Vault Cache - Accessing Archived Items When In Outlook Cached Mode

[marky_mark1979]

It has just been brought to our attention that our users who have laptops with cached mode enabled cannot access any archived item once they in offline mode.

Seems to me that the 3rd party who configured our EV environment have missed out the vault cache option when configuring our environment. Ive created a test desktop policy with the following setting.

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I then checked the following on the EV server ready for configuration

My question really is what kind of overhead on the EV server is enabling this going to have ? We have 6000 licenses for EV and my initial thought was to solve the problem we enable vault cache for all users but shortly into this config I was begining to worry about the potential impact of doing so and thought maybe we should create a second EV group for users requiring vault cache.

The cache option on the computer properties mentions the storage is only temporary, My question is how temporary ? and are items just copied to this location pending total download by the client ??

Is vault cache functionality dependant on client PC's having the full agent installed and also based on the fact our users are currently archive enabled following vault cache being enabled would they recieve the vault cache wizard the next time they open outlook or have to invoke it manually.

Any advice on this and other Vault Cache best configuration practice would be much appreciated.

[GertjanA]

Hello Mark,

You need the location.

VC will only use 30 concurrent connections. And will not fill larger than 20GB (or other waht you set).

VC files are built in the background, once completed they are transferred to the client using BITS.

Check these: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/virtual-vault-best-practice-overview-white-papers

They explain thoroughly.

[marky_mark1979]

Yeah I have configured the location and restarted all the services as it requested. Aplogies I took that screen shot a bit premature.

[GertjanA]

Hi Mark,

How we did it. (take in account desktop users are NOT in cached mode here!)

We created 2 ad-groups, 1 called EVCache, 1 called EVNormal

Users with laptops go into EVCache. The policy enables VC, and is set to download all items.

EVNormal gets no VC.

When your desktop users are in cached mode (as MS advises I believe) you can set the EVNormal to only download headercache.

To make sure you do not clog the servers, you can start populating the EVCache group by steps (add some users you know will be on the network with their laptops), and verify their cache is being build. You can use on the EV-server (login as VSA) http://servername/enterprisevault/vcview.aspx.

Good luck

[marky_mark1979]

Right I've configured everything up and added just my AD account into the provisioning group vault cache test. I have removed my AD account from all the other provisioning groups so im not conflicting with those.

I have rebooted my PC and recreated my Outlook profille to use cached mode as by default its not an option i have enabled. However outlook on my PC hasn't promted me for anything related to vault cache and if i disable my NIC on my PC i cannot view any attachments within mail items.

Have I missed something out or miss configured something ?

[GertjanA]

Hi Mark,

Did you rerun provisioning? Did you sync your mailbox?

It is not happening quickly.

On OL, Tools, Enterprise Vault, enable Vault Cache? perhaps.

VC starts I believe 3 minutes after OL is being started. Check that link I gave earlier on the vaultserver, and check to see if a cache file is being build. If you read, EV builds a 10MB file BEFORE transmitting that to the client...

GJ

(you need a few weeks 'hands-on' help? hint hint)

[marky_mark1979]

Ah i'd not manually run the provisioning task so that might be the problem. My mailbox is currently showing online and all folders up to date.

OL, tools, options, enterprise vault doesn't have any options in it for Vault Cache at present.

Checked the link you sent me earlier and its currently

Vault Cache Server View 14:58:57 Connected to EVA01 Server - Online 

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Current Active Builds: (No Active builds)

Current Active Downloads: (No Active downloads)

Maybe i should just leave things until the morning when everything has re run overnight and see how things are then.

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

Based on the above, would suggest running the provisioning task manually (Right click the provisioning task and go to Run Now) and then after that has completed (it will go from a Processing State to a Running state in the VAC) manually synchronize your user and close and re-open outlook and try again.

If that fails then another thing to be aware of is that you might have the old OVEnabled registry keys on that machine that if they're there, can intefere with vault cache, we've had a number of users who had been set to show the wizard however it never happened because of the OVEnabled = 0 registry key

But other than that, i think gertjan is right, after the user has been provisioned and subsequently synchronized, dependent on how your policy is set, you should either be prompted with the wizard or you may have to enable yourself.

You may want to check that you have been properly provisioned by going to the Vault Admin Console, expanding out Targets and then right click Exchange and click "Display Policies Assigned To Mailboxes"
Then enter your display name and it should show you what provisioning group, archive policy and desktop policy is assigned to the user

After that, expand out Policies -> Exchange -> Desktop and go to the properties of the policy set to your user, based on the above it should be "Vault Cache Test Policy", go to the Advanced tab and then from the drop down menu choose "Vault Cache"

Make a note of "Show Setup Wizard" (either on or off), Offline Store Required (either Yes or No)

Then back on the Drop down menu choose Outlook, scroll down and make a note of "RPC over HTTP restrictions" (either "Disable User Extensions", "Disable Vault Cache", "Disable PST Import" or "Disable Vault Cache and PST Import"

So basically if the Show Wizard is set to Off, then as Gertjan pointed out, you will have to manually enable yourself through the Tools -> Enterprise Vault options within outlook, if you have Offline Store Required to "Yes" then the user must have an OST file (Outlook Cached Mode) for it to function.

For the RPC over HTTP Restrictions, in a lot of Outlook 2007 deploments, "Outlook Anywhere" may be enabled within the Outlook connection options of your mail profile, when this is used, Enterprise Vault detects this as being RPC over HTTP, and by default EV is set to disable the client... However there are other options in there to disable the Vault Cache also.

If everything from the above looks good, go to your Archiving task that controls the exchange server you are on, and go to the properties and then click the synchronization tab, choose "Select users" and then select your own user and make sure that it says it synchronized it succesfully (Don't choose the option to synchronize all users)

After that , close outlook, re-open it, if you don't have the options or the wizard is not displayed, then you may have to run ScanOST.exe (C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Office 12\ScanOST.exe) and have it repair the OST forcing it download the hidden message, which has happened to us a couple of times too

And as mentioned earlier check for the existance of OVEnabled under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\KVS\Enteprise Vault\EVClient







 

[marky_mark1979]

Right here goes, I have checked the provisioning side of things and im getting the right policies etc etc

RPC over HTTP was set to disable user extensions on the new vault cache test policy so i have changed that to none. See below

PC wise i am now getting the following error message everytime I open Outlook

Registry wise i didn't have anything in there so i have created the following, I also created the folder vaultcachestoreid in the registry. Is this all correct ?

[GertjanA]

Hi Mark,

Remove the registry key. JW asked to CHECK if it was there, not to create it.

Let's go back to the basics a little.

If you start your outlook, is it in cached mode? Do you get your mails locally, can you disconnect from the network and still see your mails? If not, check to see if you are allowed to create psts, and if they are allowed to grow (Reg-key/GPO for Outlook, DisablePST/DisablePSTGrow (or something)

Looking at the screenshot of the policy, it looks like you've set your policy to have users decide. The option to enable the cache should therefor become visible in the menu pointed out. However, as you get the error 'ev not available due to outlook config', you will not have EV-functionality. Catch22. (grin)

I would check the vault-cache policy AND the vault-cache desktop policy. Verify everything related to local pst's, cache etc is correctly setup. USe the Admin-guide/Configuring Exchange archiving to verify, Also, the help-button is a great help.

Additionally (and as sideremark), did you restart the storageservice after the cache location was set? I assume you did.

You have to remember that if the EV-client is either not 'working', not in cached mode, not able to create etc, you will not see anything on that vc-view page.

Ádditionally, I would demand a consultant back on site, because the configuration clearly leaves room for improvement ;) (but, that is my opinion....)

Anyways. Check Check. If possible, capture screenshots of your policies, put them in a word document, attach the document to this thread.

Thanks and good luck!

[marky_mark1979]

Right guys, i think we have made some progress but were not fully there yet. My outlook was indeed in cached mode and i could open items offline no problem.

This morning when i logged in and fired up outlook i was greeted with the following

So i ran through the wizard, selected 12 months worth of data for my initial testing and got right through to the following screen

At which point i think great I've cracked it, then after about 10 mins im rewarded with this :(

So it looks like we have made progress but still have a slight problem, Is there a log file anywhere i can view to see why the above might have happened. I checked the http://eva01/enterprisevault/vcview.aspx log and it still reads

Vault Cache Server View 10:31:43 Connected to EVA01 Server - Online

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Current Active Builds: (No Active builds)

Current Active Downloads: (No Active downloads)

Cheers for all the help so far Guys, i think were getting there slowly :)

[GertjanA]

Hello Mark!

With Outlook open, press CTRL+SHIFT, then click an enterprise vault icon in the top toolbar. This gives you a pop-up window.

Set it to maximum tracing, select 'include virtual vault'. close.

Restart Outlook.

Sync the Vault Cache.

When the error occurs, press CTRL+SHIFT etc again, open log.

Select all. Paste into a notepad, attache the notepad to this thread. Any events on the EV-server your archive is on?

GJ

edit - check this : https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/blogs/pstdisablegrow-and-enterprise-vault-outlook-addin-901

[JesusWept3]

BITS is running on the host machine right? and on your EV server you do have the cache location thats set up correctly, has enough space, not being virus scanned etc and the server running BITS as well?

[marky_mark1979]

Nothing error wise i can see on the EV SERVER, client log attached. mine doesn't have the option include virtual vault though. Im guessing this is beacuse my machine currently only has version 8 of the client installed.

[JesusWept3]

OK so the error appears to be with BITS either on the server or on the client, not sure which, though the error makes it sound as if its on the server and not the local machine

03/02/2011 14:01:10.175[1732]: No error description available
03/02/2011 14:01:10.176[1732]: CCBITSSupportLogging::LogContext
03/02/2011 14:01:10.177[1732]: ERROR - The error was related to the specified remote file. For example, the URL was not accessible.
03/02/2011 14:01:10.178[1732]: ~CCBITSSupportLogging::LogContext
03/02/2011 14:01:10.179[1732]: Job Error - Failed
03/02/2011 14:01:10.179[1732]: ~CCJobNotification::JobError - Job Error: 0x80070717

0x80070717 = ERROR_RESOURCE_LANG_NOT_FOUND

You may want to take a look at BITSAdmin to see if everything is ok
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa362812

Also i would suggest upgrading the client, based on your logs both client and server are 8 SP2, would suggest at least 8 SP5 if you can, there have been a lot of fixes around Virtual Vault (which for you would be a new feature) and vault cache, though theres no guarantee this particular error will go away

[marky_mark1979]

BITS was disabled on the EV Server, I have enabled the service and tried agian but still no joy, off home for the day now so will have another look at that log file in the morning.

Cheers once again guys. 

[GertjanA]

Hi Mark,

Curious te learn how it is going with the Vault Cache/Virtual Vault.

[marky_mark1979]

Right guys im still getting no joy with this one following BITS install on the EV server. When i try and sync from the client it still looks like it is trying for a minute or so and then crashes out with the error FAILED, DOWNLOAD FAILED.

I have attached an up to date clent log following on from the BITS configuration. Any help would once again be much appreciated.

[JesusWept3]

Same error but slightly different but still to do with BITS

dont suppose you get BITS locked down by GPO do you?

http://smallvoid.com/article/winnt-bits-config.html

[marky_mark1979]

Are you sure its a BITS problem ? Only reason I ask is because when i check the following url http://eva01/enterprisevault/vcview.aspx i still see no active builds.

Vault Cache Server View 10:33:01 Connected to EVA01 Server - Online

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Current Active Builds: (No Active builds)

Current Active Downloads: (No Active downloads)