Some users can not see each other

[hwarren02]

We have recently rolled out Jabber to all computers in our company all running windows 7. A group of employees withing close proximity is reporting (and we verified) that some people do not see others as online when they are.

Example: Employee A is online and does not see Employee B as online, however Employee B does see A. Employee B can send an IM to to Employee A after which Employee A is able to respond but can never initiate with Employee B. 

There are at least few users in this situation, and here is the kicker. I myself can see both Employee A and B as online and IM with them.

I have tried updating both A and B to the latest Jabber client, checked firewall/network settings, account settings, reset jabber clients, etc etc to no avail.

Any thoughts?

[hitekuma]

Hi,

What version of Jabber are you using? What is the backend server for Jabber, i.e, Cloud or Presence server. When a user see's another as offline, has that user been added to their contact list? Can we chat, irrespective of user's presence status, if the recepient user is actually online but shows offline to sender user?

If you are using On Premises deployent with Presence server as backend, do you have High Availability enabled between Presence servers? If, yes, try disabling HA and test the issue. Also, see if we can reboot the IM and Presence servers (after hours) as this doesn't seems to be a configuration issue, rather some kind of performance leaks on the servers.

Based on the above tests, we can draft the next course of action/troubleshooting. Let me know if the above helps or you still face the issue.

Thanks

[hwarren02]

Thank you for replying Hitesh.

After trying updates, at least on the problem clients...they are running 10.6.3 build 61622.

This is an on-premise deployment for the backend. If I am looking at the correct information the backend is system version 9.1.1.30000-3

It does appear that high availability is enabled. 

Oh to answer about chatting: When user A can't see user B as online they can not initiate a chat with user B. If user B initiates a chat with A, they can both chat in that instance...that is if I am understanding what the users are telling me.

Thank you again.

[Frank den Haan]

When you log into your IM and Presence publisher and go to System > Cluster Topology > click Settings and under Cluster-Wide Topology Settings, is the Routing Communication Type set to Router-to-Router (auto)?

If not, give that a try. We had a similar issue during our initial build and this had to be set.

[hwarren02]

Sorry I never came back here to reply or continue the discussion. This is still an issue and more wide spread than we thought. I am looking at the settings you suggested and it is set to Multicast DNS.

Would changing this to auto have any adverse affects? I will admit I am not expert with this system, it was setup long before me.

[Frank den Haan]

It did not have any negative impact when I made the change in my environment. However, I would recommend doing this in a maintenance window to be safe and testing right afterwards to see if the issue is resolved. You may want to open a TAC case as well to confirm.

Here's a link that describes this setting a bit more:

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/im_presence/configAdminGuide/9_1/CUP0_BK_C68AA046_00_config-admin-guide-imp-91/CUP0_BK_C68AA046_00_config-admin-guide-imp-91_chapter_0110.html#d38842e757a1635

Also, not identical to what you are experiencing, but similar, check out this thread:

https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/12393076/cisco-jabber-105-users-show-offline

Hope that helps,

Frank

[hwarren02]

Thank you for taking the time to reply again. I read over both links, thank you for the references. I think I will try changing the routing setting tomorrow as it is as short business day and I can do some testing.

I'm not sure if its useful information or not but when reading about the other case, the person had multiple presence nodes if I understood correctly. We have just a single IM&P box/node, I'm not sure if that provides any relevance. :\

[Frank den Haan]

Ahhh I see, I assumed since you had HA enabled you had two servers. My understanding of the Router-to-Router setting is it comes into play when you have two IM&P nodes. I am not sure the effect or benefit of changing it when using only a single node.

[hwarren02]

Sorry about that, I should have been more clear. Bummer, so this may have no affect on my issue.

[hwarren02]

I can't think of anything odd about our network. I've tried matching up clients in a controlled setting and still run into the issue. For example I myself can not see another user while she can see me as online. The two computers are sitting on the same network segment (even tried same wifi AP), no software firewall enabled...I just pushed out jabber client 11.01 and that hasn't improved anything.

[Anuka Thakar]

Hi,

When you see incorrect presence of the users, are the users in each other's buddy list/contact list?

Under , IMP > Presence > Settings is the ‘Enable Ad-Hoc Subscriptions’ checked?

You might also want to refer the below link.

http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/voice_ip_comm/cucm/im_presence/configAdminGuide/10_5_1/CUP0_BK_CE43108E_00_config-admin-guide-imp-105/CUP0_BK_CE43108E_00_config-admin-guide-imp-105_chapter_01100.html#CUP0_TK_C9A10ECA_00

Regards,

Anuka

[hwarren02]

I have seen cases of both users on a contact list showing as offline when they are not, as well as users that are not in contact list show as offline when they are not. So for the latter an example would be searching for a specific contact who is known to be online but not yet added the list, showing as offline before even added.

Thank you.

[Anuka Thakar]

Hi,

Do you see the correct status in Presence Viewer?

Anuka

[hwarren02]

I just checked and ad-hoc subscriptions are enabled already.

I'm not sure where presence view is exactly...sorry, looking for it. -Found it

[Anuka Thakar]

What is the exact version of IM and Presence Server you are running?

-Anuka