The Lync Dude

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

1.  Authentication Prompt
2. Warning icon in Lync
3. Conversation History not saved
4. Cannot reply with IM or see the presence of user in outlook
5. Cannot schedule an Online Meeting
6. Lync Client not showing Missed calls
7. Cannot lookup users in Lync Client
8. 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

1. Occur mainly when users connected from outside the company’s network
2. Only happen when outlook was closed
3. 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