Hi Ryan,

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

1. The Skype server is on prem.

2. The client machine is accessing the server via VPN but there doesn’t appear to be any problem with presence for the majority of people in Skype.  Those where the problem is occurring have had their ProxyAddresses attribute in AD altered fairly recently when their domain name changed, but this doesn’t mean that their presence is unknown for everyone, only for a few users

3. Still waiting for a reply from the user on this one (she is on leave unfortunately)

4. Also still waiting for a reply

5. The contacts are in the same domain even though we are set up for federation.  They were even in the same domain before the change was made in answer 2 above.

 

Even though I can’t yet answer a couple of the questions, the fact that the ProxyAddresses attribute was altered does seem as if it might be significant as apparently the presence problem arose at around the same time.  The ProxyAddresses attribute in AD only contains the SIP address of the user which matches the SIP address on the user’s mailbox.  We haven’t managed to find a definitive answer as to whether the ProxyAddresses attribute has any bearing on Skype presence – some of our users have nothing in this field in AD while others have it populated.  It is only a few of those who have it populated whose presence is unknown for a small number of people.

 

Caroline.

 

 

Hi Caroline:

                I have seen this before, but there could be several causes.  A few things to think about:

1. Is the Skype for Business server on prem or in O365?
2. What is the connection like between the client machine in question and the server?
3. If the user goes ahead and IMs or calls one of these presents unknown contacts, does the IM or call go through normally?
4. Does the Skype Outlook addin show the correct presents information when the user tries to email the person or in the user’s Outlook contacts folder?
5. Are these contacts in the same domain or is there federation going on?

Generally when I see this it means that there’s either a lag between the client machine updating the presents status from the SFB server or there’s a problem with federation between two orgs in an onprem situation.  As I said though there could be several causes here so these are just some things to think about when starting to look and you may have already ruled these all out.

Ryan

 

Hi,

 

We are experiencing a strange situation with Skype For Business.  A few of our users are reporting that when they search for certain colleagues, they are found in the Skype address book but they are showing as presence unknown.  When others search for the same people, their presence is reported correctly.

 

We have tried the following for a user who is being presented with the presence unknown problem:

 

Copying over a cached address book to the affected machine by replacing the GALContacts files in C:\users\<user>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Lync\sip_<user>;

Removing all the files from the sip_<user> folder and allowing Skype to re-create them;

Removing any contacts from the user's Skype favourites list for people who are being reported as presence unknown;

Removing any contacts from the user's mailbox for people who are being reported as presence unknown.

 

None of the above has solved the problem.

 

Has anyone experienced this before, and if so, do you have any suggestions about what we can try next?  I've googled the problem and haven't found anything except what we have already tried.

 

Caroline.

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This e-mail expresses the opinion of the author and is not necessarily the view of the Council. Please be aware that anything included in an e-mail may have to be disclosed under the Freedom of Information Act and cannot be regarded as confidential. This communication is intended for the addressee(s) only. Please notify the sender if received in error. All Email is monitored and recorded.
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