Tech Blog

So Apple have released a fix for the recent issue with over logging issue on Exchange 2010.

Here’s the link: http://support.apple.com/kb/TS4532

But for the lazy here’s their fix:

1. Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars
2. Select the Exchange account from your Accounts list.
3. Turn the switch for Calendars to OFF.
4. Wait ten seconds.
5. Turn the switch for Calendars back to ON.

So anyone who looks after Exchange 2010 and allows users to connect their iPhones and or iPads will know the fun and games of mail going missing, calendars loosing invites or not matching their outlook calendars (most the above can be fixed by recreating the users mail profile on the ipad or in Outlook)….

Well to top this off iOS 6.1 seems to cause a sync loop on the Exchange mailbox server causing excessive transaction logs (thousands of logs in 15 minutes) which can lead to a very dead exchange server.

To combat this you’ll need to find the device and then turn off active sync for that user, or another route would be to block all iOS 6.1 devices from establishing a connection.  Edit: some people say removing the exchange mail profile from the iOS device and re-adding it solves the issue!!

To find the users, I’d first run a report of who has and hasn’t updated their devices by running a script that I’ve previous mentioned:

http://bohemiangrove.co.uk/exchange-2010-with-apple-ios-6/

Output:

Alternatively if you’re scared of PowerShell or maybe a admin has blocked you for using it because you’ve been a naughty boy or girl you could use Log Parser Studio which is like a plugin for Log Parser!!  So install Log Parser on a CAS server and run Log Parser Studio, then point the tool at the IIS logs.  Finally use one of the built in search tools such as ActiveSync Report [Top 20] to find the which device has produced large amounts of hits and hence caused all the transaction logs!

So know you have a list of users who have iOS 6.1 you could disable active sync for each user via the Exchange control panel.

Or if you’d rather block all the iOS 6.1 and any future 6.1 devices you could run this the following PowerShell command that will create an Active Sync rule.

New-ActiveSyncDeviceAccessRule -QueryString "iOS 6.1 10B142" -Characteristic DeviceOS -AccessLevel Block

Note, if you don’t warn users they may complain about their devices not accepting passwords or similar!!