EMAIL / DNS Changes - Comcast Disclosure Failure

I personally don't use their email host service but came to the forums to investigate another issue while stumbling upon this.  Completely unacceptable for them to do that with no notice whatsoever.  Since I don't have them I wouldn't be able to really report them anywhere and have any weight behind my complaint.  But I strongly urge anyone this affected to go to the FCC, comcast corporate, and whomever else can do anything against a mega company trying to merge with another company with similar business practices.  

We too are awaiting correction to the appropriate DNS entries for Outlook clients. In a nutshell, they still don't work and this is after:

1) Changing CNAME and MX records to reflect the "new" but unreported and uncommunicated changes as provided in the "My Account" "DNS Settings" portion of the Comcast admin site - WHICH DID NOT WORK!

2) Contacting support again to confirm that the changes were made to the CNAME and MX as shown in the "My Account" "DNS Settings" portion of the Comcast admin site, Comcast Support provides --> "THE POSTED INFORMATION IS INCORRECT, Change to xxx.W14C.comcast.net. and update all CNAME records accordingly.

3) So I changed all related CNAME entries to reflect what Comcast support says - STILL NOT WORKING!

This is mind boggling that this problem was created, not communicated and remains unresolved for Comcast customers! This is well beyond ridiculous and certainly costing customers unnecessary expense in dealing with this problem. An explanation is required COMCAST! EXPLAIN YOURSELVES! COMMUNICATE!

To all posters in this thread,

Comcast has migrated and upgraded from Outlook 2007 to Outlook 2010 to better secured and faster overall performance. In conclusion, Comcast always keeps you posted on the Outlook and Domain required settings as follows:

1. Log into the business class portal administrator email account.

2. under Manage Service. Email. click on View DNS Settings.

You can ALWAYS find the "latest and greatest" Outlook / Domain email setting addresses. If you make sure that ALL your Outlook users settings correspond to these View DNS Settings along with your Domain zone file records (i.e. MX, auto-discover, NS, CNAM) then you email functional operation should always be flawless.

Hope this helps you all out.  

While I appreciate the flavor of Comcast Kool-Aid you're drinking, I can assure you that from February 13, 2015 until February 16, 2015, Comcast made changes that do NOT correspond to your assertion.

Namely, as you have provided, all we have to do is:

1. Log into the business class portal administrator email account.

2. under Manage Service. Email. click on View DNS Settings.

Well, that's the problem. Comcast changed the DNS Settings between February 13, 2015 until February 16, 2015 without notification. For those persons hosting email of their private domains with Comcast, this information must be updated with your DNS zone file records. Without notice to do so, email doesn't work!

Moreover, as I have previously stated in this thread, the DNS Settings Comcast has provided --> HAVE BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED AS INCORRECT AS OF TODAY by Comcast Customer Support!

So, are you authoritative enough to tell me unequivocally that the present DNS Settings under your assertion #2 is in fact correct? I seriously doubt it. Moreover, Comcast DNS support is totally baffled why their servers cannot be resolved to their own DNS servers. I am expecting feedback from them tomorrow on the issue. See twitter @jd2greco for more details if you care / dare.

I'm laughing now.  But only because we finally resolved our last remaining issue.

Not being Exchange experts, we didn't connect the dots that the "autodiscover" address would require a CNAME record in order for our Outlook clients to connect into the new server.  The old server did not require a CNAME record for this.  Or if it did, it somehow worked for us without one anyway.

With a little digging, we found other hosting sites that explained the relationship between Outlook and autodiscover, and the need for a CNAME record.  We set it up using the autodiscover address on the DNS settings page in the Portal, and voila, Outlook clients connected.

For kicks I searched Comcast support and did find a recently updated article on how to make autodiscover work for your Outlook client, by setting up a properly addressed CNAME record.  Take care to use the DNS settings you see when you click on the DNS link from within your own account.  Apparently they vary.

What idiocy that we had to figure all this out ourselves.  First by finding our email broken on 2/14, then recording two support tickets on Monday and Tuesday with Level 1 customer support staff reading from a script, then getting a call from Level 2 reading from a script saying "we had a server issue and are working to resolve the problem."  WHAT?  If I had waited to hear back from that guy I'd still have no access to my email!!!  We're not just paying for an Exchange Server.  We're paying for THE SERVICE.  Comcast fail.  Again.

Thanks eudemon47 for the reply.

Unfortunately, this is NOT the culprit as the appropriate CNAME record is, was and has always been in place for AUTODISCOVER. Our CNAME entry was updated on Tuesday to host = autodiscover points to =  autodiscover-rd.w14d.comcast.net

The more I investigate, I believe Comcast has failed to deal with the HTTPS connection(s) to their new servers for hosted domains and the appropriate Outlook settings.

Although our Comcast provided DNS records provide for us to use mail.w14d.comcast,net, and of course we can't connect via MS Outlook clients, our clients CAN connect via a web browser to https://webmail.w14d.comcast.net and access email through the OWA.

Again, there is no reason for this and I am nowhere with Comcast support.

---

@nicgreco wrote:

Unfortunately, this is NOT the culprit as the appropriate CNAME record is, was and has always been in place for AUTODISCOVER. Our CNAME entry was updated on Tuesday to host = autodiscover points to =  autodiscover-rd.w14d.comcast.net

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Did you scrub the domain out of your host name for your CNAME record in your posting to the forum? 

If not, try host = autodiscover.[yourdomain]

The fact that we didn't have one before implies to me maybe you had a broken one you thought was working.

Other than that I'm at a loss.  As far as I know we're fixed. 

As far as Comcast knows, we're still broken.  They still haven't gotten back to us either (despite a commitment to deliver a status update by COB yesterday).

"As far as Comcast knows, we're still broken.  They still haven't gotten back to us either (despite a commitment to deliver a status update by COB yesterday)."

Not terribly surprising.  I don't believe that I've had a callback from support after the ten minute mark has passed.  If it's within that ten minute window then great, but after that, for whatever reason I'm lucky if when I call them they have a record of my last call.

None of those suggestions were it either.

UPDATE - At 5:00pm on Friday, February 23, 2015 the PROBLEM IS STILL UNRESOLVED. But, for the first time, initial support ACKNOWLEDGED THERE IS A PROBLEM!

I have been waiting for a call from Tier 2 support since Wednesday and am still dead in the water. To add insult to injury, I have tried to add a new user today and CANNOT ADD A NEW USER. As I type, I am 12+ minutes on hold with support who is sending me to "Upware Support".

What a joke! COMCAST PLEASE RESPOND!!!!!! YOUR CAUSING OUR BUSINESS TO SUFFER!!!

Did they fix your service?

They migrated us to exchange 2010 starting friday.

Our email (26 users) has been off since Sat. the 21st.

I've made 3 calls to customer service, and they say a tier 2 person will call me, but no one has (today is the 25th).

Autodiscover does not work, and they can't / wont tell me the manual settings for outlook.

Thanks.

David

We eventually got this manually configured for our small office. But now that we finally have mail reconfigured the send delay is painful. Any time a user sends mail it is about 8-17 minutes before it reaches it's destination. 8 minutes internally is the average. We are then forced to call customers and explain technical details over the phone instead of email because of the delay. Obviously some serious routing on comcasts side is still going on to cover their tracks. Pretty sad I have to log into a console to just to be warned of Cert and DNS and OWA changes, why cant you email your customers 3 weeks prior like any other level headed host would do?

Good news is we once again have mail, bad news is it works slower than fax. Any input from Comcast on the delay would be wonderful.