Re: Public Folder Maint

TE <TE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

thanks for replying. I added under each of your comments.

"Rich Matheisen [MVP]" wrote:

TE <TE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Sorry for long post, but I some stuff going on I dont understand. Rather
than doing an offline de*** of our PF stores, I decided to replicate the
stores and create new pf stores then replicate them back. The first srv I
went ok, i'm having problems with other srv.

Heres what I did:

1) I have two exchange 2k3 ent srvs (srv1 & srv2). I made sure srv1 had all
of srv2's Pfs replicated to it.
2) On srv1 I removed srv2 from the replication tab of each folder. All pfs
on srv2 disappeared except for the system folders.
3) I changed the default pf store on all mailstores to srv1.
4) I dismounted the pf store on srv2. When I did this I noticed the next day
in srv2's local delivery queue there was bunch of folder data stuck.
5) The next night I deleted from ESM the pf store on srv2 and set
replication to "never" on srv1's pf store. When I did this no more folder
data was sent from srv1 to srv2.

Everything went smooth with creating a new pf store on srv2. At this point I
had a new pf store on srv2 and all the old pfs on Srv1. I next did steps 1 -
3 on srv1. After that all pfs were replicated to srv2 and off srv1. My
problem happened when I dismounted the pf store on srv1. I came in this
morning and found a bunch of emails waiting in srv1's local delivery queue.
The emails were all for pfs on srv2.

I expect that the messages are hierarchy replication messages and not
content replication messages. Until you delete the Public Folder Store
from srvr2 these hierarcy replication messages will continue.

I don't want to delete pf store on srv2.

Then why are you dismounting it?

Right now srv2 has all the public
folders we want to keep

Then why are you dismounting the PF store on srv2? And why did you say
you deleted the PF store on srv2?

and srv1 only has old folders that arent used
anymore. I dismounted the pf store on srv1

That's not what you said you did. You said "4) I dismounted the pf
store on srv2." :-/

so I could see if any errors would
pop up when I finally delete the pf store from ESM.

Thats when I saw emails
built up in the queue on srv1. The msgs were replication which I understand
will stop when store is deleted in ESM, but alot were external emails for
public folders that only exist now on srv2. That's why i'm holding up on
deleting from ESM now and I mounted pf store on srv1.

Did you check the contents of the msExchOwningPFTreeBL property?

Is srvr1 a SMTP bridgehead server? If so, it may be that messages from
outside your organization are being sent to srvr2 because it's the
first PF store in the msExchOwningPFTreeBL property. That won't stop
until you delete the Public Folder Store (not just the database, but
the object in the ESM).

I dont think srv1 is a smtp bridgehead, I'll confirm this tmrw. It just
seems that in order for ext emails to get to public folders on srv2, the pf
store on srv1 needs to be mounted.

If srv1 is a SMTP bridgehead, that's correct. If there's a local PF
store then all mail addressed to Public Folders is delivered to that
store. The PF store then sends the message to a store with a replica
of the folder. If the local PF store is dismounted then the messages
remain in the delivery queue.

If there's no local PF store, a server in the same routing group is
selected (I believe in the order in which the public folder servers
appear in the msExchOwningPFTreeBL property) and the messages are sent
there.

When I first deleted pf store on srv2,

If srv2 has all the public folders you want to keep, why did you
delete it?

it
asked me to pick another server to host something with the pf stores. I then
picked srv1. If I delete the pf store on srv1, then it will ask me same
question and I'll pick srv2. Could this be it?

I don't think so. I think everything's working as it's supposed to
w/r/t the delivery of external e-mail to the PF's. Don't dismount a PF
store unless you're sure you understand what it's used for.

I mounted the pf store on srv1 and all the emails went to the pfs on srv2. I
noticed another thing when pf store on srv1 was dismounted, in outlook some
folders that were on srv1 were showing up in public folder list and not
accessible(which makes sense). The part I find wierd is that I set all
mailstores to use srv2 as the default pf store so I dont understand why
folders in the dismounted store were showing up in outlook.

The "default public folder store" is just where the Outlook clients
get the hierarchy from. The location of the folders (and thir
contents) depends on which stores have replicas.

When u say "hierarchy" do u mean list of public folders?

Yes. It's more than just a list, but to keep it simple, yes.

If so, does that
mean until I delete the pf store on srv1 I will still see it's folders in
outlook?

You'll see those folders until you delete the public folders. I
wouldn't delete the store until the replicas have been removed from
that store or the public folder's deleted (if the only replica is in
the PF store).

When I dismounted the pf store on srv1, I was still able to see it's
folders. I thought by dismounting store, I would only see public folders
hosted by srv2.

Nope. Each public folder store has information in the hierarchy about
every public folder in your organization. Outlook clients can see (if
they have permission) all the folders. They may not be able to access
the contents of the folder, though.

Anyway, my main
problem has to do with the fact emails arent going to pf store on srv2 when I
have srv1's pf store dismounted. If I did anything wrong in steps listed
above, then pls let me know. I have some errors in event log I can post if
needed.

Based on the problems that Outlook is having, I think that you haven't
fully replicated the folders yet. For the folders that are
unavailable, verify that both (or just the new server) have replicas.

I gave the replicas I added to srv2 about 3 full days to replicate. On srv1
there were about 25 folders (not including system folders). I only wanted to
replicate 10 folders to new store on srv2, the rest I wanted to dump when I
delete store on srv1. Before I began removing srv1 from replication tab on
publics on srv2, I made sure items matched up for folders on both stores.
Once that was done, the 10 folders disappeared from srv1. Is that all I had
to do to make sure folders were moved to new store?

That sounds okay. If the Outlook clients use srv2 as the hierarchy
server, and all the PF's you want them to access are only on srv2,
dismounting the PF store on srv1 shouldn't cause a problem for those
clients. I say "shouldn't" because Outlook may still do something
dumb. If you have that sort of a problem, try creating a new Outlook
profile and see if it "fixes" the problem.

--
Rich Matheisen
MCSE+I, Exchange MVP
MS Exchange FAQ at http://www.swinc.com/resource/exch_faq.htm
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