The logon process stops responding when you try to authenticate again if you use a third-party program to log on to Outlook Web Access in Exchange Server 2003

Consider the following scenario. You use a third-party program to log on to Microsoft Outlook Web Access in Microsoft Exchange Server 2003. When the session that is opened by the third-party program expires, you are prompted to authenticate again in Outlook Web Access. In this scenario, the logon process stops responding when you try to authenticate again.

Additionally, after you experience several failures when you try to authenticate again in Outlook Web Access, you may experience the following symptoms:

• Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) may automatically disable the Exchange application pool. When the Exchange application pool is disabled, the following event is logged in the Application log:

  Event ID: 1002
  Event Type: Error
  Event Source: W3SVC
  Event Category: None
  Date: Date
  Time: Time
  User: N/A
  Computer: Server_Name
  Description: Application pool 'ExchangeApplicationPool' is being automatically disabled due to a series of failures in the process(es) serving that application pool.

• To make Outlook Web Access available again, you restart IIS. However, the symptoms occur again after some time.

This problem occurs if the pFilterContext pointer is set to NULL. The Outlook Web Access authentication process does not expect this pointer to be set to NULL.

Hotfix information

A supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that contains this hotfix.

If the hotfix is available for download, there is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base article. If this section does not appear, contact Microsoft Customer Service and Support to obtain the hotfix.

Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required, you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the following Microsoft Web site: Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a hotfix is not available for that language.

Prerequisites

You must install Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 (SP2) before you install the hotfix.

For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Restart requirement

You do not have to restart the computer after you apply the hotfix. However, the hotfix installer will restart the following services:

• The HTTP SSL service
• The IIS Admin service
• The Microsoft Exchange Routing Engine service
• The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) service
• The World Wide Web Publishing service

Hotfix replacement information

This hotfix does not replace any other hotfixes.

File information

The global version of this hotfix has the file attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table. The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To find the difference between UTC and local time, use the Time Zone tab in the Date and Time item in Control Panel.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

For more information about the terminology that Microsoft uses for software that is corrected after it is released, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: For more information about the naming schema for Exchange software updates, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: