Some of you might have the problem of the Outlook client crashing when loading. I read an interesting posting on the official MS CRM Forum, and I have cut-n-pasted it here for your pleasure! It is a great tip, thanks a lot to Mike Sullivan at Quest Business Solutions!
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Tired of getting CRM Outlook client errors. "An error occurred loading
Microsoft CRM functionality. Try restarting Microsoft Outlook or
contact your system admin if errors persist"
I've had the problem at two clients since Feb and finally solved it!
The symptoms are that every other time you open Outlook CRM client
installed, you get the above error and the toolbar is disabled. I've
read just about every posting out there and tried them all, but they
just weren't the right fix for me.
I would consider this a definite bug in the crmaddin.dll file. The
problem is simple: When the crmaddin.dll file is loading the Outlook
client GUI using the isv.config.xml file, if it runs into an "empty
menu" (a menu with not menuitems below to click on), it will fail to
create that menu on every other attempt, and stops processing the XML
file, so it doesn't load the toolbar..and you get the error box "An
error occurred loading Microsoft CRM functionality. Try restarting
Microsoft Outlook or contact your system admin if errors persist"
The problem is easy to identify (and fix) if you look in the
isv.config.xml file and have something like I did at the first client:
<MenuBar>
<!-- Custom Menus that appear between the Goto Menu and the Help
Menu -->
<CustomMenus>
<Menu Title="My Custom Menu">
</Menu>
</CustomMenus>
</MenuBar>
To fix it, just remove the empty menu.
However, it's not so obvious in the sample below.....
<MenuBar>
<!-- Custom Menus that appear between the Goto Menu and the Help
Menu -->
<CustomMenus>
<Menu Title="My Custom Menu">
<MenuItem Title="My Workplace"
Url="http://crm/c360/MyWorkPlace/redirect.htm" WinMode="0"
Client="OutlookLaptopClient" AvailableOffline="false" />
<MenuItem Title="My Workplace"
Url="/c360/MyWorkPlace/redirect.htm" WinMode="0"
Client="Web,OutlookWorkstationClient" AvailableOffline="false" />
<MenuItem Title="My Summary"
Url="/c360/Summary/redirect.htm" WinMode="0"
Client="Web,OutlookWorkstationClient" AvailableOffline="false" />
<MenuItem Title="My Summary"
Url="http://crm/c360/Summary/redirect.htm" WinMode="0"
Client="OutlookLaptopClient" AvailableOffline="false" />
<MenuSpacer />
<MenuItem Title="c360 Products"
Url="http://www.c360.com/products.aspx" WinMode="0"
Client="OutlookLaptopClient" AvailableOffline="false" />
</Menu>
</CustomMenus>
</MenuBar>
In the 2nd sample above, what's not apparent is that there are no
MenuItems that are Available Offline - all are false. So, if the
Outlook Laptop Client goes offline, the custom Menu is left empty, and
the error occurs while the user is offline, and will disappear when the
user goes online.
As a workaround, I made sure that at least one Menu item was available
offline by changing the following:
<MenuItem Title="c360 Products"
Url="http://www.c360.com/products.aspx" WinMode="0"
Client="OutlookLaptopClient" AvailableOffline="true" />
Viola! No more problem...and a bit more advertising for c360.
Disclaimer: I just used c360 as my example, as this problem is not
related to c360 products, rather to modifications made to the
isv.config.xml file and what I feel is a bug in the crmaddin.dll file.
Michael Sullivan
www.questnbs.com
Quest Business Solutions
--- END
Thanx again Mike. Great tip!
Gustaf
Hi.. I’m new with CRM 3.0 Stuff. I have installed a CRM 3.0 Server and it was successful. I have created users, cases, contacts etc. Now, when viewing any report from the client side over the internet, the report wont load (page cannot be displayed) error will appear. But when viewing it on Local Area Network, all reports will load. Can you help me out? What was the problem? Is there any other configuration or port to be open so that the reports will be viewed over the internet?
ReplyDeletewill you email me also at zenzuiii@Yahoo.com
marl
Hi,
ReplyDeleteWell, the problem arises due to the fact that the report server is a separate application (running on a separate website, usually on the same computer) and the default adress that CRM uses to access these reports is the NetBIOS-name (ex. srv01). When you are connecting to you server from outside your network, your computer cannot resolve the adress (srv01). What you should do is to change the Report adress that CRM uses to an adress that can be reached from the outside (I think this setting is in web.config of the CRMWeb-directory).
If the computer you are using from the outside isn't part of the domain, this is probably the reason (otherwise I think that the computer should store all known computer names (NetBIOS) in a special local directory.
Also, check that you can actually access the report server application from the outside. It is per default installed on http://myserver/Reports.
By the way, be aware of the security hazard you are creating by placing your CRM-server on an unencrypted connection on the Internet. The customer list is usually quite important and secret to the company at hand.
I hope I was able to help you out a bit.
//Gustaf
Do you happen to know of a way to install the CRM 3 Outlook client in Windows Server 2008? The installer won't allow it, but I've heard there's a workaround. Thanks
ReplyDeleteStephen,
ReplyDeleteNo, I havn't tried it. However, the CRM VPC Demo that Microsoft has release has the client software installed on an 2003 server. Have a look at the registry settings and and the file directories and try to copy it to your 2008 server. I don't know if there are any special things that need to be done on 2008 compared to 2003. Menno is the guy who created the VPC (mainly), he might give you a few pointers. You'll find his blog here: http://www.tekoppele.com/blog/default.aspx
Gustaf