Meeting Place 6.0 Release 5 (v6.0.5.4) - Email Notification Problem

[FureyaAtaker]

After exchange server replacement we can no longer receive e-mail notifications for the scheduled meetings.

We changed the server name, move the associated mailbox, restarted the services, rebooted the server. However, we still could not restore email notification. when we go to MeetingTime, you see that the notifications are collected in queue, but they are going no where.

What can we do to restore this notfication service?

Is there any sequence that we have to follow and clear the cache? Anything on the exchange server (2003) side?

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

[dpetrovi]

Hi Fureya,

Since the issue with notifications occurred after the change of the Exchange server, there are many things you would need to check and troubleshooting of this specific issue might be hard to do via this forum.

1. Let me explain what components are involved in back-end notifications (when scheduling via MP Web or MeetingTime):

Outlook Gateway has two Services:

          MPOutlook - Handles communication to Exchange Server

          MPNotify - Handles communication from Audio Server

Audio Server Components:

          PO Server - Holds notification data

          PO Client - Gets notification data from PO Server

          Database - Looks up user information like email address

          ConfSched - Provides meeting information after meeting is scheduled

2. This is what is happening on MeetingPlace when scheduling a meeting via the web:

     a. User schedules a meeting on MPWeb or MeetingTime and invites users

     b. Web Server/MeetingTime schedules the meeting on ConfSched module

     c.Database to looks up invited user profiles

         Checks if the scheduler is enabled to send notifications

         Checks if the invited users are enabled to receive notifications

         Finds email addresses and Email Types from users

         User Profile settings

         Enable to receive?

         E-mail address

         Type of E-mail system - This determines the mailbox number used by PO Server, PO Client and MPNotify

     d. ConfSched provides meeting and user information to PO Server

     e. Message is created in PO Server in a particular number depending on the Email Type

     f. On the MeetingPlace Outlook Gateway, the MPNotify Service periodically checks PO Client on the Audio Server for messages in a particular mailbox number (e.g. mailbox 4)

     g. PO Client logs into PO Server with that mailbox number and get notification data

     h. PO Client sends notification data to MPNotify over GWSIM

     i. MPNotify sends the notification data to MPOutlook service

     j. MPOutlook service creates an email using the email templates and the meeting and user information

     k. MPOutlook logs into Exchange and sends the email

3. Troubleshooting - MP is not sending out Notifications

   A. First check MeetingTime

1. Login to MeetingTime

2. Click on the Configure tab

3. Click on Usage Parameters and click Query

4. Scroll down to Email/GW Mapping

5. Microsoft Exchange should be set to "4"

- This is the PO Mailbox, 4 is default for the Gateway, you can choose another number if you wish

6. Make sure no other email types are set to 4 (or the number selected for Microsoft Exchange)

   B. Check the user profiles

1. On the Configure tab

2. Click on User Groups or User Profiles and click Query

3. Scroll down to Sending Notifications and make sure "Enabled for this mtg?" is Yes

4. Under Receiving Notifications, make sure "Enable to receive?" is set to Yes

5. Make sure Type of E-mail system is set to Microsoft Exchange

6. Make sure Preferred delivery method is set to E-mail

7. Check the Guest profile for these settings as well

- If the Guest profile is not active or not configured to receive notifications you would not be able to send notifications to invitees with no MeetingPlace profiles.

   C. Check the notification status

1. Click on the System tab

2. Click on Notification Queue Statusand click Execute

- This will show you notifications stuck in the Audio Server notification queue

- You can see the meeting ID this notification was for and you can check on the specific meeting

- Make sure Method is set to E-mail and not Fax

- Make sure Mailbox # is set to the PO Mailbox set for Microsoft Exchange

- This window will only show so many notifications. If you click Cancel All, this will only cancel all the notifications shown in the window.

1. For a specific meeting go to the Schedule, Attend, or Review tab

2. Select a meeting

3. Click on the Participants radio button on the top

4. On the bottom right click the Settings under Notifications

- Here you can see if Notifications were set up for this meeting and for the particular user profiles as well as the user's configured E-mail Addresses

5. If this seems okay, click on the Status button right below this

- You should see two messages for each participant. One saying "Queued for delivery" and one saying "Sent by gateway"

- If you see these message, the notification was successfully sent to the MPOutlook gateway

- If you only see the "Queued for delivery" message, the notification is probably stuck in the Notification Queue (above)

- Identify and fix the issue, probably on MPOutlook Gateway/Exchange server

- Then you may need to use the POTester tool to mark messages as Unread so they are sent out after the issue is resolved between MPOutlook Gateway and Exchange server

   D. Check the Outlook Gateway

1. On the MPOutlook Gateway, double click on the orange door on the task bar, or open MeetingPlace Gateway Configuration

2. Click on the Outlook Gateway tab and make sure the user account is configured correctly for the Exchange mailbox

3. Make sure the Cisco MeetingPlace for Outlook service is running

4. Right click on the orange door, and click eventlog

- Make sure you can see events like "MPNotify (0x22d4) Information:[4] No new messages to process"

- The "[4]" should be the same number configured in MeetingTime under Email/GW Mapping for Exchange

   E. Enable Verbose Logging on Outlook GW

1. Double click on orange door on the bottom right

2. Click on the Notification tab

3. Check Verbose Logging

4. Click on the Outlook Gateway tab

5. Check Verbose Logging

- This will be "Generate Detailed Logs" for older versions

6. Click OK

   F. Run a TELNET test

Since Outlook Gateway back end notifications send emails using the SMTP standard, you can use telnet to test the Exchange server for this functionality

Telnet from the SMTP Gateway server to the SMTP relay server and use the commands specified below to troubleshoot:

a. The first thing to do is to open a connection from your computer to your mail server.

               telnet mail.domain.ext 25

                    You should receive a reply like:

                    Trying ???.???.???.???...

                    Connected to mail.domain.ext.

                    Escape character is '^]'.

                    220 mail.domain.ext ESMTP Sendmail ?version-number?; ?date+time+gmtoffset?

b. You will then need to declare where you are sending the email from:

               HELO local.domain.name

                        - don't worry too much about your local domain name although you really should use your exact fully qualified domain name as seen by the outside world the mail server has no choice but to take your word for it as of RFC822-RFC1123.

                    This should give you:

                    250 mail.domain.ext Hello local.domain.name [loc.al.i.p], pleased to meet you

           c. Now give your email address: (On many mailservers the space after the : is required rather that optional.)

               MAIL FROM: mail@domain.ext

                    Should yield:

                             250 2.1.0 mail@domain.ext... Sender ok

                         If it doesn't please see possible problems listed at the end of these telnet instructions.

d. Now give the recipients address:

               RCPT TO: mail@otherdomain.ext

                    Should yeild:

                    250 2.1.0 mail@otherdomain.ext... Recipient ok

                         If it doesn't please see possible problems listed at the end of these telnet instructions.

e. To start composing the message issue the command DATA

f. If you want a subject for your email type Subject:-type subject here- then press enter twice )

g. You may now proceed to type the body of your message (e.g. hello mail@otherdomain.ext from mail@domain.ext)

h. To tell the mail server that you have completed the message enter a single "." on a line on it's own.

                    The mail server should reply with: 250 2.0.0 ???????? Message accepted for delivery

i. You can close the connection by issuing the QUIT command. The mailserver should reply with something like:

               221 2.0.0 mail.domain.ext closing connection

               Connection closed by foreign host.

Here are a list of problems I've encountered and their fixes

                         - 501 nouser@nosuchplace.here... Sender domain must exist

                                   The domain that you are sending from must exist

                         - 503 Need MAIL before RCPT

                                   A recipient has been specified before a sender.

                        - 550 mail@domain.ext... Relaying Denied

                                   The mail server has refused to relay mail for you, this may be for any number of reasons but typical reasons include:

                Not using this provider for an internet connection and/or

                Not using an email address provided by the owner of the server.

If a test email from these commands cannot be relayed to an external email address, you will need to configure the SMTP relay capability of the server correctly

If a test e-mail goes through, you will need to use POTester tool

   G. POTester Tool

- The POTester utility requires that you login to your 81xx series server's CLI.

- To use the POTester utility just simply issue the command “potester” from the CLI interface. 

A logged potester session is included below.  Comments will be marked in parentheses and are not to be typed when perfoming this procedure.

Potester SessionEnter the Command [0..100]:

1 - Simulate a PO Client

2 - Debug the PO Server

3 - RAS commands 

0 - Exit the utility  

Enter the command [0..100]:1  (Simulate PO Client)

***    POSERVER CLIENT EMULATOR MENU    *** 

Menu:

1) Log in

2) Log out

3) Activate

4) Down

5) Send Message

6) Send Message More Data

7) List Mailbox

8) Read Message

9) Read Message More Data

10) Delete Message

11) Set Mailbox Attributes

12) Get Mailbox Attributes

13) Empty Mailbox

14) Flush Trace

15) Get Directory

16) Get Mailbox Status

17) Activate RAS functions

18) Set the PO Server debug flag.

19) Mark Messages as Unread in Mailbox. 

0) Quit - Return to main menu

Enter the Command [0..100]:1 (Log in)

PO Login Request

The PO Server Receive Q mailbox number is 1d29701a

Enter the Client ID to login in with [0..-1]:2 (Enter a digit 2 works well, you will need to use this same digit later when requested)

Enter the Client Name:username (Give a random name)

The length of the client name is 4

Enter the Number of mailboxes to be notified for new msgs [0..32]:1 (Enter 1)

Enter the mailbox numbers to be notified for:

[0..31]:4 (Mailbox 4 is the Notification Mailbox)

Enter the Major Revision number [0..20]:0 (always 0)

Enter the Minor Revision number [0..20]:0 (always 0)

Enter the Patch Revision number [0..20]:0 (always 0)

Enter the TypeOfClient [0..20]:5 (Enter 5 for TypeOfClient) 

... Waiting for response ...

Login Response

   Version Number      = 40000

   Sequence Number     = 5

   Session Number      = 80000002

Menu:

1) Log in

2) Log out

3) Activate

4) Down

5) Send Message

6) Send Message More Data

7) List Mailbox

8) Read Message

9) Read Message More Data

10) Delete Message

11) Set Mailbox Attributes

12) Get Mailbox Attributes

13) Empty Mailbox

14) Flush Trace

15) Get Directory

16) Get Mailbox Status

17) Activate RAS functions

18) Set the PO Server debug flag.

19) Mark Messages as Unread in Mailbox. 

0) Quit - Return to main menu Enter the Command [0..100]:19 (Enter 19 to mark messages as Unread in Mailbox)

Mark Messages as Unread in specific Mailbox

Enter the Client ID of the client marking messages unread [0..-1]:2 ( Enter 2)

Enter the Mailbox number where to mark messages unread [0..-1]:4 (this should always be 4)

Which Msgs mark Unread specification

   MARK_UNREAD_ALL_MSGS       0

   MARK_UNREAD_THIS_MSGID     1

   MARK_UNREAD_ALL_GE_MSGID   2

   MARK_UNREAD_ALL_LE_MSGID   3

   MARK_UNREAD_RANGE_MSGID    4

Enter Unread specification [0..20]:0 (0 will mark all messages as Unread)

   Will be marking as Unread all messages in the mailbox

Only messages with UseCount greater or equal to value will be marked Unread.

   Enter the UseCount for the msg, (strongly recommended 2) [0..-1]:2 (Use 2)

  ... Waiting for response ...

Mark Messages Unread Response

   Status (hex)       = 0

   NumMsgsMarkUnread  = b

   Sequence Number     = 6

   Session Number      = 80000002

Menu:

1) Log in

2) Log out

3) Activate

4) Down

5) Send Message

6) Send Message More Data

7) List Mailbox

8) Read Message

9) Read Message More Data

10) Delete Message

11) Set Mailbox Attributes

12) Get Mailbox Attributes

13) Empty Mailbox

14) Flush Trace

15) Get Directory

16) Get Mailbox Status

17) Activate RAS functions

18) Set the PO Server debug flag.

19) Mark Messages as Unread in Mailbox. 

0) Quit - Return to main menu

Enter the Command [0..100]:0 (quit)

1 - Simulate a PO Client

2 - Debug the PO Server

3 - RAS commands

0 - Exit the utility

Enter the command [0..100]:0 (Exit)

Done!

Terminated

In the summary, once you ensure your Exchange Server configuration fulfils all the requirements for MeetingPlace 6 integration, and by using Telnet you ensure that connection to the server can be established and e-mail notifications can be sent out, try to mark all the notifications in the Notification Queue on MP Audio server as Unread by using POTester utility, so that MPNotify component on MP Outlook GW server can process them again and then MP Outlook GW can send them to the Exchange Server.

As you can see this can be a little bit more involved for troubleshooting, and since MP6.x is end of software support, I can't advise you to reach out to TAC.

-Dejan