Symptom: Recently, after attempting to execute a search via the SharePoint 2010 front-end (with FAST Search Server 2010 as the backend source), the following error message was returned: “The search request was unable to execute on the...

While we get this information cleaned-up, fully-documented, and stored in a more “formal” location (e.g. http://support.microsoft.com ), here are some initial Best Practices the FAST Technical Support and Escalation Teams have been successful...

Recently, the FAST Search Escalation Team has begun to see customers encountering a higher-than-expected rate of post-installation configuration/deployment failures due to IPSEC problems. As a follow-up to my previous post (see " We need to talk "), I...

Issue: After installing an Administrative node of FAST Search Server 2010, additional Non-Administrative FAST Search Server 2010 nodes cannot communicate with the Admin node. Subsequently, the non-admin nodes to fail download the deployment.xml, and...

If these steps look familiar, they’re based off a post I wrote a few years back for parsing Exchange transaction logs. Who knew 1) they’d still be relevant, 2) I’d still resort to such hacky means, and 3) others may actually find value in this ... ...

Issue Summary: While attempting to validate a FAST Search Server SSA (Search Service Application), you may receive an error similar to the following: Error Access to this functionality requires FAST Search for SharePoint be installed...

It’s with mixed emotions that I’m announcing my departure from the Unified Communications Escalation Team to pursue an exciting opportunity in the Enterprise Search Group . Since joining the UC Team, the past two years have unquestionably been the most...

Summary: Yahoo will be performing scheduled maintenance on their OCS Gateway Servers during the following maintenance window: Confirmed Maintenance Start Date: Tuesday, November 17, 2009, 5:00pm Pacific Time Projected Maintenance End Date...

Summary: Microsoft's RTC Sustained Engineering Team just released their latest Cumulative Update (“CU3”) for Office Communicator 2007 R2 (as well as Office Communicator Phone Edition), and Office Communications Server 2007 R2. Notes: 1. As of 10/29/09...

Summary: America Online will be performing scheduled maintenance on their SIP Access Gateways during the following maintenance window: Confirmed Maintenance Start Date: 10/08/2009 04:00 ET (24 Hour Time) Projected Maintenance End Date:...

Summary: When using Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2, double-clicking a Contact fails to launch a new conversation window. However, you are still able to right-click a Contact, and start an IM session by selecting “Send an Instant Message.” ...

Summary: Yahoo! will be performing maintenance that will affect their OCS gateways. The outage is scheduled to be brief, but as a precautionary measure, the following maintenance window has been declared: Maintenance Start Date/Time: 9/24...

Summary: Installation of the OCS 2007 R2 “Backend” hotfix package ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/969834 ) may fail, and unfortunately, the error message presented to the Administrator isn’t entirely clear as to what the root cause is. ...

Summary: As a single point of reference, here are all of the latest updates/releases for our Unified Communications suite of products ... Office Communicator R2, Office Communications Server R2, Conferencing Attendant R2, and Communicator...

The RTC Sustained Engineering Team has signed off and published the July update packages for R2! Updates for Communications Server 2007 R2 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968802 Update for Communicator 2007 R2: July 2009 http:...

Summary: Following on the heels of success of the Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer (created by Shawn McGrath and Brad Hughes), Premal Gandhi (UC Support Escalation Engineer), Matthew Fresoli (Supportability Program Manager) and Jason Stine...

Summary: America Online ("AOL") uses Global Server Load Balancing ("GSLB") to maintain their SIP gateway farm. Their configuration uses sub VIPs, one for each of their two datacenters. Whenever AOL performs maintenance (new code, hardware, etc....

Summary: America Online will be performing scheduled maintenance on their SIP Access Gateways during the following maintenance window: Confirmed Maintenance Start Date : 07/15/2009 22:00 ET (24 Hour Time) Projected Maintenance End Date...

Summary: You may find that OCS 2007 / OCS 2007 R2's Federation and/or PIC fails against partners who do not support Entrust root certificates signed using a 2048-bit public key. For example, the "broken" certificate chain may resemble the...

Summary: Using Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Federation may fail against organizations that are using Lotus Sametime. Resolution: IBM has a hotfix which addresses this issue within Lotus Sametime. More Information:...

Summary: Windows Live/MSN Messenger defines both Minimum and Maximum values for Presence subscriptions. If the SUBSCRIBE method uses a value out of this range, it may result in a SIP failure. The minimum value is 3600 seconds and the MAX value is...

Summary: Our Real Time Collaboration (RTC) Sustained Engineering Team has recently released two updates: Communicator 2007 R2 hotfix rollup package: June 2009 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/972042 Update package for Office Communications...

Update: As of June 25, 2009, the KB article 897567 has been updated, and now is accurate. Summary: As of June 13, 2009, the content of the KB article 897567 contains an inaccuracy. The last octet for the second MSN IP address was improperly transposed...

Summary: America Online will be performing scheduled maintenance on their SIP Access Gateways during the following maintenance window: Confirmed Maintenance Start Date: 06/04/2009 04:00 ET (24 Hour Time) Projected Maintenance End Date: 06...

Symptoms: LCS 2005, OCS 2007, and/or OCS 2007 R2 fail to establish PIC connectivity to MSN after changes were made to the MSN infrastructure on May 9, 2009 Data: In the logs, you'll see the following data: TL_ERROR(TF_CONNECTION...