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You see many open SSTP TCP connections and many connections to relay servers when you run the "netstat" command while Groove is running

Article ID: 914722 - View products that this article applies to.

SYMPTOMS

You run the netstat command while Microsoft Office Groove 2007, Groove Workspace 2.x, or Groove Virtual Office 3.x is running. When you do this, you see many open Simple Symmetrical Transfer Protocol (SSTP) TCP connections and many connections to Groove relay servers. This situation occurs even when you are not sending or receiving data.

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CAUSE

This behavior occurs because Groove maintains the connections that were established for each Groove peer when you logged on.

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MORE INFORMATION

In Groove 1.1 and in earlier versions of Groove, Groove used the recipient's relay server to establish a connection if the initial attempt to establish a direct SSTP TCP connection failed. Then, Groove tried to establish the direct connection again the next time that Groove had data to send.

This retry method was useful if you had a temporary network problem that caused the first try to time out. In this case, you might be able to establish the direct connection later.

However, for users who did not have direct connectivity, this method slowed communications by making ineffective retry attempts. This method also caused problems for users at a single company. In that case, the firewall at that company interpreted these repeated connection attempts as an attack.

In Groove Workspace 2.x and in later versions of Groove, Groove tries to establish connections to all your online contacts when you log on. If Groove does not quickly receive a response for a particular contact, Groove also tries to open a connection to that contact's relay server. Whichever response Groove receives first is the connection that is used.

Similarly, when you enter a workspace, Groove tries to establish connections to each online member of that space. Unless something disrupts the connections, the connections persist until you shut down Groove. The connections are established from both directions. Therefore, you may also have a connection open to a particular Groove user if that user has met any of these conditions for you.

Note When you shut down Groove, the connections go into a TCP time-out state. Therefore, you will see them in netstat for another two minutes and 30 seconds.

To see these connections, type netstat -n at a command prompt. You should see one connection for all the following items:

The relay server
Each of your online contacts, whether you are connected to the contact or to the relay server for that contact
Each additional online member of any workspace that you visited since you started Groove
Each directly accessible online Groove user who has you as a contact
Each directly accessible online Groove user who has accessed or is accessing a shared space in which you are a member

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