Outlook disconnecting with multiple accounts in 1 profile

[Scott Kardash]

I have a client who is running Exchange 2013 and wants at least 12 email accounts in a single Outlook profile. When we build a single profile for him, most of the accounts show either "limited connectivity" or "disconnected" from the exchange server.

We have tried both Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2016 on his desktop and rebuilt profiles several times with the same result.

Our current work-around is to split his accounts into 3 profiles (4 per profile), which works, but is sub-optimal for the client - and quite frustrating for both of us.

A couple of the email accounts are large (14GB and 17GB) so we have asked him to clean up unwanted mail and we'll archive older mail to see if that helps once the size of the email boxes have been reduced.

Has anyone experienced this problem before or does anyone have some ideas about how to troubleshoot it? We have burnt lots of hours trying to solve this issue with a few different techs and got nowhere.

Any ideas or input would be greatly appreciated.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Have you done the registry edits to raise the internal limit above 10?
http://www.slipstick.com/exchange/maximum-number-exchange-accounts-outlook-profile/

Notice the defaults for 2010 and 2013 are both lower than the 12 you want....they support more..but the defaults are lower.

However...I'd also strongly consider "resources"....
For a user with multiple Outlook accounts open....I'd want a pretty strong computer with at least 8 gigs of RAM....I'd probably shoot for 16. I'd want Outlook 2013. Maybe 16. But 2013 is a little better with "loose" connections than 2010 was..although 2010 wasn't bad. I can't stand '07 and all its glitches.

Internet connection is also something to consider.
And antivirus is something to consider. Some AV programs are intrusive with e-mail scanning (smtp/imap/mapi)....as a "test"...try uninstalling the AV and seeing how things run for a bit (just don't to surfing or opening e-mails..just use this a a test to see how Outlook responds and moves around when open).

 

[Scott Kardash]

Yes, I should have mentioned, we did the registry hack to allow up to 15 accounts per profile.

The resources tip is definitely worth exploring. He is only running with 4GB of RAM. He prefers Outlook 2010 over all other versions, so if we can get that working for him, it would be ideal.

His internet connection is running at 14Mbps, but the connection is with an onsite Exchange server over the LAN, so it shouldn't be an issue.

Yesterday I uninstalled MS Defender and installed the Ninja RMM (to try it out) which uses Vipre.

I will see if we can eliminate the issue by using a higher spec'd machine and also see if the AV is interfering.

Some great input...many thanks.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Ahh OK...onsite Exchange. So true...internet pipe not part of the equation.
How many users on that Exchange total? Wondering how the Exchange server is for resources.
But yeah..just 4 gigs...I'd wonder about resources running anything normal...not to mention pushing a heavy app with more weight.

MSE/Defender is fine with Outlook. I don't like Vipre.

 

[Scott Kardash]

There are only 4 users connecting to the Exchange server, but each has a few accounts. Exchange is running on a Hyper-V VM alongside a domain controller on another VM. From what we can see, the server resources look OK. (It is a new HP server).

 

[Scott Kardash]

In case anyone else comes across this problem, we finally solved this issue by adding an entry into the registry on the Exchange 2013 server. We added ‘Maximum Allowed Sessions Per User' and set it to 200. Apparently the default is 32.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

That's an interesting one there..thanks for replying with the solution that worked for your situation. Granted...unusual situation, doubt I'll run across it but hopefully if I do I'll remember this post.