global with all your users or with only a number of users?
September 2, 2015 at 10:37 am
This problem is for all users, today I have tested all users, missed calls are not shown.
The only way to see the missed calls is if lync mobile app is running, missed calls will only be seen on the mobile.
for users who don’t have email, and only have telephones missed calls also are not shown
if you can advice where can I trace the follow to see where the missed calls end…
Thank you again
October 9, 2015 at 8:48 pm
Lyncdude, question that’s been stumping us. We have a number of users that when clicking to record a meeting literally nothing is coming up. It works for some and not others. By policy it’s allowed. We’ve tried to compare machines configuration and have so far not been able to see what’s different. We’ve also noticed that the machines that can’t record also will show old entries in the address book that have since been deleted from the Lync server.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!
October 10, 2015 at 6:16 am
i have couple of questions and hopefully I could help you.
are you running Lync 2010 or 2013 or SkypeFB infrastructure?
what is the version of the clients used in your testing ? both Lync or Both SkypeFB or a mix?
if you log in with those user that cannot record but from a machine that have recording working, are they able to record?
and just to be in the same page about the recording feature in Lync/SkypeFB, Recording is not available in peer-to-peer sessions, the session must be a conference call to be allowed to record it.
October 12, 2015 at 2:14 pm
Thanks for the reply! We are running Lync Server 2013. It’s possible we may have a mixture of standalone Lync installs but the majority are Office 365 installs with Pro Plus. We aren’t using SkypeFB yet. After install we have it reverting to Lync 2013.
We are on the same page. This is recording in conferences, and also seems to be tied with our phantom address book issue as well. The people that can’t record are still seeing old users that have been deleted.
It doesn’t seem to be policy or server based as far as we can tell. At first we thought maybe it was related to user, but that’s not the case either. For example, it doesn’t work on my computer with my username, but it does work on my coworkers computer with my username. We looked at the configuration page and everything was the same. We thought maybe something in the registry or local app data, but we’ve not been able to find anything yet.
Any assistance is much appreciated!
October 14, 2015 at 5:14 am
Try to install this update and see if it fixes the problem
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3099414?sd=rss&spid=924
October 14, 2015 at 4:07 pm
Good call! All this research and it’s a known issue haha. Always the way. After updating office, it works again.
So side question, have you seen any issues with clients still querying old users that have since been deleted. It happens on a number of systems. We are currently set to only query the server but used to utilize the local cached address book. I’ve tried multiple thing such as deleting the local app data, reinstall, etc.
Tested with my coworker and I can remove someone from Lync server and immediately he doesn’t see that person anymore when looking them up. Any guidance appreciated.
October 15, 2015 at 2:11 pm
Thanks for the help, man! I think I have the address book thing figured out. It’s definitely something to do with the offline address book in outlook. Once I blow those files away, everything is good. Thanks again!
October 15, 2015 at 6:44 am
Hi people,
I have office 365 with outlook and skype for business. Once i’m searching for a name in the skype for business. skype for business is searching in whole of my outlook contacts. how i will prevent this?
thanks
October 15, 2015 at 12:11 pm
Have you tried creating new Client policy and exclude the Contacts folder from the search?
New-CsClientPolicy –Identity “DisableOutlookSearch” –ExcludedContactFolders “Contacts”
November 4, 2015 at 8:37 am
Excellent work. Thanks
November 9, 2015 at 11:22 pm
Perfect! Just what I was looking for in one place, much appreciated!
December 2, 2015 at 12:23 pm
Thx 🙂
December 23, 2015 at 10:52 pm
Hello Lyncdude,
I have a problem in starting a chat “IM” from Office 2016 toward Lync 2013, I checked and found that “MAPI status ok” & “MAPI not installed”, can you please help, thank you\
January 8, 2016 at 10:03 pm
Hi there Lyncdude, I hope you’re still checking this page out to reply 🙂
I have an issue where users can only find users by their SIP address. searching for their Name (Ex. Stan Smith, Stan, Smith) Will not work. You have to type out the entire address or it will not find them (ssmith@company.com). It’s a real minor thing, but still a nuisance when you don’t know another employee’s last name!!
Thanks 🙂
January 10, 2016 at 3:56 pm
Hi Jenjen, Sorry been a busy while and have thousand of comments that takes time to go through them one by one, can I ask you if this problem is with all users or just a number of them? also what server and clients are you running