In this knowledge-based article, a few of the common issues related to Public Folders are discussed and step-wise instructions are also provided for resolution of each one of the discussed issues.
Query # 1 : Public Folder is created from HC panel but while adding that Public Folder to favorites in outlook returns the following error: “No public folders are available. Check that a public folders deployment exists in this Exchange Organization. If so, please try again” Solution : When public folder is created via HC panel, HC automatically sets default user settings. However, if manual manipulation is done this can cause issues. A process
User Permission for Public folders is controlled by a Scheduler which can be triggered on demand by going to
Provisioning>>Exchange>> Organizations >>Mailboxes >> drop-down button on the create mailbox button >> Edit Bulk Mailboxes.
On the
Edit Bulk Mailboxes page select
Default Public Folder in the properties section and public folder mailboxes will be listed. Now save the settings to assign permissions on the selected public folder. However in some cases, It is recommended to restart the information store service of Exchange server on all of your servers in off peak hours for permissions to take effect in case if any required.
Query # 2: Users cannot add subfolders to the Public Folder in outlook after adding it to favorites
Solution: When you are adding a Public Folder into the favorites, you have to click “Options” to get more settings about subfolders and select the options of “Add subfolders of this folder” and “Automatically add new subfolders” as shown in the picture below:
Query # 3 : Public Folders show up via OWA but not in Outlook. The “defaultpublicfoldermailbox” parameter is also set in all user mailboxes but Outlook does not show the public folder hierarchy?
Solution: This sometimes happens when the Auto-discover service cannot discover the email address that is stamped on the public folder mailbox. In addition to this, there should be an email domain that has already published Auto-discover records.
You can run this command and see if PF Mailboxes has an "internal" primarysmtpaddress assigned, if yes then change that to the auto-discovered enabled mailbox. You have to restart the information store on all servers for changes to take place.
(Get-Mailbox -PublicFolder “hctestPF1” |fl name, *smtp*).
If the returned value from the above command is not an auto discovered email address then please run the below command and check:
(set-Mailbox -PublicFolder “pfprimary” -PrimarySmtpAddress “autodiscoveredmailboxname@your maildomain” -EmailAddressPolicyEnabled $false).