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Warning:

This article is more than 45 days old. Given the speed at which the technology world moves, this post is probably somewhat out of date. Please keep this in mind when reading the post. If this is a tutorial, please check whether you are using the same versions mentioned in the article.

Outlook unable to connect to Exchange 2003 with 0x8004011D error?

Outlook recently stopped connecting to my Exchange 2003 server with an 0x8004011D error. There were no errors in the server's event logs, and oddly enough all web-based access worked (Outlook Web Access, RPC over HTTPS).

As it turns out, the fix was pretty easy - you just need to delete the Exchange profile on the machine. (Not, as mentioned in comments below, the USER profile - just the EXCHANGE profile).

The easiest way to do this is to right-click on the Outlook icon in the Start Menu and open the Properties window. (You should see the screen below).

 

Click on the "Show Profiles" button and you will open the window below.

Then click "Remove". The next time you run Outlook you will see the initial setup wizard again.

Note: You have to delete the entire profile - if you delete just the mail server from the profile the problem doesn't go away. Hope that saves someone else some time and energy...

ETA: You may also be able to do this by running Outlook with the /firstrun switch - though I haven't confirmed whether this actually deletes the profile and resolves the issue. I haven't been able to reproduce this issue since on either Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007.

Only published comments... Dec 02 2005, 06:28 PM by Tim
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Richard Robinson said:

When you say delete profile here, are you referring to the Windows User or are you referring to the Exchange Profile!!!
March 10, 2006 6:10 AM
   

Tim said:

Sorry that wasn't clear - you need to delete the EXCHANGE profile not the Windows user.
March 10, 2006 6:55 AM
 

Nenad Vijatov said:

Check Storage Groups on Exchange server, Storage Group may be unmounted. Mount Storage Group, this may solve the problem.
July 21, 2006 12:01 AM
 

Thomas Hansen said:

In our case we had to delete the user profile on his local computer. He was having troubles connecting to an exchange server through CSG and Advanced Gateway Client.
October 11, 2006 12:53 AM
 

Kamran Rasheed said:

Deleting the exchange profile didnt work!! I still received the same error i was getting before but WITHOUT the cached emails which I had previously...THANKS a bunch!!

December 28, 2006 6:39 AM
   

Tim said:

Kamran - sorry to hear that didn't solve your problem. Yes, deleting the exchange profile will (obviously) delete your locally cached files.

What version of Outlook and Exchange are you using?

December 28, 2006 7:32 AM
 

Holly said:

I am having the same issue - as of yesterday afternoon i had 4 workstations suddenly stop connecting to hosted 2003 server. I have backed up files on one workstation - and deleted the profile - but now it is unable to connect to resolve name. Any suggestions?

January 16, 2007 7:12 AM
   

Tim said:

Holly, are you able to ping those machines by name? (Are you using NetBIOS name on the hosted server? Or is this HTTP/S traffic?)

It could be a firewall/connectivity issue, not something specific to Outlook.

February 6, 2007 7:58 AM
 

Ed said:

This is an Outlook bug. The only safe workaround is to reboot :-)

February 9, 2007 7:26 AM
 

breonwei said:

Has anyone managed to solve this problem? I'm having issue in connecting my outlook 2007 to exchange 2003. I can ping the exchange server IP with reply reponse; and I'm able to connect to web based exchange 2003.

I'm using Vista Business. Is it something to do with my OS? Or is it with my network card? I'm using Realtek 8168 + atheros AR5005G. You help is much appreciated.

February 22, 2007 12:42 AM
 

Olman said:

Same issue:

- OWA works fine

- Outlook 2003/2007 stop connecting (RPC over HTTPS) from outside our network.

March 28, 2007 12:25 PM
 

Cathy said:

I too have had this problem, I am running Office 2003 and Office 2007 concurrently on Win XP Pro. Outlook is 2007.I get this error when trying to connect remotley through Checkpoint VPN. Sorry guys but have tried all your tips above and have found the only solution is to not to update Office 2003 at all. There appears to be a update in Office 2003 that is causing this problem, but have not narrowed it down yet. Just completed gazillionth installation and have not run updates for Office 2003 - problem no longer exists. Outlook 2007 connects perfectly to Exchange 2003. Not sure if it is relevant to you guys, but hope it helps.

April 20, 2007 4:34 PM
 

jamiec said:

Hi All, i am having the same problem, yesterday i had a BT adsl acount but my new livebox from Orange turned up, so i plugged it in and was up and running on the internet in just a few seconds. The problem i have is that now my laptop is unable to talk to my company exchange server and is giving the same error 0x8004011D. It was working fine 5mins before i changed to orange on the bt line, so can not understand why this should happen.

May 30, 2007 10:47 AM
 

b buck said:

Hey all, I, too, am having this issue. xp pro client  with Office 2007 and remote access vpn. VPN connection is fine, can ping the exchange server (2003) by name or IP and can connect to shares, remote desktop etc but outlook 2007 will not connect. Previous setup using same vpn and outlook 2003 worked fine. local connection in the office works fine but any remote connection fails. thinking about uninstalling office 2007 and going back to 2003. any other suggestions??

May 30, 2007 1:59 PM
 

Russ Green said:

I'm having the same problem.....I was connected to my work VPN just fine from my girlfriends BT broadband connection...now I'm home on my Orange connection I can get the VPN and OWA but Outlook 2007 throws an 0x8004011D error trying to connect to Exchange 2003

June 25, 2007 5:17 AM
 

Geof G said:

I have this error on a larger network, so far 3 accounts affected. The install is a clean office 2003 with or without transforms on XPSP2 machines.

I made every change possible to the client/mail and got nothing. I changed the user to Enterprise Admin to test the rights and all worked fine, no error. Removed the elevated rights and the issue returned.

Still working on a solution here.

June 27, 2007 4:23 PM
 

Robert said:

I just upgraded to Outlook /Office 2007. Remote connections to Exchange over VPN worked fine with the earlier version of Outlook. Now I'm getting the same 0x8004011D error. It appears to be an Outlook 2007 issue.  all other connectivity back to the corporate network via VPN remains fine.

July 6, 2007 8:08 AM
 

Jason said:

This worked great for me. This is the second time this has happened, each time after a computer rename. I do use the cache, and that was quickly rebuilt once I reconnected to Exchange without issue. Thanks!!

July 9, 2007 2:49 PM
 

Cosmic said:

I changed the Regional Setting of the PC to match that of the Exchange Server, restarted my PC and voila! The 0x8004011D  error was gone.

July 19, 2007 4:26 AM
 

Dave said:

We just figured this out...

Deleted the Exchange profile.  Removed the settings and ran thru the wizard again.  When that failed, we selected the manula configuration (which looks like the old 2003 Outlook configuration screen), and that worked!

July 25, 2007 11:31 AM
 

Frank said:

I did what Dave did, and it worked!

July 30, 2007 5:37 PM
 

Botched said:

This may be a server side issue.  An exhange server can only have a maximum of 32 mapi connections (mapi is the protocol Outlook uses to connect to Exchange).  It Outlook for what ever reason does not close its sessions correctly more and more remain open.  Look on the event viewer on the Exchange server/cluster and if you see event 9646 for an effected user you will need to force the open sessions to close.  The easiest is to reboot the exchange server, not always an available option in 24/7 systems.  The other ways don't fit in a comments box, Google them!

November 5, 2007 4:47 AM
 

Amy said:

Botched was absolutely correct!!! Thank you!! We spent hours doing all the other crap. All we had to do was reboot the server!!

November 14, 2007 4:08 PM
 

frog said:

I was able to resolve the problem by editing my Outlook profile and disabling Exchange Cached Mode.  Quit and relaunch Outlook and I was back in business.  I then reenabled cached mode and relaunched again.  All is well for me now.

November 19, 2007 1:35 PM
 

David said:

Windows 2003 SP2 introduced a feature called scalable networking. Disabling it immediately fixed the problem of Outlook clients

using too many sessions. To disable without rebooting enter the following at a command prompt:

netsh int ip set chimney diabled

To permanently disable (reboot required), set the following registry value to 0:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip\Parameters\EnableTCPChimney.

November 30, 2007 4:58 PM
 

William said:

Hi David, i have the same problem, can you post the later half of the Tcpip\Parameters\.......? I did not get the directory.

December 7, 2007 5:22 PM
 

Paraglider said:

Look if the name of your exchange-server resolves, if not look in to you dns settings.

January 31, 2008 6:46 PM
 

Steveo said:

As Amy and Botched said, try booting the server!  I spent hours with all of the things mentioned above.  A reboot solved the problem in a few minutes. Small company - nobody even noticed a brief outage :-)

February 26, 2008 12:42 AM