The below is an error which an Exchange administrator brought up on an Exchange 2010 engagement. They were trying to use the Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity cmdlet to validate the Exchange infrastructure. However, the cmdlet was not working as expected. In the below image you can see that it starts to perform the test, and then errors out.
Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity -TrustAnySSLCertificate | Format-Table -AutoSize
If we drill into the Error column, which is initially truncated we can see that an error message was indeed logged. The error was:
Error : Exchange ActiveSync command Ping failed with error code 1.
Protocol log:
One of the things that we need to execute the test, is the extest mailbox. Normally it would complain if the mailbox was not present. Let us double check that there is indeed one present.
Get-Mailbox extest*
That’s a big fat yes. Next let’s look at the virtual ActiveSyncDevice that is used in the background to perform the test.
Get-ActiveSyncDevice -Mailbox extest*
Oh dear – note that the device is quarantined *, and this is due to a global policy. Whatever could have caused this?
Well, this is something that we already covered in Impact Of Changing ActiveSync DefaultAccessLevel. The Exchange admin changed the default access level to quarantined and as the name implies this changes the default access level. Who knew! This also impacts ActiveSync Test devices as well.
We need to unblock the device, to allow it to function.
Allowing Test-ActiveSyncConnectivity To Run
We need to allow the virtual ActiveSync device to be used. This can happen in a couple of different ways. The Exchange admin could have used the script to grandfather in existing devices, or created a device access rule to allow it to connect or added it as an individual allowed device.
For example:
New-ActiveSyncDeviceAccessRule -Characteristic DeviceType -QueryString "TestActiveSyncConnectivity" -AccessLevel Allow
We can then check the status again using PowerShell or ECP.
Now we are back in business!
Cheers,
Rhoderick
* – Funnily enough I was watching Inferno on the plane this morning, and the etymology of the word was mentioned. Quarantine coming from Italian quarantina giorni. This has a literal meaning of "space of forty days”. Venice would make ships wait for 40 days before allowing them to land.
