MWI on and off delayed between 5 and 40 minutes

[astectelecom]

unity 4.0.2 unified exchange 2000 tsp 7.02 call manager 3.3 single site no cluster

Hi i have integrated the above but have 1 stuborn problem. the mwi indication on and off are delayed by between 5 and 40 minutes this problem relates to all users. the problem relates to both internal and external calls. i have been trouble shooting this problem for several days. tests indicate that the message does not appear in the unityMTA but takes around 1 minute to appear in the users outlook in-box, when i do a refresh on the lamps the light works correctly. there are no errors on the unity box or the customers gc/dc or e2k boxes but from several posts thought it may be DNS. i have tried adding hosts files with no joy. basically is there any way i can up the logging to find out what's going on, or is there a way of forcing a lamp retry after so many seconds as a work around. thanks. jim.

[kechambe · Accepted solution]

I wonder if Exchange is slow to tell us about it...

In the \CommServer\TechTools directory there is a tool called MBXSuite.exe. Once you open MBXSuite.exe select a mailbox you want to monitor. For RunAs choose the account that the AvMsgStoreMonitorSvr is running as. Click Logon Mailbox and then Notifications.

Once that is done leave a new message for the subscriber. How long does it take for you to see

Notification Received

TABLE_ROW_MODIFIED

?

Thanks,

Keith

[Ginger Dillon]

Hi -

We just began having problems with Unity 3.1(5) MWI - slow to turn on and off for all subscribers. No errors on Unity server - we are also running CCM 3.3(3). I see in the CCM 3.3(3) release notes a bug for MWI delay - CSCea11716. Could this be the problem?

Thanks, Ginger

[kechambe]

I don't belive so. That defect is related to CTI integrations. Unity talks Skinny (SCCP) to CallManager. :-)

[Ginger Dillon]

Hi Keith -

Thanks for your update!

Ginger

[astectelecom]

thanks for the swift reply keith. turns out the customer had previously installed then uninstalled the appletalk protocol on their exchange server which will cause this specific problem. a few registry changes as per the cisco troubleshooting doc got us up and running correctly. jim

[bobd100]

My MWI lights are delayed also, what registry changes did you make?

[kechambe]

That specific issue is detailed here:

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/sw/voicesw/ps2237/products_tech_note09186a0080094a81.shtml

Keith

[latorre]

Not to dig up a dead thread, but this issue never seemed to be fully resolved. I have symptoms that match the original post exactly. I checked the bindings per the Appletalk troubleshooting document, but our Exchange server didn't have the appletalk settings. Did anyone out there find any alternate solutions? It does indeed seem the MAPI Push notifications are not being sent from Exchange, but I don't know how to fix that.

[Hin Lee]

A few things to troubleshoot MWI delay problems

1) Check your Exchange service pack - make sure that the Unity server (even if Exchange is off box) is at the same level as Exchange.

2) Outlook is not installed on the Exchange or Unity servers.

H. M.

[ereich]

We had the same exact symptoms also - messages show up in Unity instantly, but MWI notifications didn't show up for up to 40 minutes. We just added a 2nd exchange box (Exch 2003) and MWI's are working perfectly now for users once their mailbox is moved to the new server. Obviously there was something wrong with our Exchange box, but whether it was because someone had installed Appletalk on the box at one time, or because the box wasn't fully patched or some other variable that isn't present in the new server - or a combination of things - I don't know. But, I do know that it was fixed once we moved mailboxes off of the old server. Hope that gives you some insight. Good luck!

[latorre]

We've resolved this issue in our environment. Our Unity server is separated from the partner exchange server by a firewall. Unity logs onto subscribers mailboxes using MAPI (which is over RPC) and this connection was functional, but there was something missing...

Exchange sends new mail notifications to logged on users using a UDP datagram that has nothing to do with the established MAPI connection. Our firewall was not allowing these notifications, which meant that Unity would only recognize changes to the mailbox when it polled Exchange on a periodic infrequent basis.

The solution is to (unfortunately) open UDP communications from Exchange to Unity over the complete range of 1024-65535.

The Outlook client is also affected by this problem, but it polls Exchange much more frequently (every 30 seconds or so) so it is less apparant.