Nov 102010
 

Hi guys,

I come to you today to tell you a little story about a struggle I’ve been having with BES and users who are receiving the “Attachment Server not Found” error message on their handhelds.

For a few weeks now, a few users have reported issues with opening attachments, EVERYTHING else works perfect. I updated BES, checked everything, still couldn’t find out what was wrong. The only thing I had to go on, was a few very odd log entries inside of ASCL log file.

Example of entries in ASCL log:

[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.234):{0x21B0} [thr:0x21B0] CHALogic::_group_of_extensions_t::add_server_extensions(0) – no data
[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.236):{0x21B0} [thr:0x21B0] CHALogic::_list_of_servers_t::Add(0,…) – no need to add empty STRINGS_SET
[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.236):{0x21B0} [thr:0x21B0] CHALogic::_group_of_servers_t::AddServer(0,…) – _preferred.Add() failed with rc=1007
[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.244):{0x22AC} [thr:0x22AC] CArznDelayedAttachmentResultVisitor::Uninitialize() – begin
[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.245):{0x22AC} [thr:0x22AC] CArznSocket::Close() – m_connectSocket = 0xFFFFFFFF, after
[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.245):{0x22AC} [thr:0x22AC] CArznDelayedAttachmentResultVisitor::Uninitialize() – end
[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.245):{0x22BC} [thr:0x22BC] CArznSocket::Close() – m_connectSocket = 0xFFFFFFFF, after
[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.248):{0x22C8} [thr:0x22C8] CArznDelayedAttachmentResultVisitor::Uninitialize() – begin
[10000] (11/10 18:22:53.248):{0x22C8} [thr:0x22C8] CArznSocket::Close() – m_connectSocket = 0xFFFFFFFF, after

I spent a few days googling the error “Attachment Server not found”, and came across numerous KB articles that wanted us to try this, try that, bla bla. Everything was configured properly, and the service was running. So all of these did not apply to me!

Finally I took a LONG hard stare at the errors in the ASCL log shown above, and put 2 and 2 together and realized it probably had something to do with TCP/IP communication. I finally STOPPED the attachment service, opened a command prompt and issued:

netstat -ano |find /i “Listening”

Even though the Attachment server runs on 1900, 1999, and 2000 (I could be wrong if it’s those specific ones), but even after stopping the service I noticed that there was still something listening on 2000. I used the PID issued by the -o switch on netstat, opened task manager, showed all tasks from all users, and changed the view settings to show the PID column.

BAM! Turns out some other piece of software was listening on 2000. Go Figure!

To Resolve this:

1) Log on to the BlackBerry Administrative Web Site

2) Under “Servers and components”, except the Solution topology, expand Domain, Server View, Server_Name, and select “Server_Name_AS_11”

3) Select “Edit Instance”, and then proceed to change the port (in my case, 2000 was conflicting, so I changed 2000, to 2001).

4) Restart the server!

You’re now good to go!