Blank page (auth.owa Http 500) when logging into Outlook Web Access running on Exchange 2010

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Recently had to restart a client’s server after running some Windows Updates. A few hours after the restart the client contacted me stating that they couldn’t access their e-mails via the web.  I quickly had a look, the login page presented itself, so I logged in and after clicking Sign in I was presented with a blank page pointing to auth.owa.  This was a little puzzling as there were no updates for Exchange so why did it break?  Checking the IIS logs, I found that the error was 500 which indicated some kind of authentication error.

A little powershell cmdlet you can run is Test-OWAConnectivity. So I ran the cmdlet and recieved WARNING: An unknown failure occurred during logon. So I checked IIS and ensured that all of the authentication was set correctly and indeed it was.  So after some poking around on the web I found out Exchange 2010 palms off the Forms Based Authentication to a seperate Service called  Microsoft Exchange Forms-Based Authentication Service. Starting this service fixed the blank page issue and allowed clients to authenticate correctly.


74 responses to “Blank page (auth.owa Http 500) when logging into Outlook Web Access running on Exchange 2010”

  1. ananda Avatar
    ananda

    Thank you very much!

  2. Andrew Avatar
    Andrew

    Thank you for the post. It helped me!

  3. Jordan Avatar
    Jordan

    Worked for me as well….that service it set to start automatically but it wasnt started???

  4. Chris - Australia Avatar
    Chris – Australia

    Thanks, worked for me. The service was set to start Automatically but had not started as well.

  5. mo Avatar
    mo

    This help me out a lot thanks!!!!

  6. Shiv Avatar
    Shiv

    cool worked for me.. i check auth, bindings, recreacted vdir’s almost was thinking of installing latest roll up thinking that this is a themes issue..

  7. Rupert Ralston Avatar
    Rupert Ralston

    Thanks! Very helpful.

  8. michael Avatar
    michael

    Whoa, thank you very much! Same issue here, your solution saved my weekend.

  9. Alex R. Avatar
    Alex R.

    Nice – saved me from digging.

  10. Sam D. Avatar
    Sam D.

    THANKS…

  11. Ishan Avatar
    Ishan

    Hi,
    I’ve been suffering this problem. Thanks a lot for the workaround. It helped me a lot. Any idea why it is not starting when booting the server.

  12. Damon S. Avatar
    Damon S.

    Great post! Thanks so much!

  13. John Avatar
    John

    Thank you!

  14. Nader Avatar
    Nader

    You really did a good thing, you saved me 🙂
    Thanks a lot

  15. Korr Avatar
    Korr

    THANKS!!!!

  16. biruk Avatar
    biruk

    Thanks a lot, this helped. has anyone figured out why the service does not start automatically even though set to start automatically?

    1. John Avatar
      John

      This happened again the other day on an SBS 2011 Standard Server. There wasn’t anything in the event log about the service not being able to start. I believe it could just be an issue in the way the services start-up. At the time we were removing Hyper-V which could have affected the start-up process.

  17. Michel Avatar
    Michel

    Thank you!!

  18. Marco Avatar
    Marco

    I love you!!!!!!!!
    I’ve reinstalled rollup for hours!
    you are great!

  19. Zdensk Avatar
    Zdensk

    Thank you very much. It is resolve my problem.

  20. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Thanks, just what I needed.

  21. Todd Avatar
    Todd

    Thank you for the information, it worked perfectly for me too. Appreciate you sharing what you’ve learned.

  22. Nate Avatar
    Nate

    Thx great it works!

  23. Devin Avatar
    Devin

    Thanks for the great tip!

  24. Rodrigo Avatar
    Rodrigo

    Hi..
    Thanks, it work for me!!!

  25. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    THANKS !!!!

  26. Griffith Avatar
    Griffith

    Thank u, man!

  27. pete Avatar
    pete

    It seems like the only way to resolve this is to set the service startup to automatic with delayed start. Worked for me! Thanks for the great find!

    1. John Avatar
      John

      Hi Pete. I’ve actually tried this and it seems to be working fine at the one site this continually happens to me. Good find.

  28. MrBrightside Avatar
    MrBrightside

    Bro, u really save my ass. thanx alot.!!!

  29. Boiki Avatar
    Boiki

    Unfortunately I did not manage to see the service to restart it. I am running Windows Server 2008 R2, and installed Exchange 2010. Please help.

    1. John Avatar
      John

      The Server must have the CAS roles installed for the service to be there.

      Open up a command prompt window and type in sc query MSExchangeFBA and see what you get.

  30. cheech_ Avatar
    cheech_

    Saved me a bunch of time! thanks!

  31. Hussain Avatar
    Hussain

    Brilliant ! Thanks

  32. ScottS Avatar
    ScottS

    Fantastic!

  33. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Saved my day! Thanks a lot!!

  34. Troy Witthoeft Avatar

    First google result for “outlook OWA http 500”
    Worked perfectly!

  35. Marcio Schmitt Avatar

    Thanks a lot man!
    After a lot of reinstall/restart of IIS Have finally arrived at your post. Worked well!

  36. Alex L Avatar
    Alex L

    THANK YOU!!!! YOU’RE THE MAN!!!

  37. thanks again u saved the day Avatar
    thanks again u saved the day

    Thanks a lot

  38. zak Avatar
    zak

    Thank you!!!!!!

  39. Jose Avatar
    Jose

    Excelente! Me funcionó de inmediato.

  40. David Ashton Avatar
    David Ashton

    Live saver! Thanks!

  41. Tim C Avatar
    Tim C

    Wow, I find this 2 years later and it worked for me. I checked all Exchange services, all working, then rebooted the server and the Forms Based Auth service was not running (even when it’s set to Automatic Start). Started the service, checked OWA and working again.

    Thanks,

  42. nahed Avatar

    thank you very much this step solve my problem

  43. Matt Avatar
    Matt

    Thanks So much!! We had an old 2003 server crash today, but shouldn’t have had anything to do with this and it didn’t…

    Had me worried till I found this and tried it. Thank goodness for the tech community and sharing or we would all be much worse off and staying places all weekend, in my case at a school.

  44. KR Avatar
    KR

    God Bless you.

  45. Craig Avatar
    Craig

    Thank you for the post, saved the day

  46. Anon Avatar
    Anon

    Thanks!!!! Just experienced this with our new Exchange 2010 environment after its first real update. The service was not running on one of our two CAS so OWA was working for some but not others. Thank you again!!!!

  47. Alex Avatar
    Alex

    This was it! Thanks for the tip 🙂

  48. Pete Avatar
    Pete

    Worked like a charm. Thanks

  49. Eduardo Avatar
    Eduardo

    Work for me.Thanks !!!!!

  50. Rob Avatar
    Rob

    THANK YOU! I have been scratching my head on this after a planned server reboot for an appassure agent install…how did I overlook that service? 😛

  51. Timmy Avatar
    Timmy

    Thanks very much, it works!!

  52. Tash Avatar
    Tash

    Thank you sooo much it worked like a charm

  53. vantseto Avatar
    vantseto

    And Microsoft managed to screw this up again. There is no such service in Exchange 2013 and I still have the problem.

  54. Nirmal Avatar
    Nirmal

    Thank you , it worked for me … that help me to save my troubleshooting time… Excellent job man

  55. Jafri Avatar
    Jafri

    Very helpfull for Exchange 2010

    Thanks

  56. Mike R Avatar
    Mike R

    This helped a ton! Not sure why the service stopped but after reading this and restarting the service all is well now 🙂

  57. Keith Avatar
    Keith

    Thanks for this. Was getting irritated and you were top on the list for a google search.

  58. Mario Avatar
    Mario

    This has been driving me nuts for days.

    Thank you so much mate!!

  59. Blurry Avatar
    Blurry

    thanks for the info !

    I have since set that service to delayed start, rather than just automatically and it hasn’t not started again!

  60. Alessio Avatar
  61. Jesus Avatar
    Jesus

    Muchas Gracias! Era esto! Despues de toda una mañana buscando por la red…

    🙂
    Saludos!

  62. Simon Hulbert Avatar
    Simon Hulbert

    One of those tiny tips that resolves massive issues with minimum fuss.

    Fantastic, thanks!

  63. relfe Avatar
    relfe

    It worked! Thank you

  64. Eduardo Avatar
    Eduardo

    You saved my live!!!

  65. Dave Avatar

    Nice One ! saved a lot of messing about

  66. Hanumantharao Avatar
    Hanumantharao

    Excellent , it saved my life

  67. Eric C. Avatar
    Eric C.

    Thanks very much! This resolved the issue we were having!

  68. John Y Avatar
    John Y

    You have no idea how thankful I am to your post, it saved the night.

  69. sr lk Avatar
    sr lk

    Saved my day!! Thank you.

  70. Nilesh pawar Avatar

    Thanks …its work for me

  71. Montgaillard Avatar
    Montgaillard

    Happened to me after update rollup 15 on exchange 2010 SP3 on CAS server.
    Thanks for lowering my blood pressure quick !!

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