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Scenario: You’ve created a new user (or any Exchange recipient that should show up in Exchange Address Books/GAL), but the recipient does not show up in the GAL in Outlook.
Are you using Outlook 2003/2007 in Cached Mode?
If yes, login using Outlook Web Access and try to send the user an email. Does the name resolve?
If yes, it’s most likely related to the Offline Address Book (OAB) not being updated.
In Cached Mode, Outlook 2003/2007 clients use the Offline Address Book to lookup recipients. By default, Exchange generates the Offline Address Book once a day at 4:00 AM, unless you change the schedule. New recipients do not show up in the OAB till Exchange udpates it.
Figure 1: By default, Exchange updates OABs once a day at 4:00 AM
The options:
Rebuild the OAB
Exchange Server 2003:
- In ESM | Recipients | Offline Address Lists | right-click YourAddressListName | select Rebuild
Figure 2: Rebuilding the OAB
Exchange Server 2007:
In Exchange Server 2007, the OAB can be updated using the following command from the shell:
- Uncheck Download changes since last Send/Receive
- Make sure Download Full Details is checked
- Click OK, wait for the download to complete (depending on your bandwidth and size of OAL, this may be close to instant, or it may take a few minutes)
- Check if the user appears in the GAL
Modify the OAB generation schedule: The OAB update interval can be modified to have Exchange update it more frequently, depending on your environment.
Alternatively, you can wait till after Exchange has updated the OAB.
Related Posts:
- Offline Address Book: Mystery of The Missing Recipients
- HOW TO: Modify Display Template to make default email address appear in Address Book/GAL
Updates:
- 01/03/2008: Added screenshots and Exchange Server 2007-specific info
Are you using Outlook 2003/2007 in Cached Mode? If yes, login using Outlook Web Access and try to send the user an email. Does the name resolve? If yes, it’s most likely related to the Offline Address Book (OAB) not being updated.In Cached Mode, Outlook 2003/2007 clients use the Offline Address Book to lookup recipients. By default, Exchange generates the Offline Address Book once a day at 4:00 AM, unless you change the schedule. New recipients do not show up in the OAB till Exchange udpates it.
Figure 1: By default, Exchange updates OABs once a day at 4:00 AM
The options:
Rebuild the OAB
Exchange Server 2003:
- In ESM | Recipients | Offline Address Lists | right-click YourAddressListName | select Rebuild
Figure 2: Rebuilding the OAB
Exchange Server 2007:
In Exchange Server 2007, the OAB can be updated using the following command from the shell:
Update-OfflineAddressBook "Name of Address Book"
To update all OABs:Get-OfflineAddressBoook | Update-OfflineAddressBook
- On the client go to Outlook 2003/2007 | Tools | Send/Receive | Download Address Book….- Uncheck Download changes since last Send/Receive
- Make sure Download Full Details is checked
- Click OK, wait for the download to complete (depending on your bandwidth and size of OAL, this may be close to instant, or it may take a few minutes)
- Check if the user appears in the GAL
Modify the OAB generation schedule: The OAB update interval can be modified to have Exchange update it more frequently, depending on your environment.
Alternatively, you can wait till after Exchange has updated the OAB.
Related Posts:
- Offline Address Book: Mystery of The Missing Recipients
- HOW TO: Modify Display Template to make default email address appear in Address Book/GAL
Updates:
- 01/03/2008: Added screenshots and Exchange Server 2007-specific info
Labels: Exchange Server 2007, Exchange Shell, GAL/Address Lists, Mailbox, Outlook
14 Comments:
so when you have 1000+ users and this problem happens, you propose to do this on each workstation?
neg.
Not necessarily, depends on the urgency of having the new user(s) show up in the GAL and your Outlook deployment.
I created a new contact a week ago and my offline address book updates daily.
I still do not see this new contact, even after manually updating my offline addr book in Outlook.
What else could I try?
- Can you see the Contact if you turn off Outlook 2003's Cached Mode?
- Does the Contact resolve in Outlook Web Access?
- Can others see the Contact?
Yes, I have the same problem. We have done every thing you have suggested but nothing works. We can not see only the new employees, we can view them when we turn off the cache mode. Do you have any other suggestions
Thanks
In cached mode, do you see the user in the All Users address book (not the default GAL)?
If yes, Offline Address Book: Mystery of The Missing Recipients
Ensure that the user's default external e-mail address and the windows e-mail address (AD attribute) are exactly the same.
-H.
I have same problem. Nothing solved the problem. What I don't understand is that the new user appear on every other computer and not on only one computer. We had this problem once, then we formatted, reinstalled Windows XP and the worked.
Yanick
Here is a little known fact....
There are 2 things that I have noticed that can affect Offline address books...
1. The user@domain.local has strange characters in it. (I had a user with a hyphanated name and policy auto generated a hyphenated name).
2. The user Alias (found in the active directory tab exchange general) had a full stop or dash in it.
This particular client had people not showing up, removing the fullstops fixed all the problems. I am baffled as to why some users worked and others didnt, but after removing fullstops, updating the OAB and the clients had updated, they were all present.
This is fixed for me now. I have been trying everything on/off for 5 days. What seemed to do the trick:
1 "Ensure that the user's default external e-mail address and the windows e-mail address (AD attribute) are exactly the same." Thanks Heinrich!
2 Restart all M$Exch services. (I don't know if this step was necessary. Maybe update OAB might have worked alone, but these were my exact steps.)
3 Update OAB.
Thanks to all ideas.
This is an awesome blog, so very clear and well formatted! Keep on posting, you rock!
An Outlook 2007 client picks up the GAL entries using web distribution from the web based oab virtual directory. The OAB data is delivered to the directory every 8 hours by default. To change this to 30 minutes, for example, use the following command:
Get-OABVirtualDirectory | Set-OabVirtualDirectory -PollInterval 30
If you're impatient and want to manually update the OAB directory, use the following command:
Update-OfflineAddressBook -Identity [servername]
Now, go to Outlook 2007 and download the address book. The new entries should appear.
To force a complete OAB update, we're in the habit of issuing the following commands:
get-offlineaddressbook | update-offlineaddressbook
update-filedistributionservice %CAS server name%
Run the update-filedistributionservice command for each CAS server. Of course Outlook 2007 cached-mode users still have to download the OAB again if they want the new information or simply wait 24 hours for it to happen automagically.
Your solution is not recommended in big organizations.
We released a policy that ney users will appear within 24 h, and that's it.
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