Category Archives: Skype for Business

Development, Lync, S4B, Skype for Business, Windows

Make sure you have the correct CSP for Your CA

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Got some weird errors on our new Skype for Business server install. After a straight forward install users was unable to login from external and some issues regarding conferences. Skype services seemed to start but ended up running with unknown details when get-windowsservices. Also we had one error in the eventviewer on frontende server.

The most important clue was : CA_Failure: InternalError . So this pointed towards a certificate error. What could be wrong with the CA server (A windows server 2016 Enterprise Root CA).

This was the first time I have seen a ECDSA CSP used. Next was to verify S4B requirements. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/skypeforbusiness/plan-your-deployment/requirements-for-your-environment/environmental-requirement

  • Encryption key lengths of 1024, 2048, and 4096 are supported. Key lengths of 2048 and greater are recommended.
  • The default digest, or hash signing, algorithm is RSA. The ECDH_P256, ECDH_P384, and ECDH_P521 algorithms are also supported.

Once again check CA configuration:

This CA was installed with the ECDSA_P256 CSP, We did not have the option to reinstall/migrate the CA to a supported version, so our workaround was to install a new standalone CA using RSA256 CSP and use this CA to issue certificates for Edge server internal and frontend certificate. (We published the new CA public key to clients using GPO).

After we assigned the new certificates and rebooted it all seems to work OK. The new certs are now RSA256

Lync, S4B, Skype for Business

Upgrade to Skype for Business failed. Error 1603

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Have done several upgrades from Lync 2013 to Skype for Business 2015, so this last one should be no different, but faith had other plans.

Installed topology builder on a new computer and prepared the upgrade process. But when a bit into the upgrade it failed.

Error: Error returned while installing OcsCore.msi(Feature_LocalMgmtStore), code 1603. Error Message: A fatal error occurred during installation. For more details please consult log at C:\Users\paupav\AppData\Local\Temp\Add-OcsCore.msi-Feature_LocalMgmtStore-[2018_10_17][14_05_11].log

As most people know a MSI error of 1603 tells us as much as “An error occurred”. Tried do some reboots and retried, but nothing helped. With no idea of what could possibly be wrong, I was browsing for ideas or hints the usual places: Eventviewer, Windows explorer (free diskspace, files and folders), services, policies, and finally  windows update settings and history.  One clue (except that is was error 1603) there was 1 SfB update installed (probably because I selected the installer to check for updates). Thougt it was strange that there should be one update since I has not yet managed to install any SfB software. 

So simple. Uninstalled the update , rebooted and the upgrade from now on went flawless.

Powershell, S4B, Skype for Business

S4B – Error preparing forest.

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Was installing a Skype for Business server the other day, and the simple task of preparing the forest failed. I am always on the alert when doing Active Directory forest wide tasks as prepare schema and prepare forest, so it is not fun to see error messages during these tasks.

prepareforestWhat now. It is no good feeling to see “Unrecoverable” and “You cannot retry this operation”. But I had to retry, and then there was a slight different error message.

prepareforest2I’ve had errors before, and at those cases the simple thing to do was to change from  “Local domain” to “Domain FQDN” in the “Universal Group Location” dialog box.

prepareforest3

This time there was nothing but lots of scary errors.

I know this domain has several trusts configured, so it looks like the wizard get confused of where to  put these groups. Next step was to run prepare forest from PowerShell so that I was able to provide all this information to the command.

Enable-CsAdForest -GroupDomain s4b.local -GroupDomainController s4b-dc1.s4b.local -GlobalCatalog s4b-dc1.s4b.local

And finally success. The command completed without warnings and errors.

Lync, Lync Client, Office365, S4B, Skype for Business

Unable to create a new Skype meeting from Outlook.

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When trying to create a new Skype meeting from Outlook we get the message “The request failed. Please try again. Make sure that you are signed in to Skype for Business.” skype

First solution was to clear outlook name cache. This solves the problem for a short while.

A better workaround is to disable outlook the use of UCAddin.dll.[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Lync\AddinPreference]
“RecipientResolutionMode”=dword:00000002

Then close and restart Lync/S4B. This is a “bug” in a windows update to the Skype client.

 

Lync, Office365, Skype for Business

Lync Licensed user is not showing up in Lync Admin Center

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Some users was missing in Office 365 Skype admin center. I verified that they had a Skype license plan assigned. Tried to remove and readd – did not help. These users are replicated from on premise to cloud using Azure AD sync. Turned out these users had previously been Lync enabled on on premise Lync server. Compared all ActiveDirectory attributes, and the only one that make any sense was msRTCSIP-DeploymentLocator. msrtcdeployment

The attribute did not have any value that I reacted to when I first saw it, But I cleared the value and ran a sync to O365.

msrtcdeployment2Cleared it by opening the Attribute and pressed Clear button.

After the sync to Azure the user finally appeared in O365 Skype Admin Center.

 

Lync, Lync Client, Outlook, S4B, Skype for Business

KB3101496 and missing “missed calls” log

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Lync2013Latest News March 2016: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3136400 . This is what we also discovere. But users did not want voicemail.  With the patch from February it seems to be solved.         

After you install KB3101496 missed phone calls are  no longer displayed in Lync 2013/Skype. All other Lync functionality is ok. You will be notified about missed conversation and conversation. The only thing that I have noticed is that missed phone calls are not appearing in the list. After uninstalling this update everything went back to normale.

 

Lync, S4B, Skype for Business, Windows

Error installing Skype for Business server 2015

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Tried to install S4B server 2015 in my lab. Tried this from a computer with no internet access, also I did not install any prerequisites.

“Error: Prerequisite installation failed: Prerequisite installation failed: SqlInstanceRtc For more information, check your SQL Server log files. Log files are in the folder C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL*.Rtc\MSSQL\Log, where the * represents your SQL Server version number. For example, SQL Server 2012 uses this path: C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL11.Rtc\MSSQL\Log.”

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