Trouble with MAPI and autodiscover
Problem reported by Jonathan Gan - 7/10/2026 at 11:09 AM
Not A Problem
Hello.  I have smartermail installed on a webserver that I want to use with outlook and autodiscover.  Webmail works fine

Domain: my domain.local
Mail url is mail.mydomian.local and takes me to the webmail page, as does autodiscover.mydomain.local

Both are over https on 443 with a valid cert for both urls

Smartermail is configured for AD authentication 

It's important to note this network is closed.  Meaning no Internet access and I have my own CA (which works fine)

Autodiscover doesn't seem to work.  I open outlook for my logged in account, select exchange.  I then get a basic windows pop-up for username and password that just keeps popping up.  If I hit cancel, I get asked to trust autodiscover.xml, but it does not configure properly.

Now the twist, if I login to the webmail client first with the account I want to use, then the Outlook setup will then complete flawlessly with only entering username and password once.

Any idea as to why?  The autodiscover detailed log shows  unable to parse ntlmmessage1 and unauthorized negotiate for the failed attempts. The IIS site only has anon login enabled, the others are disabled so I'm not sure exactly that's coming from.  Thanks! 
Eric Tykwinski Replied
Jonathan,

On the Outlook icon in the taskbar, do CTRL+right click the Icon and select Test Email AutoConfiguration.
For local domains, my guess would be Active Directory causing issues. That's the normal RegEdit.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\AutoDiscover
Set ExcludeScpLookup DWORD (32-bit) to 1.
Andrew Barker Replied
Employee Post
Needing to log into webmail before configuring a client is expected behavior for accounts configured to use AD and LDAP authentication providers.

Andrew Barker
Lead Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.
www.smartertools.com 

Jonathan Gan Replied
Thanks for the replies.  I am using outlook classic and the CTRL+right click doesn't work sadly.

I do have smartermail set up for AD authentication, should I disable that for autodiscovery to work?  If it is expected behavior, is there a way to make it so it is not required to log into webmail first?  Thanks.
Andrew Barker Replied
Employee Post
Autodiscover is working, as illustrated by the accounts that you were able to configure in Outlook after logging into webmail. The only way to avoid needing to log into webmail before configuring a client is to set the account to use SmarterMail authentication.

Andrew Barker
Lead Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.
www.smartertools.com 

Jonathan Gan Replied
Ah.  Is this the case even with the EWS/MAPI license addition (which we have)?  I am getting pushback from the users about webmail, they really want to just configure outlook with the one account (AD), but we don't want a full blown exchange server hence why we decided to upgrade our SM license.

Thanks!
Andrew Barker Replied
Employee Post
Yes, this is the case for all protocols, regardless of what licensed add-ons you have.

Andrew Barker
Lead Software Developer
SmarterTools Inc.
www.smartertools.com 

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