Unable to search the GAL in Lync 14 on 10.9 Macs

We have received many reports that OS 10.9 Macs using Lync 14 are unable to search the Global Address List (GAL).  When a name is entered into the search field no results are returned.

The root cause appears to be two missing files in the user's Microsoft Lync Data/[user's sip name] folder:  GalContacts.db and GalContacts.db.idx

If a computer that was running Lync 14 was upgraded to 10.9 from 10.8 or earlier there is no problem searching the GAL from within Lync.  The problem occurs on 10.9 Macs with fresh Lync installs.

The fix is to copy GalContacts.db and GalContacts.db.idx from a working computer to the non-workign 10.9 Mac.

• Install and configure Lync on the 10.9 Mac
• Log into Lync with the user's AD account credentials
• Close Lync
• On a computer that has a working Lync GAL go to ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Microsoft Lync Data/
• Open the "sip_[user.name]@[domain.com]" folder.  ie: sip_tom.smith@mydomain.com
• Locate the GalContacts.db and GalContacts.db.idx files and copy them to a USB stick or the network
• On the 10.9 Mac with the new Lync install go to ~/Documents/Microsoft User Data/Microsoft Lync Data/sip_[user.name]@[domain.com] and import GalContacts.db and GalContacts.db.idx files
• Launch Lync and test the GAL search

 

Mac clients can not do LDAP (GAL) lookups

An office reported that Mac clients were unable to do LDAP (GAL) lookups from Entourage or Outlook 2011.

All the clients were using the local DC for LDAP; if this was changed to another DC the clients could do lookups just fine.

It was found that the local DC was not a global catalog server.  When this was fixed, lookups worked.

Here is the TechNet article on determining whether or not a DC is a GC  it:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc786686%28WS.10%29.aspx