Outlook stuck on Saving synchronization log, sending and receiving system tray icon

 Exchange Server, Microsoft  41 Responses »
Nov 052017
 

Around the end of September, I posted a blog article talking about Outlook 2016 prompting for password credentials due to a Office 2016 click to run update bug when using Microsoft Exchange. While they did just recently fix this by deploying a new update, I have since come across a new bug in the latest update.

I noticed multiple computers with Outlook 2016 Version 1710 (Build 8625.2121 Click-to-Run) started getting stuck with the Outlook icon on the system tray showing that it was sending and receiving. When opening Outlook, and hitting Send and Receive, nothing is shown.

When you hold down CTRL and right click on the Outlook icon, choose “Connection Status…”, then select the “Local Mailbox” tab, you’ll notice it gets stuck on “[email protected] – Saving synchronization log” (as seen below).

I went ahead and tried all the usual troubleshooting steps like deleting and recreating the OST and Outlook Mail Profiles, but it still had no effect. I went ahead and completely uninstalled Microsoft Office, and reinstalled an older version. The issue DID NOT occur on the older version. Once updating to the latest, the bug re-occurred.

I’ve been scouring the internet for 2 days now trying to find information on this however I haven’t received any. This is most likely a new bug produced in the update that resolved the last bug. I will be posting updates when I hear more.

UPDATE November 7th, 2017 (Thanks Tony):

Microsoft has acknowledged that an MVP has reported this issue to the team. They are investigating.

Invalid certificate when deploying vSphere Data Protection 6.1.5 ova file

 ESXi, VMware, vSphere  17 Responses »
Oct 272017
 

I went to re-deploy some vDP appliances today and noticed a newer version was made available a few months ago (vSphere Data Protection 6.1.5). After downloading the vSphereDataProtection-6.1.5.ova file, I went to deploy it to my vSphere cluster and it failed due to an invalid certificate and a message reading “The OVF package is signed with an invalid certificate”.

I went ahead and downloaded the certificate to see what was wrong with it. While the publisher was valid, the certificate was only valid from September 5th, 2016 to September 7th, 2017, and today was October 27th, 2017. It looks like the guys at VMware should have generated a new cert before releasing it.

 

 

To resolve this, you need to repackage the OVA file and skip the certificate using the VMware Open Virtualization Format Tool (ovftool) available at https://code.vmware.com/tool/ovf/4.1.0

Once you download and install this, the executable can be found in your Program Files\VMware\VMware OVF Tool folder.

Open a command prompt and change to the above directory and run the following:

ovftool.exe --skipManifestCheck c:\folder\vSphereDataProtection-6.1.5.ova c:\folder\vdpgood.ova

This command will repackage and remove the certificate from the OVA and save it as the new file named vdpgood.ova above. Afterwards deploy it to your vSphere environment and all should be working!

 

Sophos UTM – Notification e-mails missing due to SPF Check Failure on fw-notify.net

 Astaro, E-Mail, Internet, Sophos, Sophos UTM  No Responses »
Oct 192017
 

In the past few days, I’ve noticed that some Sophos UTM firewalls I manage for clients haven’t been sending their daily reports (or other notification e-mails). When I first noticed this, checking my own SMTP proxy, I noticed that the e-mails were being sent from the firewalls, but were being dropped due to an SPF check failure.

Originally I thought this may have just been an overnight glitch with the DNS providers, however I later noticed that it’s stopped all e-mails coming from all the UTMs.

Further investigation, I realized that by default, the Sophos UTMs send their firewall notifications (and configuration backups) from the domain “fw-notify.net”, specifically, the e-mail address “[email protected]”. That’s when I had a brainfart and realized the e-mails weren’t being sent from my clients owned domains, but this fw-notify.net domain.

It appears that recently some SPF records have been created for the domain “fw-notify.net”, which is what is causing this issue. Also, I’m not quite sure if the domain underwent ownership change, or it his was overlooked by someone at Sophos.

I’m assuming numerous other longtime UTM users will be experiencing this as well.

To fix this, just log in to the problem UTMs, and change the notification Sender address as shown below to a domain you own. I changed mine to [email protected] (which has valid SPF since it’s my domains relay).

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Version 1709) – Blue colors showing as purple

 Microsoft, Windows 10  5 Responses »
Oct 182017
 

After installing Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (Windows 10 Version 1709), I’m noticing that on one of my multi-monitor machines it’s showing blue colors as purple on one of the displays.

This is very visible when highlighting text, viewing the blue Facebook logo and banner, or any other blue content. When dragging something across both displays (window is shown on both displays) you can see the color differences. However, one interesting thing, is that when dragging from one display to the other, for the last 10% or so when moving, it’ll quickly change to the proper blue before leaving the display, which means this is software related since it will briefly show the proper blue.

After spending over an hour troubleshooting, it’s totally unrelated to monitor drivers (color configurations), video drivers, etc… and I cannot find any configuration to fix this. Also, searching on the internet I cannot find any other occurrences.

Please comment if you have any information, or are experiencing the same issue!

 

Update: I’ve seen 2 other posts of people reporting issues with colors, but no one is going in to detail. I’ve found that the color differences actually show up in screenshots as well (the color changes depending on which display it’s on).

 

Update October 25th, 2017 – Very odd update… I went ahead and tried using the “Calibrate display color”, and while I didn’t really change any settings, on completion of the wizard the colors are now fixed on my display. I’m thinking this is an issue or bug in Windows 10 Fall Creators Update.

Windows 10 Fall Creators (and April 2018 version 1803, October 2018 version 1809, May 2019 version 1903) Update stuck on “Downloading Updates” from WSUS

 Active Directory, Internet, Microsoft, Windows 10, Windows Server  76 Responses »
Oct 182017
 

Well, it’s October 18th 2017 and the Fall Creators update (Feature update to Windows 10, version 1709) is now available for download. In my particular environment, I use WSUS to deploy and manage updates.

Update: It’s now May 2018, and this article also applies to Windows 10 April 2018 update version 1803 as well!

Update: It’s now October 2018, and this article also applies to Windows 10 October 2018 update version 1809 as well!

Update: It’s now May 2019, and this article also applies to Windows 10 May 2019 update version 1903 as well!

I went ahead earlier today and approved the updates for deployment, however I noticed an issue on multiple Windows 10 machines, where the Windows Update client would get stuck on Downloading updates 0% status.

I checked a bunch of things, but noticed that it simply couldn’t download the updates from my WSUS server. Further investigation found that the feature updates are packaged in .esd files and IIS may not be able to serve these properly without a minor modification. I remember applying this fix in the past, however I’m assuming it was removed by a prior update on my Windows Server 2012 R2 server.

If you are experiencing this issue, here’s the fix:

  1. On your server running WSUS and IIS, open up the IIS manager.
  2. Expand Sites, and select “WSUS Administration”
  3. On the right side, under IIS, select “MIME Types”
  4. Make sure there is not a MIME type for .esd, if there is, you’re having a different issue, if not, continue with the instructions.
  5. Click on “Add” on the right Actions pane.
  6. File name extension will be “.esd” (without quotations), and MIME type will be “application/octet-stream” (without quotations).
  7. Reset IIS or restart WSUS/IIS server

You’ll notice the clients will now update without a problem! Happy Updating!

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