A client rang asking to get a new IOS device set up with mail from an Exchange 2010 server. Nothing unusual there but when the credentials were supplied some unusual things started to happen. Next day the client remarked that the email had not actually synched up with the phone so I decided to set up the same email on an Ipad to run out credentials and connectivity issues. I set up the account and went into the inbox to check and nothing – no email and a message about not being able to reach the server.
Mmm – that didn’t look right as I had used the same approach with this and other exchange servers in the past. The client then remarked they had received an email on their laptop entitled “Error with your new mobile phone partnership” and
You have 10 phone partnerships out of the maximum allowed 10 partnerships. After you reach the maximum, you can’t create additional partnerships until you delete existing ones from your account. To do so, sign in to Outlook Web App, click Options > Phone > Mobile Phones, and delete any unused partnerships.
So logging on as the user to OWA and checking the Phone option did in fact show all the devices used by the user and others like me to connect and test the account credentials or set up mail on devices. After removing the older devices that had been used – I was able to delete and recreate an account on an Ipad that proved the connection was fine and email was synched up. So worth thinking about this if you have a user who changes devices regularly or when you hit an unexpected error when setting up a device to test why a recently set up account didn’t work – it would potentially have been difficult to find this without the message when the 10th device was attempted.