Outlook hangs loading profile

Question

Hi all.

I can't figure out this strange problem.

Outlook 2019 connecting remotely to Exchange 2019 gives two strange behaviors. Sometimes in hangs at "Loading Profile" forever. Other times it stalls there for a while and then gives error:

Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window. The set of folders
cannot be opened. The information store could not be opened.

This only occurs when connecting remotely. Connecting in the office works fine.
I can connect using Outlook Web Access from the same computer with no issues.
The same computer can connect with another Exchange 2019 server with no issues,
probably indicating something wrong at the Exchange end.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks.

.jp.

Answer 1

Hi,
Do other clients outside the domain have the same problem? Or the problem just occurs on a certain computer?

According to the information, the problem may probably result from autodiscover.
Please check if the autodiscover is working fine.
You can use the following methods:

1.Check with Test E-mail AutoConfiguration
press ctrl and right click on the Outlook icon on the taskbar
select Test E-mail AutoConfiguration

Input your E-mail Address and password of the mailbox
select use autodiscover and run test

You can see the results under the results and log tags
(If Outlook stuck in loading profile, you can use another account.)

2.Use the ExRCA(Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer Tool) tool
Access this URL via your browser: https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com/tests/Ola/input
Input the information and start a test

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If the response is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

Answer 2

Hi KaelYao-MSFT. Thanks for your reply.

Every computer I have tried outside the organization gets the same result, including a number of different locations. I have tried with Outlook 2019 and 2016. Note that MS Outlook for Android appears to work.

Testing AutoDiscover appears to succeed.
Last line in log: Autodiscover to https://autodiscover .xxx.com/autodiscover/autodiscover.xml Succeeded (0x00000000).

Ah, MRCA found something.

I had tested using MRCA Exchange ActiveSync test many times:
The Microsoft Connectivity Analyzer is testing Exchange ActiveSync. Exchange ActiveSync was tested successfully.

But MRCA Outlook Connectivity test gave new results:

Testing RPC over HTTP connectivity to server yyy.xxx.comRPC over HTTP connectivity failed.

Testing TCP port 443 on host yyy.xxx.com to ensure it's listening and pen.The specified port is either blocked, not listening, or not producing the expected response.

Additional Details
A network error occurred while communicating with the remote host.

The name "yyy.xxx.com" is an internal name, not a public one.
Looks like Autodiscover is offering the wrong name to external users.
I checked all the Virtual Directories, and they appear to have the correct External names.

Unless I'm missing something, you can't copy/paste the results of Outlook "Test Email Configuration".
Is there anything in particular I should be looking for.

Thanks.

.jp.

Answer 3

Hi KaelYao-MSFT. Thanks again for answering.

The results of:

Get-OutlookAnywhere | fl Identity,*Host*  

Were:

Identity         : xxx\Rpc (Default Web Site)  
ExternalHostname :  
InternalHostname : xxx.yyy.com  

So no ExternalHostname was present. This looked promising.

I entered the correct hostname in
EAC -> servers -> servers -> edit my server -> Outlook Anywhere -> External host name
But I am getting the same results.

The results of:

Get-organizationconfig | fl mapihttpenabled  

Are:

MapiHTTPEnabled : True  

Should it be enabled?

As for the AutoConfiguration test, there is no "Protocol: Exchange RPC" section at all.
There are two "Protocol: Exchange HTTP" sections, one giving the internal hostname and one giving the external.

Here is the AutoConfiguration screenshots.
In these screenshots, RED is the internal hostname and BLUE is the external one.

Thanks for helping.

.jp.