Re: best way to recreate a mailbox


> 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
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: best way to recreate a mailbox
    ... >> some changes in PSS recently, so please take advantage of any request to ... I exhausted what I could do by phone and told the client, ... data loss can occur from running utilities against your Exchange ... >>> There is also a problem, likely related, with Backup Exec. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: best way to recreate a mailbox
    ... If you're working with PSS, I'd stick with their recommendations, especially ... data loss can occur from running utilities against your Exchange databases. ... but she's the one whose mailbox I want to recreate. ... > There is also a problem, likely related, with Backup Exec. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: One user having messages stuck in Local Delivery
    ... and export the mailbox contents to the PST. ... PSS is 800-936-4900 in the US. ... You can do an offline by simply shutting down the Exchange ... do an online backup using your normal ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • RE: Back up theory?
    ... way to restore client outlook data in case i lose all the backups. ... PST file?? ... In fact this .PST is even more up to date from SBS daily backup files. ... > Say we have a crash on the server and have to use a ONE month old Exchange ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: SBS 2003 Mirror OS Drive Question
    ... which is why I am trying to find out why the Exchange files will not backup. ... not by the hour for this particular client. ... start fresh with the mirroed drives. ... I understand about backing up Exchange ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)