communicator cannot connect to the server because the required security is not in place (Solved)

OCS client is  not able to expand users in any of the AD group lists . It is showing error as below

“Communicator cannot connect to the server because the required security is not in place”

Solution:

The issue was with the certificate which is not providing a secure channel between the user computer and the server

I tries the below links from the user system and found it was showing a certificate error

https://ocspool.yourdomain.com/abs/int/files/Sample_Company_Phone_Number_Normalization_Rules.txt
https://ocspool.yourdomain.com/conf/ext/Tshoot.html

Note: where ocspool.yourdomain.com is the FQDN of the OCS pool

Then I installed the certificate from the IE itself and the issue resolved

Desktop Share Icon not in OCS and Lync client (Solved)

desktop sharing icon  not in MOC
OR
Desktop share option is not in OCS

I was installing  OCS and Lync in the same domain for testing purpose. After installing the complete infrastructure I realized that “Desktop Sharing “option was not available on both OCS and Lync clients. It was disappeared in the client window L . After googling for some time I realized that it is because “Global policy “was not configured yet on both OCS and Lync
Enable Desktop share in OCS
To enable this open OCS R2 administration console, select Global Properties, Meetings tab, locate Default Policy (under Policy Definition) and click Edit.  Check “Enable Program and Desktop Sharing” and “Allow control of shared programs and desktop”
For anonymous desktop sharing use, select “Allow users to invite anonymous participants” within the OCS global properties

Enable Desktop share in Lync

Open “Lync server Control panel” and select “Conferencing “in the left side pane. Edit “Global” settings. And select “enable Application sharing “ and Enable Application sharing and Desktop “

After these settings preferably do a service restart which will enable “Desktop Share” window in the clients communicator client

Prerequisite installation failed: Wmf2008R2 (Solved)

Error

Prerequisite installation failed: Wmf2008R2  is the error while I tried to install  “Setup or remove Lync Components”

Cause

This error is due to the prerequisite check for the Media-Format-Package and returns the following information back to the Setup Lync Server components page: And the installation file couldn’t find the 2008R2 version of Windows Media Format.

Resolution

Open the server manager and open features and check whether “Desktop experience “option is selected or not. If not, check the box and install it.

Note: This installation requires a reboot

How to broadcast message using OCS (Solved)

Broadcast your message in OCS

OCS supports command line application which will broadcasting messages to all users who were logged into OCS infrastructure . Sometimes administrator needs to warn users about upcoming outage or any incident throughout the organization and this is an easiest way of doing it. The user who needs to sends the broadcast should  be a member of RTCUniversalServerAdmins group and preferably the admin user should logged  into any of the FE server for better performance.

Step 1.

Login into any of the FE server and search for lcscmd.exe on it. It will be in the installation folder of Office communications software, or else you will get it in the installation CD of OCS server.

Step 2.

Open command prompt and change the directory where you have located lcscmd.exe

For me it is

C:\Users\administrator.UST\Desktop\OCS 2007 R2 X64 Ent Edition Server\2007R2\64BIT\Setup\amd64>  

Because I have a copy of the installation files in my desktop

Step 3.

Type the below command and hit enter

LCScmd /Server /Action:BroadcastMessage /Role:SE Message:"Type here your message"

/Role:SE indicates it is for Standard edition installation and replace with /Role:EE for enterprise users.

Note: in my EE installation I even run /Role:SE without any issue (so seems this change is optional)

Done !!!!!! :)

All users who logged in will get the message from noreply@yourdomain.com .

The output of the command clearly denotes whether the command run successfully,how many users received this message, how many failed and also a log file will also generate on the %temp% folder which will completely describe the command execution flow including the error logs

How to get communicator chat or conference logs

Get communicator chat logs from Achieving server

Previously OCS administrators were not confident enough to get Old chat logs because it requires more complex  SQL queries  to get chat logs exported from OCS Achieving server .Now MS released a new tool "OCSArchiveViewerSetup" which is having a GUI to retrieve the chat logs easily.

In the achieving and monitoring server install OCS Achieving tool "OCSArchiveViewerSetup". This is a free tool and the installation doesn’t cause any service interruption (as I experienced)  .It can be downloaded from microsoft (just google it )..After installation it will ask for database to locate .Add the server name and instance name (ServerName/Instance) if default installation no need to specify instance name, and click Connect.

Put the complete sip Uri of the user to get the chat log. There is an option to select the time limit to get more refined chat logs .The tool is having an option to export the chat logs to IE too.

PLEASE IGNORE - Temporary item created by Microsoft Conferencing Add-in for Outlook (Version 8.0.6362.187)

Error

I faced similar issue with Conferencing add-in Version 8.0.6362.143 and 8.0.6362 .187 versions .And users were receiving empty appointments in their calendar. With subject line

PLEASE IGNORE - Temporary item created by Microsoft Conferencing Add-in for Outlook (Version 8.0.6362.187)

Resolution

I updated the Conferencing add-in with Version 8.0.6362.190 (or above will help ) and resolved the issue

OCS installation :Windows Media Format Runtime is required in order to install this component

I was trying to install OCS 2007 R2 in Virtual environment

While installing Enterprise edition server I faced a popup as below

"The Windows Media Format Runtime is required in order to install this component. Installing the WMFR may require a system restart to complete the installation. Click OK to continue with the installation"

The issue is resolved after installing some desktop experience feature is installed as below

Open command prompt and type as below

Please make sure the shown *.mum is available in your path. If not find the similar one and change the name and run it

pkgmgr.exe /ip /m:"C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-Media-Format-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~6.1.7600.16385.mum"

Eg : C:\Windows\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-Media-Format-Package~*.mum and * may be any file which are available

Cannot synchronize with corporate address book. This may be because the proxy server setting in your browser does not allow to access the address book. If problem persists please contact your administrator

Issue :Communicatior client couldnot showing addressbook entries

I faced an issue with a user saying that he is not able to browse corporate address book and showing an error

·         "Cannot synchronize with corporate address book. This may be because the proxy server setting in your browser does not allow to access the address book. If problem persists please contact your administrator."

Resolution

I have seen a lot of tutorials related to this but I found an effective way in resolving this issue

Open certificate store using mmc and select Computer certificates

Start-> run->mmc and hit enter

Click File -> Add /remove  snap-in and click add button in Stand alone tab

Select Certificate and click Add

Select Computer account and hit next

Confirm radio button at Local computer click finish and close

Hit ok and you will get certificate console

Open certificates under

1)Personal

2)Trusted root

3)intermediate certification authorities and remove all old certificates before todays date

Close the mmc

Open IE -> Tools-> internet options-> Advanced ->under security settings un-tick “Check for publisher’s certificate revocation

After that the issue is resolved

Intermittent OCS login issue

Intermittent OCS login issue for Win7 Systems
Some of our remote users reported me that they were not able to login into OCS from Win-7 PCS. The error was
“Cannot sign in to Communicator.  You may have entered your sign-in address, user name, or password incorrectly, or the authentication service may be incompatible with the version of the program.  If your sign-in information is correct and the problem persists, please contact your system administrator”
Later I collected the communicator logs from the user system and I found the below line in the snooper window
“ms-diagnostics: 1013;reason="Significant time skew detected during authentication";source”

Resolution:
I found one DC which is recently added to the AD infrastructure which is having time difference more than 5 Min with respect to other DCs in the AD environment. I rectified it and resolved the issue
Reason:
This is office communicator Authentication issue, time skew of more than 5 minutes break Kerberos authentication.

Force OCS to save conversation history into the Outlook folder immediately

How to force OCS to save conversation history into the Outlook folder immediately

There is a default time delay in saving OCS conversation history into the Outlook folder. And if we close the chat window before this, you may not get the conversation history updated on outlook.

To Enable Office Communicator Chat History in Outlook forcefully

Start -> Run->regedit and hit enter(you should logged into the system with a privilege who can edit registry values)

Use the registry setting in the path HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Communicator

If you couldn’t find "Communicator"  then add a new key with the same name and do the below steps

add a new DWORD ImAutoArchivingPolicy and put the value 1 or 0 as per your requirement (you can select decimal or hexadecimal )

1=archive OC conversations in Outlook

0=don't archive conversations in Outlook.