Comments on: Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Group Chat Deployment – Part 2

By: Pawel

Pawel — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:38:25 +0000

my 2c after banging my head for 1 day with Admin Tool problem:

- review "Office Communications Server 2007 and 2007 R2 Certificate Guide.doc"
You must have the FQDN of the Group Chat Server as the SN/CN and you must also include the Client EKU for the Administration tool, otherwise the Group Chat administration tool WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CONNECT to the Group Chat server.
- you DON'T have to rebuild the Group Chat server from scratch each time you encounter an issue!! (learnt after 3 rebuilds..)
just run ServerConfigTool.exe located in %ProgramFiles%Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2Group Chat Server and adjust settings as needed
- don't follow blindly all the posts googled regarding the issue, for instance this one http://blogs.technet.com/b/ucedsg/archive/2009/05...
suggests adding service accounts to RTCUniversalServerAdmins group :o :O
- if needed, run ServerConfigTool.exe and set Error Level for services to Debug. restart services then check Office Communications Server event log and review EACH event log entry (in my case, Information type-of had details about the error)

I also kept receiving "Cannot sign in because of a problem with the chat room service" (when using manual configuration) error.
In my case, the error was cause by certificate – make sure your cert has Client EKU enabled (I had to use modified custom Web Server template when requesting the cert).
If you include any SANs, make sure the last SAN entry matches certificate Subject Name.

By: Aaron Tiensivu's Blog

Aaron Tiensivu's Blog — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:29:57 +0000

Installing OCS 2007 R2 Group Chat Server on Server 2008 R2…

To begin, follow the instructions here for the usual Server 2008 R2 workaround/fixes for Server 2008 R2 and OCS 2007 R2. 1. From an elevated PowerShell prompt: Import-Module ServerManager [Enter] 2. Install the prerequisites for Group Chat Server wit…

By: eshudnow

eshudnow — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 01:26:15 +0000

Thanks for sharing that information. I have another article here on OCS Audio/Video in which I encountered the same thing where the Internal Edge Certificate was a single name public cert. The www name Thawte automatically put on the certificate also messed things up. This was solved, at least temporarily, but a CNAME that would redirect the www back to the correct location.

By: TraciSylvia

TraciSylvia — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 20:38:01 +0000

I was getting the same error. I actually opened a Microsoft ticket on this. My fix was changing my certificate. Originally I was using a GoDaddy single name cert. The problem is, with Godaddy, they put an extra SAN name on the cert that start with www. on all of their single name certs. I spoke to GoDaddy and they said they can not issue certs with out the extra www. SAN name on the certificate. This caused Group Chat Admin not to be able to login. If your certificate does have SAN names on it, the FQDN of the server needs to be at the bottom of the Subject Alternative Name list on your Certificate. I ended up using a certificate from www.namecheap.com because they dont add additional SANs on when all you buy is a single name cert.

By: Keenan

Keenan — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:19:04 +0000

jeck,
I ran into this exact issue. I ran through every walk through for group chat that I could find, none resolved the issue. After much trouble shooting I stumbled on the solution. During the installation, where you specify the Office Communications Server Credentials, you have to specify "sip:ocschat@domain.com" instead of just "ocschat@domain.com" as the walkthrough suggests.

I hope this helps.

By: eshudnow

eshudnow — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 12:50:15 +0000

Did you make sure the lookup service was named OCSChat?

By: jeck

jeck — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:32:30 +0000

hi,wen i tried login in group chat administration tool using manual configuration, i get an error "cannot sign in because of problem in chat room service." and while using automatic configuration i get an error "cannot establish network connection". please advise.

By: Chaosnature

Chaosnature — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 21:02:44 +0000

Update to my service none starting issues, 1st i changed the account service to administrator which had more rights than other account , and started the services and they started, but they only start one at a time, the two services would not stay on running at the same time, then i added all rights to the ocschat account and restarted the services again this time they started,

so i am not sure what account member is missing yet that stoped the GC services from starting, i will use process of elimination later to find that out….

but now i still cannot logon to the GC server as administrator
i get:

Cannot sign in. Your sign-in address, server settings, or password may be incorrect. If your sign in information is correct and the problem persists, please contact your system administrator.

and nothing on the GC Event log server, any ideas?

i also am now running the SQL on the same server as the GC, i previously was using the same as my OCS front end server,
Question,…what is the pool name when u are using an SQL server on the same GC server which is a memeber server? is it the FQDN of the server it self?….my OCS pool name is ocspoo.ct.com…..my GC server name is Main.ct.com….my GC instance i created was name GCPool on the member server. what then is the Pool name of this GC SQL? or do i have to create a pool using the installation cd? cos right now i had to fill in the gap using my ocs pool i created for my FE server…

By: Chaosnature

Chaosnature — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 23:07:28 +0000

Hi,

1st let me say Great! guild,

i followed this guild and i eventually am able to complete the intallation, however i am unable to start any of the 2 services, they start and stop , 1st i was using a certificate with my oce server pool, then i lately change it to another certifictae with the GC server name and sip.domain name and ocspool name as SAN.

this is the error i get from the event log:

The Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2, Group Chat Server MGCLOOKU could not stop due to an exception Object reference not set to an instance of an object..

An error MGCLOOKU is stopping due to an unhandled exception.
has occurred due to an unhandled exception Object reference not set to an instance of an object.. Stack trace:
at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.Performance.MessageProcessingPerformanceCounterManager.ClearPerformanceCounters()
at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.Lookup.LookupServer.ClearPerformanceCounters()
at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.ServerBase.Start()
at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.MAServiceBase.startServer()
at Microsoft.Rtc.Internal.Chat.Server.ServerCommon.MAServiceBase.createAndStartServer()
at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(ExecutionContext executionContext, ContextCallback callback, Object state)
at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart().

Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance

By: Fredrik

Fredrik — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:51:20 +0000

Hi, I had the exact same problem as Chris Wolfley. If you delete the group chat database and recreate it, you will be able to finish the wizard. At least it worked for me.