Share via

Office 365 (Outlook) Autodiscover Issue with A Records pointing elsewhere

Anonymous
2017-11-20T08:15:47+00:00

I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing wrong here, but perhaps someone can help.

I have a domain where DNS is being managed from the domain registrar (Namecheap).  I've set up all the Office 365 DNS records (MX, TXT, SRV, CNAME, etc.) properly.  However, the client has a website that is being hosted by a 3rd party hosting company that runs cPanel/WHM, so I've set up the A record to point to the IP for that hosting company (and set up a CNAME record for www).  However, it seems by doing this that I'm running into issues with Outlook Autodiscover.  

I've tried to run the Office 365 Outlook Autodiscover Test on the Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer website (https://testconnectivity.microsoft.com) and it keeps giving me errors that I think are related to that A record I have pointing to the 3rd party hosting provider (probably because they have cPanel running on that server and it has some weird autodiscover things set up for use by cPanel email accounts).  I can't post the info from the test because it has the client's domain and email address throughout, but I can send snippets of it where I remove this info if needed.

It seems that if you have an A record pointing to a 3rd party hosting provider running cPanel, there are going to be issues with Autodiscover because of the order in which Autodiscover runs it's attempts - but maybe I'm wrong about that, or maybe I'm doing something incorrectly?  Any help is greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

Microsoft 365 and Office | Subscription, account, billing | For home | Windows

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments

9 answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Anonymous
    2017-11-26T03:46:05+00:00

    When attempting to add an Office 365 account under that domain, because the A record is pointing to a server running cPanel (which has it's own autodiscover set-up for cPanel email use) and presumably because of the way in which Outlook attempts autodiscover and the order in which it tries each method, we end up getting errors because it tries to connect to cPanel's autodiscover instead of the CNAME autodiscover record.  That was the reason I posted initially, and you can see more information about it here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/4099e289-55bf-476b-a9c4-ee1377046df7/cpanel-autodiscover-conflict-with-exchange?forum=exchangesvrgeneral

    What is the solution, if any, to this?

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  2. Anonymous
    2017-11-26T03:22:35+00:00

    Hi Marc,

    From the autodiscover result you sent to me in PM, the autodiscover succeed. That some errors occur in Microsoft RCA is normal behavior when attempted to find the Autodiscover.xml file. You can ignore these errors.

    Or if users in your organization occur any issue when they use office 365 account? If yes, you can provide more detailed about the issue.

    Thanks,

    Iry

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  3. Anonymous
    2017-11-24T00:39:01+00:00

    Just sent you the XML copy of the autodiscover test via private message.  

    I'm also not sure what you mean regarding CNAME records?  I have the above CNAME records (actually 6 altogether I think) for Office 365 added to the domain's DNS, but also have a www CNAME record that I created so that when someone browses to www.DOMAIN.com they will see the client's website at the 3rd party hosting provider.  You should see the domain in the XML test I just sent you via private message so you can presumably look up the DNS records on your end and confirm all the Office 365 records exist correctly and see how the A record and CNAME www record are configured.  

    Thanks for your help!

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  4. Anonymous
    2017-11-21T06:33:58+00:00

    Hi Marc,

    Since you mentioned you have run the office 365 outlook Autodiscover Test on the Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer, please save it to HTML as below capture and send it to us in Private Message.

    And you mentioned you have pointed your A record to the 3rd party host provider, and CNAME to www…, if that, it’s normal behavior that your outlook autodiscover failed. Since the CNAME records are used for autodiscover, you should point CNAME record back to office 365 as below capture:

    For your reference: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Create-DNS-records-at-any-DNS-hosting-provider-for-Office-365-7b7b075d-79f9-4e37-8a9e-fb60c1d95166?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US#bkmk_add_cname.

    Thanks,

    Iry

    Was this answer helpful?

    1 person found this answer helpful.
    0 comments
  5. Anonymous
    2017-11-20T08:22:50+00:00

    A lot of discussion regarding this here: https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/4099e289-55bf-476b-a9c4-ee1377046df7/cpanel-autodiscover-conflict-with-exchange?forum=exchangesvrgeneral  - but there doesn't seem to be a very good answer thus far...

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments