How To Exchange FAQ, Solutions, and summary

[virtus]

Data Center Outsourcing-ANS Online Co-Location Server Hosting

This is the home page for the company that hosts my corp email. Notice, that I can connect to it via Microsoft Outlook Web.

I called the IT people to ask how I could set up to push my corp mail to my Droid. They told me that I might be able to set it up as a POP3 account, and gave me the incoming and outgoing server names.

I took a look at their site. Although they mention Exchange server, they don't have mention activesync, direct push, or mobile devices. And since they only mention POP3 access, I wonder if they even offer full Exchange services that includes mobile device access. If POP3 is all they can give you, you are missing out on calendar and contacts sync and you might want to consider a host with more services.

I'm not sure why the POP3 isn't working and it doesn't really fit in this thread since that is different than an exchange server. Start a new thread mentioning POP3 and you'll probably find more help there.

If you want to try to get exchange working, you can try setting up a new corporate/exchange account on your droid. The following instructions might work.

Your username will be the username that you use to access Outlook Web with a "\" before it ("\username") and your password will be the same password. The "Exchange Server" will be the address that you use to get to Outlook web (like "mail.mycompany.com"). Don't include the http part and you might have to try it without the "mail." in the address. Good luck!

 

[mcknigs]

Hi Scott - do you know if your exchange server uses Sophos Puremessage for Anti-Spam/ Anti-Virus. I had the same problem as you and the following fixed it
http://www.sophos.com/support/knowledgebase/article/3186.html

Thanks for the response. I don't know what we're doing for spam filtering. My head IT guy said that they weren't supporting the Droid and that, if I bought one, I'm on my own. So I'm trying to fix this without involving them. Corporate email would be nice, but isn't my only concern. I think I'll keep the Droid for now and see if subsequent software upgrades address this.

-Scott

 

[mcknigs]

If you need rock-solid Exchange sync, the Droid is not the ideal device. It cannot sync notes or tasks, does not support anything more than basic security, does not allow you to accept/reject items, does not sync subfolders, and can't do auto-signatures. To most corporate users, the lack of these features is a deal breaker.

If I could get the email and calendar to work I'd be pretty satisfied. I have one out of two. Actually I have 1.5 out of two, since I can send email, just not receive. Do folks here think it's worth trying Touchdown in my case?

-Scott

 

[Puddinhead]

I just tried touchdown and it hasn't helped. That could be further evidence of the particular problem I'm encountering. Maybe?

This is a post from another thread I've been involved in trying to remedy this issue:

I'm one of the Network Admins for my company and my Droid syncs with Exchange perfectly. We were running on Exchange 2003 and recently went to Exchange 2007 and using a wildcard certificate which is one reason why I had to replace my old Motorola Q (the main reason is because it was old and is a piece of crap). Windows Mobile 5 Activesync is not compatible with a wildcard certificate. That being said, there are a few things that can keep a Droid from connecting to Exchange but not the iPhone or other Windows Mobile phones. One of THE BIGGEST reasons the Droid will not connect to Activesync has to do with a activesync policy configuration on the Exchange server. Basically it has something to do with password provisioning the device or something to that extent. In fact, here's a link from Verizon that is directly associated to this issue. I did a lot of research prior to purchasing the Droid to make sure I could prepare our Exchange environment to support it. The problem is that a lot of people make the changes to their Activesync policies because it does increase security. Problem is, the Droid isn't yet compatible with these settings. Keep in mind the Droid is basically running what is still a Beta OS. Sure this phone was released to the public with it and technically they SHOULD have told people that Android 2.0 isn't technically RTM, but what's done is done. I use the phone knowing it's technically beta and I'll run into bugs. So for those of you out there still unable to sync exchange with your Droid...have your IT folk remove device password settings in the Activesync profile. This can even be set per user account if your IT folk don't want to set it as default.

THE THREAD:

http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/19273-i-took-my-droid-back-2.html#post124024

 

[mrchw]

Scott and Puddinhead and anyone else who appears to be having the same issue as me, I have found a solution...

If... Your calendar syncs and you can send email, you just can't receive it... Your Inbox is likely too full! I think if you were to wait around for a few days and let it do it's thing, and of course leave it plugged in during that time since the battery would go dead in 3 or 4 hours, it would probably work.

But I am not that patient. I tried setting up my exchange email on an iPod touch and got the same problem. So Googling that suggested that my inbox might be too full. So I archived everything. Moved all messages that were in my inbox to a test folder so it was empty. Removed the account from my Droid. Rebooted the droid. Added the account via the Calendar (which apparently solves an issue of not having the calendar sync, I never experience that, but some others have), and sent myself a test message from gmail.

Seconds later I heard "Droid" as it arrived at my droid.

I am a happy, happy guy right now. 14 days of frustration, finally solved.

Oh, and only $30 per month instead of the $45 I was paying on my BlackBerry.

 

[Puddinhead]

But this doesn't solve the contacts issue?

My inbox is loaded with emails, however none are unread. Does that still matter?/

 

[mrchw]

What is your contact issue? I make changes to contacts on exchange and they change on the droid...

I did notice that when I try to make a change on the droid it doesn't go through to Exchange. For some reason the Droid thinks the contact is a gmail contact even though I have it only displaying my exchange contacts...

so that appears to be an issue, but one that is nowhere near as important to me as the mail not syncing.

And all my messages were read as well. I had 6 months worth of mail, 30-50 messages per day. I archived them, but it still left about 200 for some reason. I moved these into a different folder before setting up the account. But then I moved them right back and they synced. I suspect I could have left them in the Inbox while setting it up...

 

[Puddinhead]

My contacts issue is: none are on my phone. like the email, they never showed up.

 

[mrchw]

Well then I'm no help to you... you might try googling "iphone exchange contacts not syncing" and see what shows up and try the same fixes on the Droid.

I'm sure you've already done this but make sure that 1.) the exchange account has "sync contacts" selected and 2.) in your contacts, make sure that it's set up to display the exchange account's contacts.

Also, I'd try emptying your inbox and setting the account up again. Contacts might start working if you get your email working.

Before my email worked, I don't think I could see my contacts info, but when someone called me who was in my contacts, their name showed up. I thought that was strange but didn't really bother to investigate...

Sorry if none of this works!

 

[Puddinhead]

Thanks for trying.

I've done all that you recommended. Nothing so far. I deleted TONS of old email down to just the last week or so. Then I reset up the account. It said it took, there were no error messages and it said email would be on its way. Nothing yet. I'll let it sit for a while and the see what happens.

Again, thanks. Enjoy your droid. (whimper)

 

[efreeman85]

Im having problems with my new droid ive had 2. The 1st one died out of nowhere and exchange worked perfect with it. But with this one its crap nothing on it no contacts emails or calender and touchdown was a waste of money it did nothing for me and im using the same settings. Im debating on taking this phone back too because it just doenst work like the last one.
anyone have any ideas why this one wont work even though the 1st one did?

 

[mcknigs]

Scott and Puddinhead and anyone else who appears to be having the same issue as me, I have found a solution...

I'll try this. I had several thousand messages in my inbox, going back to January. I'll do the same with contacts too, to see what that does. I have a few thousand of those also - going back about 15 years. Most of them I don't need anymore.

I would have thought that telling to only sync one day's worth would have gotten around the issue of too much data to bring down.

-Scott

 

[Puddinhead]

EFreeman: I've read talks about some of the first set of serial numbers having more problems then the later versions. Mine is of the first variety, which might have something to do with the problem.

We worked last night on it again. Nothing. My new Touch Pro 2 comes in today, so it looks like despite the old college try I'll be switching phones today.

 

[mcknigs]

Yesterday I archived all but about 40 messages in my inbox and 30 in my outbox. I still have a very large contacts list. After reducing the size of my mail boxes I tried rebooting and syncing. No luck yet. I'm going to shut off the sync contacts function and try again.

-Scott

 

[Justinian]

Has anyone found a good app or way to search exchange mail? Or maybe even just sort by something other than time?

 

[DroidDaddy]

Has anyone found a good app or way to search exchange mail? Or maybe even just sort by something other than time?

TouchDown lets you search. I have it setup with my primary exchange mailbox and I also use the built-in email app (which I generally prefer aesthetically). Yeah, I'm duplicate syncing without issues on the 29.00 plan

TouchDown also lets you use the server's Global Address list, and has much better widgets available IMO. Also have zoom, different font sizes, etc. I just find the style of the screens a bit cartoon-ish. Hopefully either Google updates Android's exchange compatibility, or TouchDown gets a facelift.

 

[daisy605]

So I got the HTC Droid a couple of days ago and thru the email program that came with the phone i was able to see all work email but I wasnt able to send anything from my phone (strange), so I downloaded the Touchdown and so far it works really good, but the 1 problem i have is that i cant get it to receive new emails automatically, it is set to "refresh" by whatever time I have set in the "Polling Interval" section, even w/ the "Enable Push" selected. So I tried setting the "Polling Interval" to 0 minutes seeing if that would make it autoupdate, it did but completely slowed the phone down/froze it, etc. because it was just refreshing over and over

so my question is is there a way to set Touchdown to be on real-time (receive emails right away)? ..not sure if theres maybe some setting besides the "Enable Push" that needs to be set

 

[goormove]

So here is my dilemma - I have a Droid set up with my company's exchange settings and all is working fine. When I delete a message by accident, I can't igure out how to move it back to the inbox without re-sending it to myself. Also, if I want to move a message to another folder, I am not sure how.

Lastly, I have 2 sets of some folders and am not sure how to remove the dups - msnbc news, microsoft at home, microsoft at work, etc...

Would certainly appreciate some quick help - thanks in advance.

FYI - exchange 2003 is the back end and calendar, mail and contacts all seem to be working.

 

[DroidDaddy]

So I got the HTC Droid a couple of days ago and thru the email program that came with the phone i was able to see all work email but I wasnt able to send anything from my phone (strange), so I downloaded the Touchdown and so far it works really good, but the 1 problem i have is that i cant get it to receive new emails automatically, it is set to "refresh" by whatever time I have set in the "Polling Interval" section, even w/ the "Enable Push" selected. So I tried setting the "Polling Interval" to 0 minutes seeing if that would make it autoupdate, it did but completely slowed the phone down/froze it, etc. because it was just refreshing over and over

so my question is is there a way to set Touchdown to be on real-time (receive emails right away)? ..not sure if theres maybe some setting besides the "Enable Push" that needs to be set

Make sure that "Automatically check for new messages" is UN-checked. You don't need it if you're using "Enable Push".

 

[meanstreet]

Ok, here is what someone is charging $175 on the internet for and you get to stand on my shoulders too see Google's Promised Land for free. I didn't pay for this solution, but figured it without this guy.

The partial fix for native application synching with exchange 2007 with no need to download additional freeware crap is

 

[virtus]

I just saw a post in the 2.0.1 thread that said that they fixed the bug that was preventing attachments from being downloaded through SSL! I confirmed that I can now download attachments with SSL selected.

So far I haven't noticed any other fixes - subfolders do not automatically update and they haven't added signatures yet.

 

[jlund]

My exchange is working pretty seamlessly (I use LiveOffice as a hosted exchange server), so my syncing is perfect...

... My issues are:

1) Lack of ability to add a signature
2) Lack of ability to Accept/Decline Meeting Invitations
3) Lack of ability to sync with Tasks from Outlook

I know that it has been said before, but for me, once these three issues get solved, the Droid will be complete.

Please Google/Motorola pay attention to what we are asking for and give us a fix! These are basic functional components that shouldn't have been overlooked in the first place.

 

[virtus]

Thanks for the comment - I agree totally.

Regarding the signature, a possible workaround is to add a signature at the Exchange Server level. This causes Exchange Server to append a signature to all of your outgoing emails. Talk to your IT dept and see if they will set it up for you.

It's not as flexible or elegant, but might be a decent quick fix.

 

[xanthias]

My exchange is working pretty seamlessly (I use LiveOffice as a hosted exchange server), so my syncing is perfect...

... My issues are:

1) Lack of ability to add a signature
2) Lack of ability to Accept/Decline Meeting Invitations
3) Lack of ability to sync with Tasks from Outlook

I know that it has been said before, but for me, once these three issues get solved, the Droid will be complete.

Please Google/Motorola pay attention to what we are asking for and give us a fix! These are basic functional components that shouldn't have been overlooked in the first place.

An earlier post in this thread indicated you can indeed accept/decline appointments - you just have to do it from the calendar (where they have been populated "tentatively"). Have you tried that?

Also, this thread - http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid/26307-email-signature-droid.html - indicates you can go into settings for the email client and where it says 'name', you can enter a signature that will appear.

 

[xigxag]

I was able to get Exchange connected without problems on my Droid. Today, added a second Exchange account that we use for a shared inbox as well. Very cool and surprisingly easy. Would like to have tasks and notes, but I hope they will be incorporated in future releases.

The one thing that I can't figure out is accessing additional Exchange contact lists. We keep separate contact lists on SharePoint that we connect to Outlook. I thought this was all handled client side initially (Outlook <-> SharePoint), but turns out it does add these lists onto the Exchange profile. Another user at work with an iPhone has access to these additional SharePoint contact lists automatically after connecting to Exchange with ActiveSync. Any ideas on how to get these on the Droid?