Exchange Online may not discover Mailboxes due to Microsoft PowerShell Deprecation

This article explains how to resolve discovery and backup issues for Exchange Mailbox.

Microsoft stopped supporting the Remote PowerShell Protocol (RPS) for Exchange Online. Commvault uses this feature to perform mailbox discoveries for Exchange Online Clients. As such, some customers using Remote PowerShell Protocol (RPS) with Exchange Online Module versions 1 and 2 may experience issues with mailbox discovery operations.

Users might encounter the following error, or see Discovery of mailboxes not updating with new mailboxes:

28:543 New mailboxes have not been discovered for more than a week.

Regardless, all customers using O365 should follow this article to upgrade to use Exchange Online PowerShell V3 Module.

To resolve this issue, the following actions must be taken. Detailed steps in the resolution section below.

• You need to be on Commvault Platform Release 24 or higher.
• Commvault must be configured to use the Exchange Online PowerShell V3 Module.
  • Implement the nUseExoPsV2 additional setting listed further in this article on all Access Nodes for your Exchange Client(s).
• The Exchange Online PowerShell V3 Module must be installed.
  • For Windows 2016 SP1, the Exchange Online PowerShell V3 module is already installed with PowerShell Version 5.1, and no further action is required to update PowerShell.
  • For Windows 2016 without SP1 and below, you must install Windows PowerShell V5.1, and then install the latest Exchange Online Management (V3) module.
• Restart the Commvault services.

Symptoms

• Discovery operations no longer discover new or existing content.
• Backups may fail with "No mailboxes found matching any (AD/DB) Auto Discover Associations".
• The following error might occur: 28:543 New mailboxes have not been discovered for more than a week.

As Microsoft could be rolling this change out to different tenants in phases, we recommend you take action.

Causes

Microsoft ended support for the Remote PowerShell Protocol (RPS) for Exchange Online in PowerShell V1 and PowerShell V2 Modules, which Commvault relies on for discovery of mailbox content when the mailbox client is configured.

Resolution

Step #1

Commvault must be configured to use the Exchange Online PowerShell V3 Module on each Access Node for your Exchange Client(s):

NOTE: For help identifying those servers, see How to Identify Office 365 Access Nodes

Configure the following additional setting to engage using the new PowerShell version and Exchange module.

For instructions, see Adding an Additional Setting from the CommCell Console

Add the nUseExoPsV2 additional setting with a Value of 1:

Name: nUseExoPsV2

Category: MSExchangeMBAgent

Type: BOOLEAN

Value: TRUE

Step #2

Install PowerShell 5.1 if required NOTE: For access nodes installed with Windows 2016 with SP1 and higher this version of PowerShell is already installed. For all Windows versions lower than 2016 SP1, download and install WMF 5.1 from the Official Microsoft Download Center. Please note that a reboot is required for installation.

Step #3

Once installed, run the following 3 commands on PowerShell 5.1

NOTE: When running Register-PSRepository command you may receive the message below. If so this is safe to ignore as the repository is already registered and you should move on to the next command.

PackageManagement\Register-PackageSource : Module Repository 'PSGallery' exists

Commands to Run:

[Net.ServicePointManager]::SecurityProtocol = [Net.SecurityProtocolType]::Tls12

Register-PSRepository -Default -Verbose:$true

Install-Module ExchangeOnlineManagement -force -Confirm:$false

Test the connection with the following command:

Connect-ExchangeOnline

Step #4

Restart Commvault Services on all Access Nodes.

Confirmation

If all steps completed without error, then the PowerShell V3 environment is ready and backup and discovery operations should continue as normal.

The discovery cache is updated automatically every 24 hours, however we recommend to update it immediately by following the steps below to force a cache update:

1. Navigate to the Exchange Client and under the Mailboxes tab click Add and then choose Add Mailbox

2. Under the Add Mailbox popup take note of the cache last updated on date/time, and click on the hyperlink

NOTE: This date/time is the last time your discovery ran. If this time is greater than 24 hours, discovery operations are no longer discovering new or existing content

3. On the Discover cache info popup click on the Refresh Cache button.

Discovery will now run in the background. Proceed to the next step to confirm discovery has completed.

4. To confirm that the discovery has completed and the cache has been successfully updated, navigate to the Overview tab and check the Discovery Status time has updated under the Summary section

NOTE: Depending on the amount of mailboxes, the discovery update may take some time.

After the cache refresh is complete, the Discovery Status should now show a recent Last updated on time. This confirms you are now using Powershell V3.

Additional Notes:

NOTE:

• When utilizing a mail-enabled group for content discovery you must have a valid SMTP address assigned to the mail-enabled group for the conversion to Exchange Online PowerShell V3 Module as this only supports mail-enabled groups, and it will not work for local groups without an SMTP address.
• You might need access to the PowerShell Gallery to complete this process.