Received a lot of feedback on one of my previous blog posts, on how to configure Lync RC and Exchange to enable OWA as a Lync Endpoint:

Configuring Lync RC and Exchange 2010 Sp1 to Enable OWA as a Lync Endpoint

And it seems a lot of you are experiencing the same problem I had when configuring it, being, you log into OWA, you get presence for your own account, and the Contact List appears to be “expanding”:

But after a while the following error message shows up: “Instant Messaging isn’t available right now. the Contact List will appear when the service becomes available”…

Time to troubleshoot, and here are the steps to follow…

Step 1. Start the logging tool

Log into your Lync RC server, and launch the Lync Server Logging Tool

And check that you want to log All Flags for the SIP Stack, and then click Start Logging.

Step 2. Log into OWA again, and wait for the error message to appear, when the error is there, click Stop Logging

Step 3. Download the OCS R2 Resource Kit on your Lync Management server, where you have launched the Logging tool

For download, here’s the link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=9e79a236-c0df-4a72-aba6-9a9602a93ed0&displaylang=en

Step 4. Click Analyze Log Files

Have a close look at the given error message! In my case it clearly pointed out that the Peer “cs14ex.lync.local” was not a configured server on this network interface, which was right since I hadn’t added cs14ex.lync.local as a CsTrustedApplication yet.

What you can check is:

• Is the certificate used on Lync, and Exchange issued by a trusted CA for both Lync and Exchange
• Does the certificate have the correct name, both for Lync and Exchange
• Did you ran Enable-CSTopology after adding Exchange as a csTrustedApplication
• Is your replication working as it should on Lync, check by using the cmdlet Get-CsManagementStoreReplicationStatus

Good Luck!

Ilse