I tried to get the auto-populate group feature to work in one of our branch offices, but always got a

“Search for auto-populated group members failed for group TEST.: Error looking up name on LDAP Server; See server log for further details.”

error message. I finally gave up because I could not figure out, why the feature did not work on this server.

After migrating the server from Windooze to Linux, the error still occurs and I finally found the cause for the failure.

Directory assistance is running on the server and we have 5 additional address books enabled. One of this address books is not derived from the PUBNAMES.NTF template. And this is it. So simple, isn’t it?

When I disable the address book in question, the autopop feature works without any issue.

Although there is a technote that says that “private” address books can be problematic, directory assistance worked for us for us without any problems.