Hi JE,

Thanks for posting here.

For the description, I understand the issue is that users in one site
continuously received error message "Requesting data from the Microsoft
Exchange Server" while VPN to the server. If I am off base, please don't
hesitate to let me know.

The error message indicates a connection performance issue. The network
connection performance is determined by two major factors: connection
speed and latency. RPC needs high bandwidth. Many factors can cause this
type of message. Let us follow the steps below to trouble shoot the issue:

I.    Please first check that you have configured the network correctly. Make
sure your client in remote side can access DC and GC smoothly and there is
no trouble with DNS resolution.

II. What is your network topology? Could you describe more information
about the network topology? Is it site to site VPN or client to side VPN
between the problematic remote site and the exchange server side?

Please ensure proper binding order of the network adapter cards on the
server or client computers in the remote site. Generally the VPN network
card should be at the top. You can check as follows:

a. Right-click the My Network Place and click Properties to open Network
Connections page.
b. Click Advanced in the menu and click Advanced Settings in dropdown list.
c. Under the Adapters and Bindings tab page put VPN network card at the top
in Advanced Settings page.

III.    Please also verify the following settings to see if it helps:

1. Change the Timeout of the Cancelable RPC Dialog:

A. On the tools menu, click E-mail account.
B. Click View or change existing email account and click Next.
C. Select the Exchange Server account and click Change button.
D. Click "More Settings" button.
E. The last checkbox in the dialog is used to adjust the timeout. The
default value is 5 seconds even though the dialog may show a value of 30
seconds. Change the value to anything other than 30 seconds and click the
apply button.

Related information:

Microsoft Outlook 2002 Performance Tuning
http://www.microsoft.com/office/outlook/evaluation/performance.asp

2. Disable Instant messaging in Outlook 2002.

A. On the Tools menu, click Options.
B. On the Others tab, clear the "Enable Instant messaging in Microsoft
Outlook" check box.

3. Disable "Software Compression" on the VPN connection.

A. Open Network and Dial-up Connections.
B. Right-click the VPN connection and click Properties.
C. On the Network Tab, click Settings.
D. Uncheck "Enable software compression".

4. Refer to the following Knowledge Base articles to find out the proper
MTU, and configure it in registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\Current Control
Set\Services\Tciip\Parameters\Interfaces\<GUID>
Value name: MTU
Value type: DWORD

159211 Diagnoses and Treatment of Black Hole Routers
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=159211

314825 How to Troubleshoot Black Hole Router Issues
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=314825

5. Recreate e-mail profile:

Please remove all the Outlook Profile, make sure Outlook is closed. And
then create the outlook profile refer to the following article:

How to create a new e-mail profile in Outlook 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=829918

6. Update the host file - The hosts file is located in the following
directory:

winnt\system32\drivers\etc

Edit the hosts file and add the following entries:

A. IP and host (NetBIOS) name of the Exchange 2000 Server
B. IP and FQDN of the Exchange 2000 Server

Then clear the DNS cache by running the following from a command prompt:

ipconfig /flushdns

7. What is the version of the outlook of users? Please install the latest
Outlook update:

If it is outlook xp, please check the following articles:
308880 OL2002: You Cannot Connect to a VPN Over an Existing Dial-up
Connection on Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308880

307841 OFFXP: How to Obtain the Latest Office XP Service Pack
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=307841

8. Try using another ISP and see if it helps. Many cases indicated that the
issue may be caused by ISP.

Additional information:

293650 OL2002: Changing Outlook Cancelable RPC Progress Dialog Behavior
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=293650

325930 XCCC: How to Troubleshoot Connectivity Issues That Are Caused by RPC
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=325930

163576 XGEN: Changing the RPC Binding Order
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=163576

If the issue persists, please help me collect the following information for
analyze:

1.    Does the issue appear on all computers, or some specific computer in the
remote site? Please capture a screen shot of the error message and send to
me for analyze. My working mailbox: v-yanniw@microsoft.com

2.    Use OWA (http://servername/exchange) to access their mailboxes. Can the
mailboxes be accessed? I also recommend you access their mailboxes on the
exchange server by using (http://localhost/exchange), what is the result?
This allows us to know if this is a client side issue or a server side
issue.

3.    When did the issue first occur? Did it begin as soon as VPN connection
is setup first time?

4.    Please execute the following commands on the exchange server, one client
computer in the remote side and one computer in other remote side where
there is no such issue happens. And attach the output file to me.

netdiag > c:\netdiag.txt
dcdiag > c:\dcdiag.txt
ipconfig /all > c:\ipconfig.txt

5. Please collect the exchange mps reports on the exchange server, one
problematic client computer in the remote side and one computer in other
remote side where there is no such issue happens.

- To collect Exchange MPS Report

1) Please download the MPSRPT_Exchange.EXE from the following link and then
run this tool to gather some information from the problematic computer:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=cebf3c7c-7ca5-408f-
88b7-f9c79b7306c0&displaylang=en

2) Double-click on the MPSRPT_Exchange.EXE file.
[Note] This process may take some time; however, it will not have a
negative effect on the performance.

3) A CAB file will be generated in the
%systemroot%\MPSReports\Setup\Reports\Cab directory called
%COMPUTERNAME%_MPSReports.CAB. The CAB file will contain the reports
generated by the MPS Reporting Tool.

Please kindly send these log files to my working mailbox:
v-natliu@microsoft.com

I appreciate your time. I am happy to be of assistance to you and look
forward to your reply.

Sincerely,
Jenny Wu, MCSE 2000/2003, MCSA 2000/2003, MCDBA, MCSD
Microsoft Online Partner Support

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Thanks for the response!

I tried your suggestions, unfortunately nothing worked. Here's the details:

First the VPN is a hardware VPN, so there's nothing really to configure on
the clients, only the router itsself, so I didn't need to try to change any
of the software VPN settings.

All of the remotes use the same model router with the same settings (except
for the fixed IPs etc...) and no other site is having the problem.

Next, each PC has an entry for the DC and another remote server in the
lmhosts file and there is no problem with name resolution. Pings etc.. by
name all work fine. The network connection to the main network looks good.
They have no trouble with file access, or access to an ASP ap that is running
on an IIS server at the main location.

I changed the timeout on the email account to 45 seconds.

I disabled Instant Messaging in Outlook.

I followed the instructions in the troubleshooting black hole routers in
Windows 2000 article. I found that the MTU should be set at 1368. The ping -f
-l 1340 succeeded, but the -l 1341 did not so I set it to 1340+28=1368. This
didn't help.

The router at the remote site was originally set at MTU 1500 (Automatic)
like the other remotes. I reset it to 1428 to match the router at the main
location. I tried it both with and without the MTU on the client PC set.
Eventually, I left the MTU of the router set to 1428, and removed the setting
on the client completely.

I flushed the DNS on the client.

The client with the problem that I was testing on is running Office XP SP3.

I can't change ISP's and, all sites including the main site use the same
ISP. The remotes have 3 MBPS connections, the main has a 5. I've also had the
ISP check the connection twice since this began.

I'm going to email you the results of the MPSRPT_Exchange from the client
with the problem. I still need to get out to a remote that isn't experiencing
the problem and run it. As soon as I do, I'll email that to you.

I hope that this additional information helps.

Again, thanks very much for the help!