Lync 2013 client’s conversations list displays an exclamation mark with the message: “There are Exchange connectivity issues. Your conversation history cannot be retrieved.”

Problem

You’ve received complains from users that their Lync 2013 client’s conversations list displays an exclamation mark with the message:

There are Exchange connectivity issues. Your conversation history cannot be retrieved.

If the user navigates to File –> View Conversation History from the Lync 2013 client, Outlook is automatically launched and the conversation history (with content) is displayed.

Solution

A quick search on the internet shows a Microsoft rep suggesting the following:

This issue might be related to any of the situations below.

1. The computer time is different from the local time.
2. The Outlook credential is wrong.
3. The primary account in Outlook is not the same with the account that you sign in to Lync.
4. The Exchange Autodiscover is not working correctly.

What ended up being the issue at the environment I came across this was because they did not have an autodiscover.domain.com A record in their internal DNS and as soon as I created the record, the error went away.