OWA 2003 Not Completely Loading

Ok.. it's been 2 days and I can't figure this out.

Fresh install of Windows 2003 Standard, and Exchange 2003. All is working fine except for OWA 2003. I'm certain, beyond much doubt, that it is a permissions issue with IUSR. I've proven this by assignint the Admin account as the anonymous account, and everything worked fine. Also, every request to the \ExchWeb folder is returning 401 errors.

I've tried giving IUSR all kinds of access, but nothing seems to work... and yes I've tried MSoft.... http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=280823

That KB article describes exactly what's happening, but it did not fix the problem. Below is a screenshot...

I think I figured it out... somehow the IUSR account password that is "controlled" by windows was messed up. I created my own password and used it instead and all seems fine now. Hopefully it lasts..

--update
I take it back... may not be working

We just recently had this issue with SBS 2003 Premium and the solution is as follows:

In IIS the ExchWeb virtual directory must be configured to allow anonymous access under Directory Security -> Authentication and access control.

The problem is that something (ISA?) that gets installed changes the IUSR_<SERVERNAME> password or stops Windows from managing the IUSR_<SERVERNAME> password correctly. If you change this accounts password and specific the new password in this location that should fix your problem.

So you are right Atreyu.

I had the same problem. I had to place a support call to Microsoft and I even stumped the support tech at first. He did some research and found that there is a hotfix that has to be applied. Go to http://support.microsoft.com/?id=831464 and download the fix. Hope this helps. It solved my problem.

Thanks for the replies... I'll check out that hotfix.

Thanks again...

First off, the hotfix did absolutely nothing, so, I wouldn't bother with it. What I did was open computer management on the webserver, noted under the Default web site, which virtual directories under there were allowing anonymous access using the IUSR account. Then, I changed the IUSR password under local users and groups in computer management. I then went back into each virtual directory in IIS which used IUSR anonymous access and reset the password under the directory security tab, authentication and access control, edit.

OUILA! It worked. Why the hell it broke in the first place, I don't know. Where is Microsoft on this? Nothing to be found on their site whatsoever.

Good luck, hope it works for you.

For IIS there are two accounts, the IUSR_<MachineName> and IWAM_<MachineName>.

So you'll need to check your NTFS permissions for both user accounts, and you may wish/need to check the password assignment (manual vs. automatic) for that account as well.

Good luck, let me know if I can help further.

I had the exact same issue as Atreyu and found that all the comments were very successful in resolving the issue.
I now find however that when i try to login to my default web site that i am asked for a username and password. I'm assuming that this is due to changing the IUSR_<SERVERNAME> account password, but i have updated it everywhere that i can think of. It is possible to enter the site by putting in my username password, but this isn't very handy?
Can anyone suggest where else I might need to update the password? So far I've updated it in :
Active Directory Computers and Users
Exchange (Virtual Directory)
Exchweb (Virtual Directory)
Default Web Site
Websites (Folder)
and made sure that the NT permissions are set for C:\inetpub\wwwroot

Any help greatly appreciated.

Do you have multiple domain controllers? Has replication occured?

No multiple DCs, i'm running SBS 2003.
Any suggestions?

Had this problem for 3 weeks, exactly as identified in the first post.

Fixed this by :

Computer mnagement,services and applications,internet information services,web sites.

Right click on default web site and click on properties. Click on Directory Security tab. Click Edit in the authentication and access control. Select enable anon access and change the account to the administrator account. Type in password as appropriate. Click OK on bottom the apply. Then go back into the same section again and take off the tick to allow anon access. When you click ok and apply you will get a two boxes one after the other which will ask you to apply settings to the objects in the default web site. Select all to apply in both cases.

Try OWA now.

The only other thing is that I applied the microsoft fix mentioned in an earlier post.

.

That worked just as advertised! Still I am confused. MS in KB 280823 clearly states that OWA requires Anonymous Access yet using this method we do not. I like to understand the changes I make to my server so that I can fix future problems. Can anyone explain this?

I was working this same exact issue. I have found a solution, but the install instructions were incomplete (see below).

BTW, I went thru all the MS described solutions for the OWA loading issue. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=280823 nothing worked. The reset HighWaterMarks procedures ended up elimimating the OWA form login screens.

I installed the Microsoft Patch http://support.microsoft.com/?id=831464. The description of this download was noted as a fix for the OWA loading issue in the SBS2003 downloads, but in the patch description symptoms were less descriptive -- but go ahead and install it.

However, after you install this patch - you must ALSO follow the workaround instructions in the same patch to **clear the server cache**.

Install patch 831464. then:

To delete the cached files on the server, follow these steps:

1. Open the IIS Temporary Compressed Files folder.
The default path is %windows%\IIS Temporary Compressed Files.
2. Delete all the files in this folder.
3. At a command prompt, enter IISReset to restart all IIS services.

Now OWA works! I went out and joined this forum as a result.

One more for solution for those (like me) that have TREND MICRO OFFICE SCAN installed on your server.

Thanks to Marc Ozin over at webservertalk.com. This fixed my OWA loading problem immediately. Don't forget to clear your browser cache before testing.


<Taken from forum discussion>

I had a loooong trawl around and finally found a fix that works.
You don't by any chance have Trend Office Scan installed on your
exchange server?
If so, Office Scan might have configured MIME types on the Default Web
site and the Exchange virtudal directories.

It will add the value of .* application/octect-stream

The default is to have no entries in the MIME Types setting.

What you need to do is remove the MIME Types value that has been added
on the Default Web site as well as the Exchange, ExchAdmin, Public,
Exchange-oma, and ExchWeb virtual directories.

In IIS, right click on the properties of the website/virtudal
directory.
Go to the HTTP Headers tab.
Click the MIME Types button
Highlight and then remove the " .* application/octect-stream" entry.

Stop and start the default web site.

Don't forget when testing to see if it works you'll need to clear any
web cache/temporaty internet files to make sure your browser pulls the
files from the server.

Anyhow This solved my problem so I hope it works for you.

All the best

Marc

<end of excerpt>

Good luck to everyone. This one frustrated the $&%*# out of me for days!

I got my "Loading" Issue fixed using this kb from MS...
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;910119&sd=rss&spid=1773

I guess I missed a patch on my front end server...copied the folder for now. Patching this weekend.
Hope this helps someone.

Donald

That last one did it for us....figures it would have to be something simple!!!!

Thanks for the info!


Mike

donald_allan's posting also helped us. For strange reasons, front-end server did not get 911829 hotfix while back-end did, so finally problem was fixed by installing it Front-End server.

Ajay Kulsh

I'm experiencing the same problem here where there is an message that continually says that it's "Loading..." but never finishes. This is different than what I'm reading in the previous posts where OWA was working fine until one day it just stopped working. It seems that the previous posts dealt with a the problem where it didn't work after some installation or upgrade. There were no changes to the computer and no changes to the server. Anyone have any ideas on the possible cause?
[Edited by big5guy on 2006-06-28 00:20:46]

wow, Allan's help totally helped fix my issue.
thanks dude, I spent all day trying to fix the issue although I sort of created the problem.

I ghosted the hard disk of my BE exchange server onto a bigger hard disk and after starting up the server, everything worked fine except for OWA and I got the OWA Loading... issue.

After copying the latest exchweb folder over from the BE to the FE server, it worked again!

Thanks to Allan. Everything started working immediately once the folder is copied from the BE to FE server. I believe the problem may have been created by installing hot fixes on the BE server before the FE server. That may be why Microsoft stressed that exchange service packs need to be installed on the FE server before the BE server.

Victor