Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2003 displays “Loading…” when users login

This patch Tuesday after reboots we had users trying to login to OWA on our Exchange 2003 servers. They would authenticate fine and see their folder list but could not see the contents of their inbox or interact in anyway with the OWA interface.

Users that chose the ‘Basic’ OWA interface could see their e-mail but certain things wouldn’t work like sending e-mails.

Some quick Googling turned up this article: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=280823

Which I followed but found no resolution to my problem.

After digging through the IIS log files on our Front-end Exchange server did I find the cause of the problem:

2012-05-10 16:25:49 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GET /exchweb/6.5.7651.60/controls/vw_navbar.js - 443 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Mozilla/5.0+(compatible;+MSIE+9.0;+Windows+NT+6.1;+WOW64;+Trident/5.0) 404 3 50
2012-05-10 16:25:49 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GET /exchweb/6.5.7651.60/controls/util_owa.js - 443 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Mozilla/5.0+(compatible;+MSIE+9.0;+Windows+NT+6.1;+WOW64;+Trident/5.0) 404 3 50
2012-05-10 16:25:49 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GET /exchweb/6.5.7651.60/controls/util_owa.js - 443 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Mozilla/5.0+(compatible;+MSIE+9.0;+Windows+NT+6.1;+WOW64;+Trident/5.0) 404 3 50
2012-05-10 16:25:49 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GET /exchweb/6.5.7651.60/controls/util_view.js - 443 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Mozilla/5.0+(compatible;+MSIE+9.0;+Windows+NT+6.1;+WOW64;+Trident/5.0) 404 3 50
2012-05-10 16:25:49 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GET /exchweb/6.5.7651.60/controls/vw_message.js - 443 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Mozilla/5.0+(compatible;+MSIE+9.0;+Windows+NT+6.1;+WOW64;+Trident/5.0) 404 3 50
2012-05-10 16:25:49 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GET /exchweb/6.5.7651.60/controls/util_buttons.js - 443 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Mozilla/5.0+(compatible;+MSIE+9.0;+Windows+NT+6.1;+WOW64;+Trident/5.0) 404 3 50
2012-05-10 16:25:49 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GET /exchweb/6.5.7651.60/controls/ctrl_view.js - 443 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Mozilla/5.0+(compatible;+MSIE+9.0;+Windows+NT+6.1;+WOW64;+Trident/5.0) 404 3 50
2012-05-10 16:25:49 W3SVC1 xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx GET /exchweb/6.5.7651.60/controls/ctrl_view.js - 443 - xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx Mozilla/5.0+(compatible;+MSIE+9.0;+Windows+NT+6.1;+WOW64;+Trident/5.0) 404 3 50

Every time IIS tried to serve up a JavaScript (.js) file a 404.3 event would be logged.

According to Microsoft 404.3 is an error with MIME Types in IIS. More information can be found here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942032

In the end the fix was:

1. Login to our Exchange Front-end Server
2. Open the IIS MMC
3. Right click on the server name in the IIS MMC and choose ‘Properties’
4. Click ‘MIME Types’
5. Click ‘New’
6. Enter the following information:
   Extension: .js
   MIME Type: application/x-javascript
7. Click ‘Ok’
8. Click ‘Ok’
9. Click ‘Apply’ and ‘Ok’
10. Restart IIS either via the Services MMC or by running ‘iisrestart’ from command prompt.

References

• http://forums.msexchange.org/OWA_shows_loading/m_1800519820/tm.htm