How to troubleshoot Autodiscover issues in Outlook in a Business Productivity Online Standard Suite environment

When you use Microsoft Office Outlook 2007, you may experience the following issues:

• You cannot view free/busy information when you schedule a calendar meeting request with another user who uses the same hosted messaging environment. Additionally, a "No Information" message is displayed toward the end of the Outlook calendar item.
• In coexistent environments, you cannot see free/busy information that is being exchanged between Microsoft Office Online and the on-premises Microsoft Exchange server.
• You cannot download the Offline Address Book (OAB), and the Outlook error log reports error code 0x8004010F.
• The Out of Office of Assistant does not open.
• You cannot view free/busy information for other Office Online users.
• You cannot delegate permissions.
• You are prompted for a user name and a password during the Autodiscover process.
• Exchange connection errors occur in Microsoft Office Communicator.

These issues occur if Outlook 2007 cannot connect to the Exchange Server 2007 Availability service and to the Exchange Server 2007 Autodiscover service to view free/busy information.

Outlook 2007 may be unable to connect to the Availability service and to the Autodiscover service for the following reasons:

• Cause 1
  You run Outlook 2007 without having Service Pack 1 (SP1) for the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite installed.
• Cause 2
  Domain Name System (DNS) servers that are used to provide name resolution do not have either an Autodiscover Canonical Name (CNAME) record or an Autodiscover Service Location (SRV) record that points to the Office Online hosted messaging services.

Note The Availability service provides calendar information for users. This is known as free/busy information. The Autodiscover service provides this information to the Availability service. To do this, the Autodiscover service locates and provides the external and internal URLs to the Outlook 2007 client.

Important This section contains steps that tell you how to modify the registry. However, serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly. Therefore, make sure that you follow these steps carefully. For added protection, back up the registry before you modify it. Then, you can restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up and restore the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Resolution for cause 1

To resolve this issue, download and install SP1 for the 2007 Microsoft Office Suite. To do this, visit the following Microsoft website:

Resolution for cause 2

To resolve this issue, create or modify the Autodiscover CNAME record or the Autodiscover SRV record. For example, add the following CNAME record to point to the Office Online hosted messaging services:

North America Datacenter:�Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Datacenter:�Asia Pacific (APAC) Datacenter:�Note You create or modify the Autodiscover CNAME record or the Autodiscover SRV record together with the DNS host provider.

If you cannot see the free/busy information that is being exchanged between Office Online and the on-premises Microsoft Exchange server in a coexistent environment, migrate the company information to the Office Online environment.

Basic troubleshooting methods for Autodiscover issues in Office Outlook

Note Autodiscover does not work in Outlook 2003. See articles that are related to the Outlook Connector in order to troubleshoot Outlook 2003.

These following methods can be used to resolve most Autodiscover issues. Perform one method at a time until you have resolved your issues.

Use the Microsoft Online Services Sign In Application

1. Sign out of Microsoft Online Services by using the Microsoft Online Services Sign In client. Then, sign back into Microsoft Online Services by using the Sign In client.
2. Make sure that you can successfully open Office Outlook by using the Sign In client.

Make sure that the Autodiscover URL can be accessed successfully

1. Close all web browser instances.
2. Use Internet Explorer to browse to the following address, depending on the Datacenter location:
   • North America: https://autodiscover-red001.mail.microsoftonline.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml�
   • EMEA: https://autodiscover -red002.mail.emea.microsoftonline.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml
   • APAC: https://autodiscover -red003.mail.apac.microsoftonline.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml
3. Results that resemble the following should be displayed:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <Autodiscover xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/exchange/autodiscover/responseschema/2006">
     <Response>
       <Error Time="21:25:04.8897083" Id="4130155072">
         <ErrorCode>600</ErrorCode>
         <Message>Invalid Request</Message>
         <DebugData />
       </Error>
     </Response>
   </Autodiscover>

4. When you are prompted for a certificate or for a user name and password, follow these steps:
   1. Click Start, click Run, type cmd, and then click OK.
   2. At the command prompt, type the following command, and then press ENTER:
      
      cacls "%appdata%\Microsoft\Crypto\RSA" /t /e /c /g "%username%":F
   3. Sign out of the Sign In client, and then Sign back in.

Make sure that the email domain is listed in the Autodiscover registry key

Note The user name and email address do not have to be the same. For example a user name can be jsmith@contoso.com and the default email address for the same user can be jsmith@exchange.contoso.com. Therefore the email domain is exchange.contoso.com.

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.
2. Depending on the Outlook client, locate the following registry key:
   • Outlook 2007: Navigate to HKCU/ Software/ Microsoft/ Office/ 12.0/ Outlook/ Autodiscover
   • Outlook 2010: Navigate to HKCU/ Software/ Microsoft/ Office/ 14.0/ Outlook/ Autodiscover
3. Locate the user's email domain, and then make sure that it points to one of the following locations:
   • Windows XP: %userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Sign In\Config\[email address]\outlook-autodiscovery.xml
   • Windows Vista and Windows 7: %userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Sign In\Config\[email address]\outlook-autodiscovery.xml
4. If the email domain is not listed, follow these steps:
   1. Look for the domain of the user name (for example, contoso.com), and then copy the value of the key.
   2. Right-click the Autodiscover key, click New, and then click String Value.
   3. Type the user's email domain, and then double-click the new key. Paste the value that you copied into the email domain key

Apply the Autodiscover settings to the registry

1. Check the following location for the Outlook-configuration.reg file:
   • In Windows XP:%userprofile%\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Sign In\Config\[email address]\
   • In Windows Vista and in Windows 7:%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Sign In\Config\[e-mail address]\
2. If you find the Outlook-configuration.reg file, reapply the file by double-clicking it.
3. If the .reg file is not present, copy and save the following contents into a .reg file on the desktop:

   Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
   [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover]
   "PreferLocalXML"=dword:1
   "ExcludeHttpRedirect"=dword:0
   "ExcludeHttpsAutodiscoverDomain"=dword:1
   "ExcludeHttpsRootDomain"=dword:1
   "ExcludeScpLookup"=dword:1
   "ExcludeSrvLookup"=dword:1
   "ExcludeSrvRecord"=dword:1

4. Double-click the .reg file on the desktop, click Yes, and then click OK.

Add the Autodiscover CNAME record for your domain

Note For more information about how to add a CNAME record for Autodiscover in DNS, see Enable Autodiscover and Add a Sender Policy Framework. This step should be taken only for Authoritative domains. If an on-premises Exchange server is not running Autodiscover in a coexistent environment, this step may adversely affect non-migrated users.

• Edit your domain's DNS, and then add the following CNAME record:
  CNAME Host/Alias: Autodiscover.YourDomain.com
• CNAME target:
  • For North America: AutoDiscoverRedirect-red001.mail.microsoftonline.com
  • For EMEA: AutoDiscoverRedirect -red002.mail.emea.microsoftonline.com
  • For APAC: AutoDiscoverRedirect -red003.mail.apac.microsoftonline.com

Note The Internet Free/Busy (IFB) feature in Outlook lets you see when other users are free or busy so that you can efficiently schedule meetings. Outlook users have the option to publish their free/busy information to a user-specified URL file server. You can share this URL file server with all users, or you can limit the URL file server to a specific set of users.

Set the Closest GC value in the registry to 0

When the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Exchange Provider\Closest GC registry value is set to 1, Outlook uses the closest global catalog server. However, in a Business Productivity Online Standard Suite environment, this causes Outlook to use the on-premises Exchange Server instead of the Exchange Online server as the global catalog server. To work around this behavior, set the registry value to 0 (zero).

To do this, follow these steps:

1. Click Start, click Run, type regedit in the Open box, and then press ENTER.
2. Locate, and then double-click the following registry value:
   
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Exchange\Exchange Provider\Closest GC
3. In the Value data box, type 0, and then click OK.
4. Exit Registry Editor.

For more information about this registry value, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: