Category Archives: ABS

ABS Updates take too long

05 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by in ABS, ABServer, Address Book, AddressBook Service, CsClientPolicy, GAL, WebSearch

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GAL or Server Based Search?

There is always going to be that one person that gets annoyed with how long it takes before the AB is updated with new information from AD…

There are some great blogs on how to speed up the process of Updating the GAL.
Lync will query AD based on the CsUserReplicationConfiguration – ReplicationCycleInterval. By default this is set to 1 minute.


The ABService will then look for updates in the RTC Database based on CsAddressBookConfiguration – SynchronizePollingInterval (default set to 5 minutes)


The Lync Client in turn will Download the updated AD Files triggered at login and initiated by a random time between 1 – 30 minutes. This can be forced to immediate with the RegKey GALInitialDownloadDelay set to 0

The problem is that once the Client is actually running it needs to keep checking for updates. This is done by another random timer between 1 – 60 minutes…Aargghh!!

If you want “Real Time” AddressBook responses you will have to move away from using the GAL and instead query the Lync Server via Web directly.

Chang the CsClientPolicy – AddressBookAvailability to WebSearchOnly (default is WebSearchAndFileDownload)

Set-CsClientPolicy -AddressBookAvailability WebSearchOnly


Rebooted the client to load the new Client Policy, checked in configuration information which now states under Gal or Server based Search: Server Based Search

Once the change has been made you will notice that the Lync User no longer gets the error that the Address Book is updating and search results may be affected as the query is directly to the Lync Web Services.

NOTE
If a user has had a number change BOTH the old and new number shows on the user drop down list for dialing, HOWEVER only the OLD number shows on the Contact Card until the 1:30 AM Sync has run…

Go figure….

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Troubleshooting Address Book Service issues

17 Wednesday Oct 2012

Posted by in ABS, AddressBook Service, Communicator, GAL

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The culprit.


 Generally speaking the ABS can be problematic from a client or server perspective. I usually start with the client, working my way up from there.

Ask yourself, self…
Is the Cannot Syncronize the Address Book error experienced by all or just onefew individualy?

If its just a few it may be a local issue

Simply to delete the local GalContacts.db and GalContacts.db.idx files. You could then wait and after a raondom time from 1 – 30 minutes (default 30 minutes) you should get a new GAL.
If not check to see if the client can navigate to the ABS URL’s (Seen from configuration information)- often been the problem

What if its Server Related?
The client side GAL files are downloded from the Lync FE IIS. The URL is visible from the Communicator Configuration information (SHIFT + Rightclick icon).

There will be an internal and external URL depending on where the client is connecting from. The URLS look similar to this:-

URL Internal From Server https://FE.lynclab.local:443/abs/handler
URL External From Server https://FE.lynclab.co.nz:443/abs/handler

Firstly you can test to see if you can reach these. URL needs to be valid and reachable (proxy issues?etc)
Both sites should present you with an authentication Required box asking for username and password, if you see this the URL is working.

The data located in the backend of the url is situated on the Lync Share that was created during the install process. Ensure that the share is still valid by navigating to it from one of the clients (clients should have read access).

If for some reason the file share is no longer shared or the rights to the share and even the file structure in the share has changed…
You can remedy this by re-publishing the Topology followed by running the Deployment Wizard.

The Lync share needs to have the following 3 files:-


The time and date stamp on these indicates when they were initially created.
The file structure ia as below.


The second level 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 folder should be time stamped with the last time the AddressBookService was updated (with approximatly 5 minutes added to it).

You could run a Update-CsAddressbook PS command and after about 5 minutes the folder should be updated.

An error I can across recently, the client reported that the “Corporate Address book file appears to be damaged”


Deleting the second level 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 folder removes the corrupt file. Simply running another Update-CsAddressbook PS command will recreate the folder and its contents.

If the IIS bits are misbehaving its probably best not to fiddle with tnem as the rights, paermissions and accounts required are configured by the installer. What you could try is uninstall lync web component module (control pannel > uninstall …), delete web component directory (C:Program FilesMicrosoft Lync Server 2010Web Components) then reinstall web component through lync deployment wizard.

Control Contact Card Attributes

28 Friday Sep 2012

Posted by in ABS, Communicator, contacts, Control Contact Card Attributes

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Lync Server 2010 shows several properties on contact cards within the Lync 2010 client by default. You can customize this by using a Lync Server 2010 Resource Kit Tool.

The screen shot below shows the job title Unified Communications Consultant

We will manipulate the contact card with the Address Book Service Configuration (ABSConfig) tool from the Lync Server 2010 Resource Kit. ABSConfig is an administrative tool that helps administrators customize Address Book Service configuration in Microsoft Lync Server 2010. It also allows Lync Server 2010 administrators to restore the default Address Book Service settings.

You can find it at C:\Program Files\Microsoft Lync Server 2010\ResKit

Here’s how it works.

1.    Run ABSConfig (displays window as below)


2.  Click on the row(s) for the attributes you want to remove from the Address Book, and then click on Delete (on your keyboard) – thats right!!. In my example, I will delete the Title attribute.

3.  Click Apply Changes.

4.  You will get a warning from ABSConfig as follows:


5.  Now run Update-CsAddressBook cmdlet from powershell to force the Address Book server to update.

6.  After the client address book has been refreshed, you’ll notice that the Title is no longer visible for the same contact in the Lync Client.