Summary How to isolate problems with VMO when intermittent exceptions are thrown, Outlook crashes, hangs, or when any other abnormal behavior occurs. Feature Information Unity or Unity Connection with VMO versions 8.5 and higher Troubleshooting Methodology The #1 cause of VMO related issues is due to the fact that it rides on top of a 3rd party API called Addin Express.  This API is most often what causes conflicts with other installed Outlook add-ins and plug-ins within customer environments, which may even use a form or different flavor of Addin Express as well. You always want to make sure to turn on VMO tracing using the Enable Diagnostics checkbox in the VMO settings.  Then collecting all of the  below information will help lead you and or TAC to problem isolation: Are you running in an 100% compatible setup as explaind in the Compatibility Matrix?      UC -           http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/compatibility/matrix/cucclientmtx.html#wp102047      Unity -           http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/compatibility/matrix/cuclientmtx.html What version of VMO? How many users are affected? Have you tried on a different workstation to see if behavior persists? Has this ever worked, and if so on which VMO version(s)? Are there any 3rd party add-ins/plug-ins installed in Outlook on affected machines? Have you disabled ALL add-ins/plug-ins except for VMO and see if the issue persists (problem isolation - which software is conflicting)? Have you disabled VMO to confirm that the behavior only happens when its installed (problem isolation - is VMO even the culprit)? Have you installed a "vanilla" Operating System with no corporate image/software/policies, etc., a default Outlook profile, and then VMO? Data Analysis It's very crucial that you understand there can be a lot of false negatives and false positives with testing in these scenarios because of the flaky and intermittent nature of various symptoms.  As a result, make sure you test and re-test so don't be in a hurry to trust that it's resolved!  Also, re-verify you're running a supported config per the compatibility matrix.  It's important to narrow down add-ins/plug-ins seem to be causing the conflict, as well as having corresponding VMO logs so that information can be gleaned. Common Problems Most common problems are Addin Express conflicts with other add-ins/plug-ins installed.  Major offenders seen by TAC thus far have been document management plug-ins (eDocs, etc.) and some Adobe PDF plug-ins. FAQ Q:  Is there a quick or easier way to determine why VMO may be causing abnormal Outlook behavior? A:  No.  It's a very manual process to narrow down the issue and it's the only way to determine which add-ins/plug-ins are causing the problem.  Once we know which ones are problematic, we can then determine if there are any fixes Cisco can implement in the code, or if customers need to contact their 3rd party plug-in/add-in vendor for assistance.  From a TAC perspective, many times it takes the vendor to determine why their plugin is crashing or acting odd.  This way, if Cisco is unknowingly doing something incorrect, it can be addressed. ... View more

Many customers and partners are running on Apple's Macintosh OS X (Mac) these days.   Unfortunately, when product license files are downloaded using Microsoft's Entourage or Outlook for Mac email clients, those products change the Line Breaks of the license file to Classic Mac (CR) which is not a readable format for the SWIFT licensing engine utilized by Cisco.  This in turn prevents you from being able to successfully upload license files to your Cisco product.  You'll be presented with an error message indicating the license files have been tampered with, or are invalid.  You may see something similar to the following: A license file or license directory was found to be invalid and will not be installed. Ignoring the license file: CXNxxxxxxx.lic. If you believe this file or directory should be valid, please contact support personnel To resolve this problem you must use a Text Editor and change the Line Breaks and Encoding back to the original file format delivered by Cisco.  You can download the free "TextWrangler" text editor via the Apple Mac App Store, or here: http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/.  Below are instructions assuming you are using TextWrangler: In Entourage or Outlook for Mac, download the license and open it in TextWrangler At the bottom of the UI, change the parameters to Unicide (UTF-8) and Unix (LF) and save the file Upload the license file to your product Related Defect: http://tools.cisco.com/Support/BugToolKit/search/getBugDetails.do?method=fetchBugDetails&bugId=CSCte58452 NOTE: This does not affect users using Apple's Mail program as it does not change the Line Break or Encoding of the file only those using Microsoft's Entourage or Outlook for Mac. ... View more

Many customers and partners are running on Apple's Macintosh OS X  (Mac) these days.   Unfortunately, when product license files are  downloaded using Microsoft's Entourage or Outlook for Mac email clients,  those products change the Line Breaks of the license file to Classic  Mac (CR) which is not a readable format for the SWIFT licensing engine  utilized by Cisco.  This in turn prevents you from being able to  successfully upload license files to your Cisco product.  You'll be  presented with an error message indicating the license files have been  tampered with, or are invalid.  You may see something similar to the  following: A license file or license directory was found to be invalid and will not be installed. Ignoring the license file: CXNxxxxxxx.lic. If you believe this file or directory should be valid, please contact support personnel To  resolve this problem you must use a Text Editor and change the Line  Breaks and Encoding back to the original file format delivered by  Cisco.  You can download the free "TextWrangler" text editor via the  Apple Mac App Store, or here: http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/.  Below are instructions assuming you are using TextWrangler: In Entourage or Outlook for Mac, download the license and open it in TextWrangler At the bottom of the UI, change the parameters to Unicide (UTF-8) and Unix (LF) and save the file Upload the license file to your product Related Defect: http://tools.cisco.com/Support/BugToolKit/search/getBugDetails.do?method=fetchBugDetails&bugId=CSCte58452 NOTE: This does not affect users using Apple's Mail program as it does not change the Line Break or Encoding of the file only those using Microsoft's Entourage or Outlook for Mac. Please see the document version of this blog here: https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-16391 Hope this helps, Brad ... View more

A lot of the time you'll have a voice network where there are multiple Unity servers deployed, all participating in a digital network.  With these large networks comes the potential for a lot of administrative overhead and accounting for multiple license files, which can become a nightmare.  As a result, a lot of the time Unity is configured for sharing licenses between one another (license pooling).   Little do administrators know how important Digital Networking replication is to license pooling.  Ever wonder why one day you'll be going to move a user and you see that you're able to move this user to OLD Unity servers that may not exist anymore?!  You may also wake up one morning to phones ringing indefinitely as Unity shut down due to a license violation.  You soon find out that your servers incorrectly reflect user counts and you're now over quota! Click on the document link below; it contains steps required to clean up situations just like this. https://supportforums.cisco.com/docs/DOC-14920 Questions? Comments?  Please rate the document if it helps! Brad ... View more

Unity servers can be networked together and form a global directory which is further explained in the Networking guide ( http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/unity/8x/networking/guide/8xcunet010.html ) Potential Problems If the digital network is not accurately represented on every Unity server in the environment, problems can and will eventually surface with tools that rely on digital networking such as the Global Subscriber Manager (GSM) and the License Pooling feature. 1.    When Global Subscriber Manager (GSM) is used to move users you may not have any resulting servers to move users to, or it may show incorrect/old/inactive servers in the tool.  This is because its reading  the data straight from the GlobalLocation database table which is inaccurate as a result of data synchronized in from Active Directory. 2.     When using the License Pooling feature between several Unity servers, user license counts may reflect incorrectly across servers.  This can cause Unity to stop answering due to license violations and restrict other administrative tasks such as adding new users, etc.  You will see “Corrupt license data excluded from pool” message in the Unity License Info Viewer tool under the Alerts. License Pooling Error Problem Details: Event Type: Warning Event Source: CiscoUnity_AvLic Event Category: Run Event ID: 113 Date: 5/22/2010 Time: 9:21:25 AM User: N/A Computer: UNITY Description: WARNING: Error Code: 13083 Error Symbol: eAvLicErr_ComplianceViolationGrace Error Desc.: This Cisco Unity server is using one or more features for which it has insufficient licenses. You have 28 days grace period to correct the problem. If the problem is not corrected within that time period, Cisco Unity will stop answering calls every 48 hours, and you will need to manually restart the Cisco Unity services. What To Do: See 'Effective licenses' for specific features where utilization exceeds available licenses. To correct the problem you can either obtain additional licenses or reduce utilization. To obtain additional licenses, e-mail licensing@cisco.com .                             Background Each Unity server in the environment is assigned its own unique system ID upon installation.  This can be found in SQL.  The easiest way to find this system ID is from Unity Tools Depot>Diagnostic Tools>Data Link Explorer.  Scroll down to the UnitySetupParameters table and find the @SystemId row.  Here is an example of a Unity server’s system ID: 7588453f During installation, the Unity server creates the corresponding “location object” out in Active Directory.  This object contains crucial data that allows Unity to function properly.  You can view this location object by launching the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in>Click View>Advanced Features. Clicking this option will expose the default Organizational Unit (OU) Unity>Locations, which contains all Unity server location objects (this location can be customized during installation by administrators so this can vary if you choose).  Here you'll see that the System ID’s all have the word “default” prepended.  In addition to Unity location objects, you'll also see delivery locations if you've got any configured (AMIS, VPIM, Bridge).  The defaultXXXXXXXX objects represent all Unity servers that currently exist, or once existed in the environment, or even from past upgrades.  The below screen shot shows a total of 3 Unity servers that exist with an AMIS delivery location configured named "AMIStest" which you can see belongs to the 2nd Unity server in that list since the System ID's match. Now that this relationship between SQL and AD has been explained, each Unity server needs to keep track of all other Unity servers that exist in the environment.  Each Unity server pulls in these location objects that exist in this OU and stores them in SQL in a table called “GlobalLocation”. Solution The most important thing to remember is that Unity’s GlobalLocation table should always accurately reflect the same amount of locations that exist in the Locations OU out in Active Directory.  When there starts to become an issue with location object descrepancies (due to past failed installs, upgrades or other problems) other aspects of Unity’s functionality will break. Here’s the process to clean up the locations in both Active Directory and SQL. 1.    Visit the desktop of EACH Unity server in your environment and find its unique System ID using Data Link Explorer.  Unity Tools Depot>Diagnostic Tools>Data Link Explorer.  Scroll down to the UnitySetupParameters table and find the @SystemId value.            a.    If you have a failover pair, the secondary server shares the same System ID as the primary server.  When the failover configuration wizard was run to create the failover pair, it took care of this process. 2.    Once you have these System ID’s of all Unity servers documented, launch the Active Directory Users and Computers snap-in>Click View>Advanced Features and navigate to the OU that contains your Unity locations (Unity>Locations by default). 3.    Compare your System ID list with all of the defaultXXXXXXXX locations (where X= Unity’s SystemID) **********CAUTION - READ BEFORE PROCEEDING********** At this point, you've made sure all Unity servers are accounted for in the environment.  If there are any unaccounted-for production Unity servers that you may not know about, deleting their location objects can break those servers’ functionality. 4.    Delete from Active Directory any extra location objects that don't match up with your total Unity server list from Step 1.  Once this is done, this change will need to replicate throughout all domain controllers so it may take a while before it’s fully replicated depending on the size of your environment. 5.    At this point AD is now clean so Unity will no longer sync in these stale/incorrect locations anymore. 6.    Now it’s time to clean up SQL on each Unity server           a.    In Data Link Explorer within the GlobalLocation table, there is a checkbox “Undeletable”, the equivalent of value “1”.           b.    This field cannot be modified in Data Link Explorer since this tool is Read Only.  This field will need to be marked as a “0” in order to allow Unity to automatically purge these.  This has to be done in SQL Enterprise Manager manually.           c. The column in the GlobalLocation table we're concerned with: **********CAUTION - READ BEFORE PROCEEDING********** These changes require modification of the SQL database directly and can result in permanent failure if not done properly.           d. Change the 1 to a 0 for whatever locations need to be automatically purged           e. If the locations don't eventually purge themselves after a couple synchronization cycles, the full rows of the bad locations need to be deleted from the GlobalLocation table manually.  Just highlight the entire row and delete only once you've confirmed it’s the correct one(s):           Once both SQL and AD are cleaned up and location counts match, after a few synchronization cycles with Active Directory (Domain Controllers and Global Catalogs) the proper location objects will be updated and GSM will correct itself and license counts will re-align.  The “Alerts” section of the License Viewer will empty and no longer contain stale location messages. Feel free to comment, rate and ask questions if you have any! ... View more

There are situations where users cannot play voice messages to their phone, PC speakers, or may be having issues with authentication.  They may see error messages about unable to contact the server, or unknown problems are preventing the completion of the call, etc.  There are some client-side registry keys that can be installed and enabled that turn up various Media Master tracing which can aid you/TAC in narrowing down the issue. How to Enable and Gather Media Master Tracing on the Client Machine for Unity: "FilesNeededToSetupMediaMasterLogging.zip" is attached to this document  which contains the registry files, DBGView tool, and the ReadMe which contains the process below. Close out all PCA or View Mail for Outlook (VMO) sessions on the client machine to make sure the MediaMaster is not being invoked. 1. Double click the following (this enables the diags):      trace_mm_on.reg      trace_RPCAPC_on.reg      trace_WAVCRYPTO_on.reg 2. Start the DBGView.exe application     Click Options>Clock Time     Click Options>Show Milliseconds 3. Start the user's application (VMO, PCA) and reproduce the issue. 4. Gather the diagnostic output from DBGView:           Once you have the output on the DBGView screen, press CTRL-S (File -> Save) to save off the window contents. 5. Close DBGView 6. Double click trace_all_off.reg to turn off the diagnostics on the client machine How to Enable and Gather Media Master Tracing on the Client Machine for Unity Connection: View Mail for Notes (VMN) is only offered with Unity Connection.  This process also applies for View Mail for Outlook (VMO) being used with Unity Connection. http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/voice_ip_comm/connection/7x/troubleshooting/guide/7xcuctsg121.html#wp1057997 Step 1 On the user workstation, on the Outlook Tools menu, click ViewMail for Outlook Options . Step 2 Click the Diagnostics tab. Step 3 Enable the following diagnostics:                • Enable VMO Outlook Extension Diagnostics                • Enable VMO Multimedia Diagnostics Step 4 If the problem is related to secure messages or recording and playback through the phone, enable the following diagnostics:                • Enable VMO Telephone Record/Playback Diagnostics                • Enable VMO HTTP Diagnostics Step 5 Click OK . Step 6 Reproduce the problem. Step 7 Review  the resulting log files, which are stored in the  C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Cisco Systems\VMO\1.0\Logs  folder. Some Related Defects: ViewMail, CPCA, SA: Problems with Play/Record over PC speaker/mic http://tools.cisco.com/Support/BugToolKit/search/getBugDetails.do?method=fetchBugDetails&bugId=CSCti04412 PCA: Cannot select Computer recording on Mac OS X http://tools.cisco.com/Support/BugToolKit/search/getBugDetails.do?method=fetchBugDetails&bugId=CSCtc96061 UC 8.0.2 Quickplay Button in CiscoPCA does not work. http://tools.cisco.com/Support/BugToolKit/search/getBugDetails.do?method=fetchBugDetails&bugId=CSCth01895 ... View more