November 14, 2016

Exchange Server 2013 - EAC/OWA is not accessible

Problem:
With Exchange Server 2013, there are certain scenarios wherein we might face issues to access Outlook Web Apps and Exchange Admin Center. This might be due to lack of permission or invalid configuration of Exchange Server 2013.

Such errors are as -
  1.  "400 Bad Request Error".
  2. "500 internal server error".
  3. "Sorry, something went wrong".
  4. "404 file not found".  

And for these kind of errors, there are certain remedies that can be followed to resolve.

We faced such issues after re-installing Exchange Sever 2013 on a server. After spending few hours, we've taken various steps from different sources to resolve the errors, And here in this article, the possible solutions are specified that can be applied to resolve it.

Solution - 1 [Check Account Permission]:

Service account that is being used for administrating Exchange Server, should be member of "Organization Management", "Records Management" and "Recipient Management" groups. To check this, run below command in Exchange Management Shell.

Get-RoleGroupMember "Organization Management"
Get-RoleGroupMember "Records Management"
Get-RoleGroupMember "Recipient Management"

If, Exchange Admin user account is not in results, then, just add Exchange Admin account in above mentioned groups in Active Directory.

Open your ECP/OWA URL in browser to verify whether issue is resolved or not. If not, then, proceed further with below steps.

Solution -2 [Check .NET Framework for Application Pools]:

Check that OWA and ECP Application Pools are running on .NET Framework v4.0. It may be incomplete installation of framework that causes the error.

If this is the case then, try running below command as Administrator in Command Prompt:

%windir%\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -i and then restart IIS.

Error should get resoled now, if not then follow solution -3 as below.

Solution -3 [Rebuild OWA interface]: 

  1. Login to your Exchange 2013 CAS server.
  2. Start the Exchange Management Shell.
  3. Navigate to Exchange 2013 binaries location, for example:"C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin".
  4. Execute the UpdateCas.ps1 PowerShell script to rebuild OWA interface.
  5. Now, execute UpdateConfigFiles.ps1 PowerShell script. [It is recommended to execute this PowerShell script after installing latest cumulative update of Microsoft Exchange 2013].
Ok, now, it's time to check whether the error is resolved or not. If you are still facing the error then follow the below steps.

Solution -4 [Delete Canary Data]:

  • For detailed information on canary data and for guidelines to delete canary data, kindly refer Microsoft Article.
Now, if you are still struggling with the errors, then, you can proceed with next step, re-creating AD schema and system mailbox attributes.

Solution - 5 [Recreate System mailbox attributes and AD schema]:

Next step is to proceed with creating new virtual directories, if you are still struggling with the errors.

Solution - 6 [Create new virtual directories for ECP and OWA]:

Now, it's time to create new virtual directories for ECP and for OWA. So, as first step, we will remove ECP virtual directories with below command in Exchange Management Shell.

  • Remove-EcpVirtualDirectory -Identity "BRExchange1\ecp (Default Web Site)"
  • Remove-EcpVirtualDirectory -Identity "BRExchange2\ecp (exchange back end)"

Now, we will create new virtual directories with below command. Here we have to specify internal and external URL for ECP.

  • New-EcpVirtualDirectory -Server BRExchange1 -InternalUrl "https://BRExchange1.mydomain.com/ecp" -ExternalUrl "https://ecp.mydomain.com" -WebSiteName "Default Web Site"
  • New-EcpVirtualDirectory -Server BRExchange2 -InternalUrl "https://BRExchange2.mydomain.com/ecp" -ExternalUrl "https://ecp.mydomain.com" -WebSiteName "Exchange Back End"

In second step, we will remove OWA virtual directories as below. Below steps is only required if your facing above error while opening mailbox.

  • Remove-OwaVirtualDirectory  -Identity "BRExchange1\owa (Default Web Site)"
  • Remove-OwaVirtualDirectory  -Identity "BREXchange2\owa (exchange back end)"

Now, we will create new virtual directories with below command. Here we have to specify internal and external URL for OWA.

  • New-OwaVirtualDirectory -Server BRExchange1 -InternalUrl "https://BRExchange1.mydomain.com/owa" -ExternalUrl "https://mail.mydomain.com/owa" -WebSiteName "Default Web Site"
  • New-OwaVirtualDirectory -Server BRExchange2 -InternalUrl "https://BRExchange2.mydomain.com/owa" -ExternalUrl "https://mail.mydomain.com/owa" -WebSiteName "Default Web Site"

Hope the possible solutions listed here help you out to resolve the Exchange 2013 - EAC/OWA errors.

If you have any questions you can reach out our SharePoint Consulting team here.

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