FASmail - Known Issues

Here are known issues and suggested solutions for those using the FASmail system. These are organized by email client and services:

 

 

Email Forwarding

Email messages from Yahoo/Comcast/AOL are bouncing back, being placed in the Spam/Junk folders or getting dropped with no bounce-back when redirected from FASmail or the Student & Alumni Email service to an external email provider

Yahoo, Comcast and AOL have recently updated their DMARC policies to proactively protect their users from spam that spoofs their email addresses on other mail servers. All DMARC compliant mail receivers (such as Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) reject emails sent as @yahoo.com, @comcast.net or @aol.com if they aren’t sent through the appropriate mail servers.

Users who receive emails from Yahoo, Comcast and AOL addresses and are redirecting emails on FASmail via a redirect rule or an external contact to one of these DMARC compliant mail receivers may experience one of the following behaviours:

  1. Emails are placed in Spam / Junk folders, sometimes with a warning stating their systems could not verify that this message was sent by the sender’s domain
  2. Emails are dropped completely by the mail receiver (i.e. Gmail) with no bounceback message sent to the sender
  3. Emails are rejected by the mail receiver (i.e. Hotmail) with a bounceback message. For example:

For FASmail users who have a rule set up to redirect their emails, we recommend that they modify that rule to also keep a copy of messages in their FASmail Inbox. This will allow them to review any emails that were not redirected due to this DMARC policy.

For FASmail External Contact users (i.e. ubcdept-c-username@mail.ubc.ca), we recommend that they request for a FASmail user mailbox from their department’s authorized contact.

Important note: For security and privacy reasons, email forwarding from the UBC Faculty & Staff Email (FASmail) service to private email accounts, such as Gmail or Hotmail accounts, is prohibited. However, forwarding FASmail accounts to email accounts at other public sector institutions is acceptable under limited circumstances. Before you proceed with these instructions, please review the Privacy Fact Sheet from the Office of the University Counsel on the Privacy of Email Systems, in particular paragraphs 18 to 21 ("Can I Auto-Forward my UBC Email Account to a Non-UBC Account?")

 

Outlook Email Client

When opening a meeting invitation containing an attachment, you receive an error stating: "Cannot open meeting item ..."

There is a known issue with Outlook 2013 which affects meeting items containing attachments.  The known workarounds include:

  1. Upgrading the Outlook 2013 client to Outlook 2016
  2. Installing December 6, 2016, update for Outlook 2013 (KB3127975).  In addition, future Outlook 2013 updates KB3141466, KB3141495 and KB3115019 must not be installed on the machine.

 

Removing Unwanted Email Addresses in To: field

If you happen to enter in an email address correctly, it will remain in your Outlook To: field cache until you take action. Here is how you can resolve the issue:

Delete individual broken addresses from the Autocomplete Cache

  1. Start typing the name of the person with the broken entry in the To: field of an email message. You should see the address in a drop down list below the To: field. When you move over the address, should should see an "X" on the right side. Click on the "X" to the right of the address to delete it from the cache.
  2. Once the cached address is deleted type it again and press "Check Names" or Select the user from the Global Address List (Address Book) and then send the message again to the affected user. It should work this time.

 

"Allow this website to configure firstname.lastname@ubc.ca server settings?" Pop-up Window (Behaviour Change)

Customers using firstname.lastname@ubc.ca or name@departments.ubc.ca email aliases as their primary SMTP address in FASmail may encounter the following warning:

Windows

MAC

MAC autodiscover

If you see this alert, it is recommended that you select "Don't ask me about this website again" (Windows) or "Always use my response for this server" (MAC) and click the "Allow" button.  This will grant Outlook the permission to view Free/Busy availability in your calendar.

Note: For users on Mac Mail, Thunderbird or Eudora the pop-up will not appear as those email clients only support POP and IMAP protocols.

Outlook Web Access (www.mail.ubc.ca)

In Chrome 37 or newer, Firefox 48 or newer, and Microsoft Edge when composing an email, the To.., Cc.., Bcc.. and Global Address List hyperlinks do not work.  Adding attachments and creating rules that involve selecting users from the Global Address List are also impacted

There is a known compatibility issue with Chrome version 37 and newer, Firefox 48 and newer and Microsoft Edge browsers and Exchange 2010.  These vendors have disabled support for the showModalDialog API which these hyperlinks rely on.  There are no plans to bring back this support as they have decided that this feature is not heavily used and can create security vulnerabilities.  Until Microsoft releases a fix, the only viable workaround is to use the Light version of Outlook Web App.  Before logging in to www.mail.ubc.ca, ensure that the checkbox for "Use the light version of Outlook Web App" is selected. 

owa-light


In Firefox 8.0, downloaded attachments will have their file extension changed to attachment.ashx

There is a known compatibility issue with the new version of Firefox 8.0 and Exchange 2010. We are currently awaiting for a fix to be released by our vendor, Microsoft, in order to address this problem. In the meantime, please use one of these two workarounds:

  1. Rename the downloaded attachment to its proper file extension. (ie. for a Microsoft Word document, the file should be renamed from document.ashx to document.docx)
  2. Use an alternate browser such as Internet Explorer or Chrome to download attachments

 

Calendaring

Cannot accept meeting invitations in Outlook clients. Attempting to do so results in error message "Could not complete the operation. One or more parameters are not valid."

Microsoft, our product vendor, has been contacted and they have acknowledged this to be a bug that occurred from applying the most recent updates for Exchange 2010, the product platform that FASmail is on. It appears to affect meeting invitations randomly, and only for meeting invitations that include an update to an existing calendar appointment. Unfortunately, they do not have a fix available at this time. You may use the following workarounds to accept the meeting invitation:

  1. Accept the meeting update from Outlook Web App at www.mail.ubc.ca.
  2. In Outlook, follow the steps in the following document (note that the steps will vary based on the version of Outlook that you have):

 

Disappearing Meetings on an ActiveSync Device (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android, etc...)

iPhones, Androids and other ActiveSync devices have been known to experience occasional calendar synch issues with FASmail. The following scenarios have been identified as causes:

  • Android users who have a delegate (e.g. administrative/executive assistant) that manages meeting invitations:
    • In this scenario, invitations are sent to the recipient and the assigned delegate.
    • The delegate would accept the meeting invite on behalf of the recipient using Outlook. This action would result in the removal of the meeting invite from the delegate's INBOX. However there will still be a copy of the invite in the recipient's INBOX.
    • If the recipient chooses to clean up his/her INBOX by deleting the invite using an Android device, it will remove the already accepted meeting from the calendar.
    • This is a bug specific to Android devices. If the recipient deletes the invite using an iPhone, Outlook or any other email client, the accepted meeting will remain in the calendar.
    • Workaround: If you have a delegate managing meetings for you, never clean up your own meeting invites using an Android device. Instead hold off until you're using an Outlook email client on your desktop and delete the invites from there (or file them to a separate folder for future reference.)
  • Server disconnections:
    • Although this rarely happens, it is possible that a forced disconnect from the server could interrupt the calendar synching process.
    • Workaround: The only solution here is to resynch your calendar on your mobile device. 
  • Meeting alterations:
    • We have occasionally seen issues affecting recurring meetings that are altered a number of times (room change, time update, etc…)
    • The cause of this is unknown but could be related to the above items.
  • ActiveSync Issues:

Tip: It is best to avoid accepting or declining meetings using an iPhone or Android device. Instead use your desktop email client to manage meeting invitations. Although calendar synching generally quite reliable, ActiveSync devices in general should only be used as reference and not as the definitive source for your calendar appointments.

If your calendar happens to get out of synch, here is how you can refresh your calendar data using an iPhone:

  • Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > FASmail (or whatever you called the FASmail profile) > Set Calendar to "Off"
  • Select "Delete from My iPhone"
  • Go to the Home screen and confirm that the Calendar is gone.
  • Go back to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars > FASmail (or whatever you called the FASmail profile) > Set Calendar to "On"
  • Go back to the Home screen
  • Go to Settings > Mail, Contacts, Calendars
  • Scroll down to the "Calendars" section
    • Set the Sync interval (default is 1 month back) which is probably okay.
    • Set the Default Calendar as the FASmail Calendar.
  • Go to the Home screen and check your calendar. It may take a bit of time to repopulate your calendar. The missing appointments should be back.

 

SSL Certificate Error for POP/SMTP

Cannot send or receive emails when using POP due to a certificate error

Due to a recent upgrade of the SSL certificate for FASmail, some users may notice issues sending or receiving emails in Eudora using the POP protocol.  This can be resolved by performing the following steps.

 

Eudora

  1. Open Eudora
  2. Switch to the Personalities tab

   3.  Right click the <Dominant> personality (or the one that FASmail sends from) and choose Properties
   4.  Under the Incoming Mail tab, click the "Last SSL Info" button

   5.  Click on the Certificate Information Manager button
   6.  Under the Server Certificates section, expand the tree until you reach the bottom level


   7.  Select the certificate and click the Add to Trusted button
   8.  Click Done
   9.  Click OK
   10. Repeat steps 4-10 for the Generic Properties tab