How To
Summary
A quick walk through for assisting faster problem isolation for connectivity issues to sites and services
Objective
Knowing what you are dealing with up front goes a long way from simply chasing symptoms to defining where it is “broke”. The suggested steps should assist in faster problem isolation and resolution.
Environment
Any server service, website or online services such as M365 and Cloud platforms.
Steps
First, we start to define the problem by asking simple questions
- New issue or never worked?
- If a new issue, then what has changed local on the source or destination or environment?
- If this has never worked such as with a new implementation, then what ports, configurations, certificates etc. should be in place?
- If everything was working fine and no changes or updates had been installed?
- How many users or systems experiencing the same issue?
- If a single system, then determine what is unique (location, path to destination etc.)
- If multiple, then broaden the scope to look for things which would affect multiple such as specific datacenters, building location, external vs, internal network users, services not started on the service side, Network environment, and certificates, etc.
- What are you trying to connect to?
- Is this an on-prem solution or is this an online service external to the organization such as M365 and on a Cloud platform etc.?
- Determining how the connection is being made such as a browser or an application will also help determine where further troubleshooting efforts need to be directed.
- What error(s) if any are you seeing?
- Though there are some generic handler errors, many are very specific to the issue which helps identify the source of the issue (path cannot be found, permissions, missing or expired Certificates etc.)
- Determine true path from source to destination (Datacenters, Switches, Gateways etc.)?
- Always know how you are getting to the destination. This can be critical in isolating where in the path “network” environmental issues, Certificates, routing, Firewalls, gateways, intrusion detection software etc. may be a factor.
- What recent changes have been made? (Note: This is of more importance for something which was working and now is not.)
- Recent patching or software version changes of service or application?
- Changes in the Network such as routing changes, DNS etc.?
- Changes in intrusion detection software or antivirus?
- Changes in AD group polices?
- Changes with Online service conditional access policies, permissions etc.?
Additional Information
Tools which an assist with troubleshooting connectivity problems
- Ping
- Tracert
- Microsoft’s PortQry and PortQryUI
- Netsh
- Wireshark
- Switch\gateway logs
- Intrusion detection logs
- Microsoft’s Microsoft 365 network connectivity test tool
- Microsoft’s Remote Connectivity Analyzer
- Sites such as Downdetector
- Free IP address lookup sites
A few examples of the above applications:
Downdetector
Connectivity Office
M365 Service health
Test connectivity at Microsoft
Document Location
Worldwide
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Document Information
Modified date:
27 December 2024
UID
ibm17178541