How to know if Frontend is operational

Problem

If you are experiencing the following, you should verify if PeopleSync Frontend is operational:

Mobile devices are unable to connect to PeopleSync Frontend.
Mobile devices no longer receive contact updates.
Agents are failing with error messages related to the frontend, i.e. error messages starting with:
CardDav.HTTPException: Whoops something went wrong!…
Users are unable to log in at the PeopleSync Frontend.

Solution

To check if PeopleSync Frontend is operational, please do the following:

In System Settings, copy the internal URL.
Open a browser on the PeopleSync Backend server and put in the internal URL.
A popup should appear prompting you for credentials.
Now enter the service account credentials from Address Lists > Service Accounts.
If authentication is successful, a message is shown saying "Everything is working is as expected".

Authentication popup shown again - invalid credentials

If the credentials you entered are wrong, the authentication prompt will be shown again. After several retries, the following error message will be shown:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> 
<d:error xmlns:d="DAV:" xmlns:s="http://sabredav.org/ns">
	<s:sabredav-version>4.1.5</s:sabredav-version> 
	<s:exception>Sabre\DAV\Exception\NotAuthenticated</s:exception> 
	<s:message>Username or password was incorrect</s:message> 
</d:error>

In this case, the username or password you entered is probably wrong.

Please make sure that the username you entered is in the correct format. This depends on the type of user directory you are using. Supported formats are as follows:

Active Directory
- User Principal Name (UPN), e.g. “john@example.com”
- <NetBIOS Domain Name>\<sAMAccountName>, e.g. “example\john”
- sAMAccountName - only if option “Enable Authentication with SAMAccountName only” is enabled in PeopleSync Console System Settings.
Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services (AD LDS)
- User Principal Name (UPN), e.g. “john@example.com”
NetIQ eDirectory
- cn, e.g. “john”

If credentials are correct, please consult the PeopleSync Frontend log at c:\windows\temp\php_peoplesync_errors.log.

Status code 500 or other error message is shown

If you are not getting an authentication prompt, there is something wrong with the frontend server. In this case, please consult the PeopleSync Frontend log at c:\windows\temp\php_peoplesync_errors.log.

No page is shown at all or URL not reachable

If no page is shown at all, this can be for the following reasons:

The internal URL in System Settings is wrong.

During installation, the following URLs are configured for the frontend server. Please check if you can reach the frontend through one of these URLs:

http://<Frontend.Server.FQDN>:88
https://<Frontend.Server.FQDN>:443
https://<Frontend.Server.FQDN>:8843

The frontend server is offline

Check that the frontend server is online. On the frontend server, open a browser and open http://localhost:88 to verify that the frontend server is responding.

If there is no reponse on the frontend server, please verify the ports the frontend server is listening on. This can be done as follows:

Open IIS Manager on the frontend server.
Go to Sites > PeopleSync.
On the Actions bar, click on Bindings…
Default bindings look like this, but could be different if you changed them:
Please also make sure that the “Host name” field in the bindings is empty, as it will cause the server to respond only to requests sent specifically to the host name.
Please make sure you are using one of the ports specified in the Bindings dialog.

Network issue

A network issue is preventing connection to the frontend server, i.e. a firewall is preventing network access to the frontend server. To verify connectivity, please do the following:

On the backend server, open PowerShell.
Run the following command:
Test-NetConnection <Frontend.Server.Name> -Port 88
If you are using a different port, please specify that port.

The return value should look similar to this:

ComputerName     : psweb14-2.contoso.de
RemoteAddress    : 10.0.18.54
RemotePort       : 88
InterfaceAlias   : WLAN
SourceAddress    : 10.0.14.58
TcpTestSucceeded : True

TcpTestSucceeded: True means that a connection to the web server at port 88 could be established. This result rules out a network issue.

If PingSucceeded: True, but TcpTestSucceeded: False this can have the following causes:

PeopleSync website on IIS or IIS itself is offline.
A firewall prevents access to the server at that port.
PeopleSync Frontend is bound to a different port. To rule this out, please see above section “Frontend is Offline”

If PingSucceeded: False this can have the following causes:

PeopleSync frontend server is offline
There is a network issue, such as routing, name resolution, firewall.

PeopleSync Knowledge Base