Re: best way to recreate a mailbox

In the spirit of political correctness, I suppose, I want to be clear that I
don't care that the tech-support people are Indian, only that they are
incompetent. It would be just as outrageous for MS to charge $245 for
incompetend stateside tech support.

GaryK

"Gary Karasik" <gkarasik@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ukOaJG$NFHA.3928@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>> If you're working with PSS, I'd stick with their recommendations,
>> especially
>> if they've escalated your issue. The other thing is, there have been
>> some changes in PSS recently, so please take advantage of any request to
>> provide feedback about the quality of service (or request the e-mail
>> address for the rep's boss if he doesn't offer it).
>
> The experience with PSS was awful. I was on vacation in Ireland and got a
> call everyday about this problem (which started the first Monday after I
> left). I exhausted what I could do by phone and told the client, who is
> not technical but who takes direction well, to call PSS.
>
> She did. The first tech with whom she spoke (in India) connected to the
> server, made some changes, and told her the problem was that Outlook was
> loaded on the server. I know this is a non-standard configuration, but it
> was set up with parallel DLLs, and in any case does not cause the reported
> problems. No matter that it had been happily running this way for months,
> he insisted that that was the problem and the client approved his removing
> it. When that didn't solve the problem, he then decided to diagnose the
> problem by stopping third-party services. Unfortunately, these included
> the anti-virus. He proceeded to stop all third-party services, then
> reboot the server. The client called me, concerned that she had not seen
> the Trend/SMEX box start. The tech-support guy had started a live,
> production, connected-to-the-internet Exchange server without any
> antivirus.
>
> I knew then that the tech-support guy was incompetent. I had the client
> immediately disconnect the external NIC cable, then told her to call PSS
> back and have the guy restart all services. I further told her to demand
> to speak to a supervisor. When she called back, she couldn't reach the
> first guy, but a second guy told her he could fix the problem. He then
> started a bunch of services that normally don't run on SBS--he started MTA
> Stacks, POP3, and several others. He also gave her the supervisor contact
> info. (A week later, the supervisor has yet to return any calls or email.)
>
> By this time it was Thursday, and I was coming home Friday. I told her to
> live with the problem until I got back.
>
> Saturday morning I called the original guy and demanded to have the
> problem escalated. The guy actually refused at first ("No, that is not
> necessary, we are Exchange experts, we can fix the problem, and you will
> only get another one of us."), but I persisted/insisted, telling them that
> I would call PSS back and ask to speak to 2nd level directly if he didn't
> connect me. He finally did. The new guy we got, stateside, while not
> immediately jumping all over the problem, at least wasn't causing any
> worse problems. An email to HIS supervisor, again stateside, detailing the
> experience we'd been having and requesting that he review the handling of
> our case, has resulted in some better attention to our problem.
>
> We are at least proceeding in the correct direction.
>
>> A couple of comments: I wouldn't run eseutil or isinteg in the absence
>> of something pointing you to that, unless PSS asks you to. However
>> rarely, data loss can occur from running utilities against your Exchange
>> databases.
>
> Point taken about ESEUTIL, but it is the only workaround that resolves the
> problem, albeit temporarily. ISINTEG reports no database errors.
>
>> Plus, this doesn't seem like a database corruption issue - those
>> generally log pretty good clues.
>
> I agree with you, but this is what the MS guy wants to try next.
>
>> I wonder if the defrag helping is coincidental - could stopping and
>> restarting all the Exchange services produce the same result?
>
> Don't know. Once the problem has surfaced, the Information store service
> won't shut down manually; have to reboot. Dismounting the Mailbox store
> takes several minutes to successfully complete (several seconds when
> operating normally), and simply dismounting/remounting the store doesn't
> clear the problem. It's possible that dismounting/remounting the store
> (without running ESEUTIL/ISINTEG), then rebooting might clear the problem.
> I haven't tried that.
>
>> I'd shut off diskkeeper for a couple of days in case that's involved - I
>> don't have any reason to doubt diskkeeper in particular, but 3rd party
>> programs on the exchange server are always suspect.
>
> Did that. No joy. I also stopped the scheduled Exchange Maintenance. No
> joy there either.
>
>> On a related topic, I'd take a close look at your AV, particularly
>> making sure all the appropriate files and processes are excluded.
>
> I have, and they are (Trend SMB, BTW).
>
>> You could also check with your AV company for known issues, and disable
>> background AV scanning of Exchange to see if that helps. (CA advised me
>> to start background scanning after a long time where they recommended
>> against it, but I see that the Best Practices Analyzer tool still points
>> to performance issues caused by it).
>
> I have. They report no known issues. I'm running the identical
> configuration (on identical hardware) at 4 other clients without problems.
> Not that that necessarily means that it isn't causing problems at this
> one. Stopping the Anti-virus (after disconnecting from the internet)
> didn't solve the problem.
>
>> The Exchange Best Practices Analyzer will tell you if any of your AV
>> settings are wrong, plus possibly some other useful info. You could run
>> that, and I don't know any reason why it would interfere with anything
>> you're doing with PSS.
>
> BPA doesn't report any issues except that I'm duplicate scanning SMTP mail
> and have insufficient VSI threads (again running the same config elsewhere
> with no problem). I can't find the setting for the former (I've seen it
> but can't remember where it is and will check with Trend Monday) and can't
> find any info on how to resolve the latter (will ask the PSS guy Monday).
> But I think changing neither of those settings will resolve the problem.
>
>> Are you running Exchange 2003 SP1? If not, I'd install it after checking
>> with the PSS rep.
>
> Yes I am.
>
>> When the information store fails to stop, does it log an error?
>
> No, darnit. That would make things a lot simpler.
>
>> Lastly, are you running Outlook 2003 in cached mode? If so, I'd disable
>> cached mode at least temporarily. I initially had some fairly severe
>> problems caused by cached mode. I'm seeing less and less as patches are
>> released over Office Update. Also, I'm not all the way there yet, but
>> I'm coming to the conclusion that upgraded versions of Outlook have
>> cached mode problems, where clean installs do not. Either way, I'd
>> disable cached mode to see if it makes any difference in your "requesting
>> data..." situation.
>
> I am not running Cached mode, and I've disabled any Offline caching as
> well.
>
>> Whatever happens, please keep us posted.
>
> Will do.
>
> GaryK
>
>> "Gary Karasik" <gkarasik@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>> news:%23LRs5x0NFHA.3492@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Is it a problem that might benefit from the collective wisdom of the
>>>> NG?
>>>
>>> Well, since you asked....
>>>
>>> Client was recently switched from SBS 4.5 to 2003 Premium. Dell PE 2600
>>> server, 2g RAM, 4xRAID 5 HDs, 20 XP/SP1 workstations, Office 2003.
>>> Paging file is 3g split 2g on C: and 1g on D:. Both volumes are
>>> defragged every night with Diskeeper.
>>>
>>> Every morning clients log in and start Outlook. About 20 minutes after
>>> the first client has logged in, Outlook gets an exclamation point on the
>>> tray icon that says, "Requesting data from the server." Outlook hangs
>>> and won't show messages. This lasts for about 5 minutes. Sometimes only
>>> one client hangs while others work fine, sometimes several clients hang
>>> while others work fine, sometimes all clients hang. Problem gets
>>> progressively worse through the morning. Problem goes away by itself a
>>> little after noon, then system is fine all day.
>>>
>>> There's no evidence of Trojans or Viri.
>>>
>>> Problem recurs next morning. Problem always begins with one particular
>>> user, but she's also always the first one in and working, so very likely
>>> coincidental, but she's the one whose mailbox I want to recreate.
>>>
>>> Only workaround so far is to dismount the Mailbox Store (takes nearly
>>> three minutes for the dismount to complete), do an offline defrag,
>>> remount the store, then reboot. I have run ISINTEG/Alltests after every
>>> offline defrag and no errors show. After the above workaround, the
>>> system is fine all day until the next morning.
>>>
>>> There are no CPU-usage spikes apparent while the hanging occurs, nor are
>>> there any event-log errors. Also, while the problem is occurring, the
>>> Information Store service won't stop.
>>>
>>> There is also a problem, likely related, with Backup Exec. If Exchange
>>> is selected for backup, the backup hangs; deselect Exchange components,
>>> and the backup runs.
>>>
>>> Clearly something is happening overnight that's re-activating the
>>> problem. I've only recently noticed the problem with Backup Exec
>>> (because it sends a Backup Successful message out after the job times
>>> out), so I haven't had a chance to try not running the backup to see if
>>> the problem recurs. I've tried stopping the overnight Online Defrag, but
>>> the problem still recurred. Also, I can't logically reconcile the idea
>>> that the problem's being caused by the overnight backup with the fact
>>> that the problem goes away by itself in the afternoons.
>>>
>>> We're talking to MS--that's another story (I'm not happy about paying
>>> $245 to be outsourced to India and a group of people who REALLY don't
>>> know the product; fortunately we finally got shuffled to someone
>>> stateside who is competent), and we will try to recreate the entire
>>> Exchange database over the weekend. We're also talking to Veritas about
>>> the backup problem. They've also got us running PerfWiz to see what
>>> shows up in the performance counters while the problems occurring.
>>>
>>> GaryK
>>>
>>> "Dave Nickason [SBS MVP]" <gwdibble@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
>>> message news:eqt6CfwNFHA.568@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>> Hi Gary - I'd do the former. I think you'll be making more work for
>>>> yourself if you delete the account, such as profile problems on the
>>>> client PC.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> "Gary Karasik" <gkarasik@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>> news:O92hFuuNFHA.2964@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm trouble-shooting an Exchange problem, and as one test I want to
>>>>> recreate a user's mailbox. Before doing this I will export the user's
>>>>> mail to a PST file, then, after recreating the mailbox, I will import
>>>>> it into the new mailbox.
>>>>>
>>>>> Question is, What's the best way to do this? Delete the mailbox in
>>>>> Exchange, then recreate it in Exchange, then associate it with the
>>>>> user? Or delete the user account and mailbox, then recreate the user
>>>>> account?
>>>>>
>>>>> GaryK
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>


.

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