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Office 2013 can't check in files when LAN doesn't have Internet access or over some VPNs

  • Article
  • Applies to:
    Office 2013

This article was written by Warren Rath, Support Escalation Engineer.

In cases where the VPN causes this issue, we have found an issue in Windows code (113100710844135), the fix is out Third-party VPN client stops Internet connectivity in Windows 7 SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. We've verified that Palo Alto Networks Global Protect Client, and Juniper VPN work with this fix.

Customers are using third-party VPN solutions on Windows 7. If customers migrate to Office 2013 from an older version of Office, they may experience functionality loss in Office when connected via VPN. Office 2013 took a dependency on NLA (Network Location Awareness), and some VPN solutions don't work properly with NLA. Specifically, if the VPN software doesn't define a default gateway. In this case, NLA will always report that the client isn't connected to the Internet. This impacts Office 2013 since it depends on Internet connectivity for some functions. For example, there's no help file on the machine, and all help is on the Internet. If a customer presses F1 in an Office 2013 application, they'll always get an error that says they aren't connected to the Internet while connected via VPN.

Symptoms

Users without full Internet access may not be able to check in files from the Office 2013 client, even though there's good connection between the Office client and the SharePoint server.

Cause

There was a design change between Office 2010 and 2013, where 2013 now requires an Internet connection for some activities. Some customers have already complained about this issue and the product group has been informed of the design limitations. (But no hotfix is currently in the works, a hotfix may not be possible this looks to be a significant change)

The root of the issue seems to be that Office 2013 has a dependency on NLA (Network Location Awareness). NLA uses probes to determine if the network connection has "Internet Access." The way that is does this be two ways.

  1. It does a DNS probe for dns.msftncsi.com. It expects a specific response. The response must be 131.107.255.255. If it is, then that is the correct DNS probe.
  2. It attempts to connect to https://www.msftncsi.com and attempts to retrieve the file ncsi.txt. Inside the file, the text must be "Microsoft NCSI."

If both of the above conditions are met, then the connection is marked as having Internet connectivity, if not the connection is marked as having no Internet connectivity and some Office features won't work.

Workaround

It's possible to set up a local NCIS server (Network Connection Status Indicator) on your LAN that will respond to the Office Clients request and allow the Office feature to work.

See post below for related information and directions: