Lync Address Book Client Synchronization Errors and Common Problems. Address Book synchronization issues are common with new Lync deployments. Issues usually surface as errors in the Lync client shortly after sign in when the address book synchronization is first attempted and manifest as one of these two errors Or, shortly after upgrading from the Communicator client, users will see the following error beneath the contact search text box Some address book issues are caused by a problem with the local address book files on the client machine, and other synchronization issues are caused by lack of access to the address book folder e. Lync server. This post provides solutions to 4 common issues, and some basics on the Lync address book implementation to further your understanding. Common Problems Solutions. Four common problems and their solutions are listed below. The Persistent Message The address book is preparing to synchronize in the Lync Client. When the Lync client is run for the first time it chooses a random time between 1 5. Lync address book from the FE server. The random time is to prevent network storms if a lot of Lync clients are being deployed at the same time. If you have had the Lync client running continuously at any time for more than 2 hours and this synchronization message is still displayed, there is likely an issue. The solution here is to delete your existing local Lync address book files and force the download of new ones from the server Shutdown the Lync client. Force the Lync client to download the address book immediately the next time it starts. Open the registry to HKLMSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftCommunicator. Modify or Create the DWORD  the registry key Gal. Download. Initial. Delay and set it to 0  that is a zeroThis can also be done from the command line. HKLMSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftCommunicator v Gal. Download. Initial. Delay t REGDWORD d 0 f. Delete the Existing Local Address Book Files. On Windows 7 or Vista machines, open Windows Explorer to the directory. App. DataLocalMicrosoftCommunicatorsipuserexampledomain. Delete the files Gal. Contacts. db and Gal. Contacts. db. idx. Restart the Lync client. The address book should be available in less than an hour. I have seen this work many times in production deployments. Jeff Schertz has an excellent blog entry on the process that is used to update the Lync address book and how to force the Lync clients to update see Updating the Lync 2. Address Book. 2 The Lync Address Book Website does not have a Valid SSL Certificate Installed. Microsoft knowledge base article 9. The Lync 2. 01. 0 client or the Office Communicator client does not download the corporate address book and displays a notification Cannot Synchronize Address BookThe resolution section of the KB article details how to verify that the existing certificate is valid, and how to assign another certificate if need be. Symantec Antivirus Running on the Lync Server is Restricting Access to the Address Book File Share. Some versions of Symantec Antivirus running on Windows 2. If you cannot map the Lync address book network share from more than one client and are running Symantec Antivirus, this is a possible cause. This Microsoft KB article provides the details and the solution Unable to access Shares The specified network name is no longer available when Symantec Endpoint Protection prior to 1. MR4 MP2 or Symantec Antivirus 1. Windows 2. 00. 3, 2. Lync Address Book Client Synchronization Errors and Common Problems. R2 Server. 4 VMWare Network Adapter Preventing Access or Causing Sluggish Performance to the Address Book File Share. If you are using VMWare images for either the Lync Front End or where you are Lync address book file share resides, and are having address book synchronization issues, you should check that your virtual NIC emulator type is set to VXNET3. Problems have been seen when this is set to other emulator types such as E1. You can read more about the available VMWare network adapter types here Choosing a network adapter for your virtual machine. At a high level the server side Lync address book consists of a Lync address book files and a web service. The majority of Lync clients download and use local copies of the address book files, but the default client policy is to also use the web service if the local address book files are not available. Thanks Adam for this Awesome post. Now I am able to make calls from Asterisk to Lync extension without any issues. Problem was with my Lync extension telephone number. Hi Mike, Did you manage to get anywhere with this as I have the same issue. Any new users are not updating to the local copies of the Address book. Richard, Lync by default searches both the Lync Address Book and users personal Outlook Contacts. I do not believe there is anyway to limit the scope of what can be. Lync 2013 Galcontacts Db Not Downloading' title='Lync 2013 Galcontacts Db Not Downloading' />Administrators can control how Lync clients use the Address Book with a Lync client policy setting see http technet. The Address Book Files. Lync clients pull down the address book files from the file store configured on their home registrar pool. You can find the address book file store path by looking at the File store property of the Lync pool in the Topology Builder just right click on the pool name and it is in the left hand pane. This is the same file store that also contains the The File Store for other Lync Web Services ABFiles, Collab. Content, Collab. Metadata, Device. Update. Logs, Device. Update. Store, LMStatic. Data, Meeting. Compliance. Data, Meeting. Content, Meeting. Files, Meeting. Meta. Data and Web. Auth. Store. CMS File Store. Application File Store. A good first troubleshooting step is to see if the machine where the Lync client is running can access the Lync address book file share. The Address Book Web Service. The Lync address book also contains a web service, and some clients such as Lync devices can use it instead of downloading the address book files. The URL associated with the address book web query service can easily be found by viewing the configuration information of a signed in Lync client. Right click on the Lync client icon in Windows taskbar or notification tray and select Configuration Information. The URL from Server gives the internal and external URLs of the address book service. URL Internal From Server https lt Lync Pool FQDN 4. URL External From Server https lt Lync External Web Service FQDN 4. You can test the address book via the web service using the Test Cs. Address. Book. Service and Test Cs. Address. Book. Web. Query cmdlets. The Test Cs. Address. Book. Web. Query cmdlet is more in depth and tests searching and returning information. The Test Cs. Address. Book. Service cmdlet tests the ability of a specific user to access the address book server, and can be used as follows Test Cs. Address. Book. Service Target. Fqdn lt pool fqdn User. Credential my. Cred User. Sip. Address sip exampleuserexample. You will need to assign the credentials for exampleuser to the Power. Shell variable my. Cred by first doing my. Cred Get Credential. References. Special thanks to Steve Gover for uncovering the solutions to issues 3 and 4. Microsoft Next Hop Lync. MD Troubleshooting the Lync 2. Address Book. Microsoft Tech. Net   Lync Address Book Capacity Planning http technet. Error message when you log on to Microsoft Office Communicator Cannot Synchronize Address BookThe Lync 2. Office Communicator client does not download the corporate address book and displays a notification Cannot Synchronize Address Book. Forcing Lync Address Book Web Query Jeff Schertzs Blog. November 2. 7, 2. Jeff Schertz  One of the new features in Lync Server is the ability to use the Address Book Web Query ABWQ component in place of the default Address Book Service ABS for the standard Lync client. By default only the Lync Phone Edition, Web App, and Mobile clients will leverage real time web query based searches against the Lync Servers rtcab or rtcab. ABS server files do. In previous versions of Communications Server those databases existed only to service queries from clients which were incapable of downloading and storing local contact cache files. Yet the standard Communicator client could only leverage the ABS download method and would not use the web query method for basic searching. Now in Lync Server client policy settings can be used to modify that behavior of the standard Lync 2. The phone, mobile, and web app editions are still limited to using ABWQ only. This Tech. Net article describes each client editions default behavior as well as introduces the Client Version policy setting used to control that behavior. In order to use ABWQ only for all editions the client policy parameter Address. Book. Availability must be changed on either the default global policy or modified on a new policy which is then assigned to the desired users. There are currently three available settings for this parameter which are self explanatory based on the names Web. Search. And. File. Download, Web. Search. Only, and File. Download. Only. This article details the multiple steps to create a new policy, define that policy, and then assign it to a test user to validate the altered behavior. If desired, this parameter can simply be changed on the Global policy to impact all users in the organization. Validate Default Setting. Start by checking that the Lync Server environment is still set to the default behavior by identifying how many client policies are defined and then querying them for the address book policy. From the Lync Server Management Shell enter the following Get Cs. Client. Policy cmdlet to list all defined client policies by name as well as list the current address book setting. Get Cs. Client. Policy Select Object Identity,Address. Book. Availability ft. Only the default Global client policy was returned, indicating no other custom policies yet exist in this Lync deployment. The default value of Web. Search. And. File. Download was also confirmed as the current Address. Book. Availability setting. Force ABWQAs previously mentioned the modified behavior will only be set for a single Lync user as a preliminary test by defining a new client policy and than granting that policy to the user. To create a new client policy using the default settings, yet modifying the client address book behavior, enter the following command in the Lync Server Management Shell using any desired string for the Identity value to set of the name of the new policy e. Chicago. Client. Policy. Set the Address. Book. Availability parameter to Web. Search. Only. New Cs. Client. Policy Identity Chicago. Client. Policy Address. Book. Availability Web. Search. Only. To assign the new policy to a single Lync user enter the following Grant Cs. Client. Policy cmdlet. Grant Cs. Client. Policy Identity jeff Policy. Name Chicago. Client. PolicyOptional Verify the new policy and settings by using the following cmdlet to list all parameters of the new client policy. Verify that the Address. Book. Availability parameter is set to Web. Search. Only. Get Cs. Client. Policy Identity Chicago. Client. Policy. Address. Book. Availability                Web. Search. OnlyOptional Alternatively the following cmdlet can be used to list only the non null parameter values, which makes for an easier to read list of the current settings. C Get Cs. Client. Policy Identity Chicago. Client. Policy. psobject. Test Lync Client. Logon to a workstation using the account which was just updated to use the new client policy. To visually verify that the ABWQ service will be used first delete the cached address book file if this user has already signed in to Lync once previously on this workstation. On Windows Vista7 workstations open the userprofileappdata On windows XP workstations open the Open the sipusernamedomain. If it does not exist then skip the next step. Delete the GALcontacts. GALcontacts. db. idx files. Leave the folder open and then sign in to the Lync client with that same user account. Use the search bar as shown below to look for users not currently in stored in the contact list. In the example shown the string k was simply entered and results were listed below. The folder view shows that no GALcontacts. Address Book Web Query method must have been used to return those results. To further validate that assumption compare the IIS W3. SVC logs on the Lync Server between a client still using the global client policy which is using the ABS and the newly configure client which is using ABWQ. The current IIS log shows the following GET entry when a default client connection is established and the Address Book is retrieved or updated. By default the Lync client can wait up to 6. GET abshandlerF 0e. Kristinamslync. net 1. OC4. 0. 7. 57. 7. MicrosoftLync2. Yet the same logs shows no requests from jeffmslync. This also indicates that ABWQ is used by this client. Additionally any search attempts on the ABS enabled Lync client do not trigger any new POST or GET entries in the logs, while search entries from the ABWQ enabled client do show a record of a Web. Ticket request against the Group Expansion service. Microsoft Visual Studio Professional Edition Inc Sp 6000. Each time a new search query was typed into the client another one of these POST lines would appear. POST groupexpansionservice. Web. TicketBearer 4. OC4. 0. 7. 57. 7. MicrosoftLync2. Why Do This Now that we have seen how this is performed the question must be asked if and when it would be recommended to do this. The entire point of the ABS method is to allow for local cache files to be used in an effort to reduce requests from clients to the Lync Server for a number of actions. If comparing logs side by side it will be clear that the user photos are downloaded via the ABWQ regardless of the client behavior as these images are not stored in the GALcontacts. One advantage to forcing ABWQ on all clients could be in an environment where changes to user attributes happen very often multiple times per day. The source address book files pulled from Lync clients are only updated every 2. AD are pulled into the rtcab database roughly every 5 minutes by default. Thus leveraging real time lookups against the up to date database instead of cache file based lookups could be more beneficial in some cases. As with many new features that are added to later releases of software sometimes they can come from just a few large enterprises asking for a specific feature during trial use periods of pre release code. Meaning that just because the setting is there doesnt mean you should rush out and turn it on. In most cases the default setting is a default for a reason, yet if you understand what you are doing then having the ability to modify that behavior natively, and doing so in a supported fashion, is always a great advantage. Filed under Lync Tagged with Tips. About Jeff Schertz. Site Administrator.