Exchange 2013 Offline Address Book not updating on the server

Question

Hi,

We have only recently started looking at Outlook Cached mode and it has come to light that the Offline address book is not working properly. Clients cannot download it manually using Outlook (Get error 0x80190194). On the 4 Exchange servers the contents of the C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\ClientAccess\OAB\<UNIQUIE GUID> hasn't been updated since Jan/Feb 2020 on 2 servers and Sept 2020 on the other 2 servers.

If I run the Update-OfflineAddressbook <AddressBook> command on the Exchange server there is no error, but I don't see any events in the application log either.

It seems broke on the Exchange servers but I am stuck as to what to do.

Regards,

Matt

Answer 1

Restart the Mailbox Assistant service on the server and see if the files are regenerated and that whenchanged date is updated and try to download the OAB from Outlook.

If this is DAG, move the database that holds the OAB arbitration mailbox to another server and restart the Mailbox Assistant service on that server and see if new OAB files are generated

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/managing-oab-in-exchange-server-2013/ba-p/596924
Get-Mailbox -Arbitration | where {$_.PersistedCapabilities -like "oab"} | ft name,database

If not:
Try creating a new Offline Address Book, its real simple and easy to test:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/exchange/address-books/offline-address-books/create-offline-address-book

 New-OfflineAddressBook -Name "OAB_Contoso" -AddressLists "\Default Global Address List"  

Then:
Set the mailbox database to use that new OAB:

 Set-MailboxDatabase "Mailbox Database01" -OfflineAddressBook "OAB_Contoso"   

Then:
get-offlineaddressbook | update-offlineaddressbook

Then:

Restart the Mailbox Assistant service

Then:

See if the files are created for the NEW OAB under the directory for the new OAB GUID

%ExchangeInstallPath%ClientAccess\OAB\<OAB GUID>

Wait about 15 minutes, then try to download the Offline Address Book from Outlook client.

Answer 2

Hi AndyDavid,

Sorry for not replying sooner.
I followed your notes and created a new OAB and this worked. I then went back to the original OAB I was having problems with and tat then worked ok.
So I'm not sure what happened but it definitely fixed the issue.

I was also confused about where the OAB files should lie on which Exchange 2013 server. I assumed that all 4 in our site would have the same files/version and I have since found out that it depends on the Arbitration mailbox responsible for OAB generation and where the mailbox database resides. We have only one site and one DAG and so it would usually always be on the same server however when we have had issues and the databases have moved around the OAB files would have been on other servers. I initially thought this was an issue but now realise it's not.

Thanks for all your help (and your quick reply).

Regards,

Matt