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View Full Version : Troubles with Exchange and Cached Mail



Luke122
09-05-2007, 02:06 PM
OK, this one is going to be a pretty steep request, but I know there are some people here who can help.

We are running an Exchange 2000 server (Yes, it's old.. yes, it's being replaced soon), and serving email to approximately 60 clients, all of who use various flavors of Outlook.

Currently, a few users are experiencing troubles with new messages not coming into their inbox. There's no error given, and no indication of trouble, until they hear from someone "Why didnt you reply to my message?" It seems that all these people affected arent able to receive any new messages since August 30th.

If they log into OWA, the new messages (anything received after Aug 30th)are there. If I disable cached mode on their Outlook, the new messages appear in their inbox. Re-enable cached mode, and they are gone again. It seems as though their message cache on the computer is stuck and not accepting new mail.

Thinking this was the problem, I made a backup of the .ost file (offline storage of messages), and exported everything to a .pst file (just in case), and removed their profile from their PC (or laptop in one case).

I then logged in as the user, opened and configured Outlook (to use cached mode) and began retrieving their email from the server. Again, it gets to Aug 30th, and stops.

I wiped the machine clean again, signed in as the user, opened and configured Outlook (not using cached mode), and began retrieving email from the server. Again, it gets to the 30th of Aug, and stops.

OWA is able to receive emails just fine with no problems with any emails past the 30th.

Configuring the user on a different PC doesnt help, neither does another version of Outlook.

Also, there is no common factors between users that would account for the strange behavior. Two are on laptops, 3 are on desktops. All are running XP (but so are ALL the employees here), two laptops are running Outlook 2003, one desktop running Outlook 2000, and one running Outlook 2007. They all work in different departments too.

I checked the exchange server to confirm that we are patched up to date and not approaching the 16gb "soft" limit in Exchange 2000 ( we are barely over 12gb atm), and I'm getting frustrated at this.

Any suggestions? I'm still trawling newsgroups, MS Support, and hotfixes for anything to match this, but no luck so far.

Luke122
09-05-2007, 04:05 PM
*bump*

Still stumped on this.. investigating further...

Luke122
09-05-2007, 04:46 PM
SOLVED!

A corrupt message was CC'd to all the affected persons. I went into one users account through the OWA, and found that the first message they were unable to retrieve was the same in all the affected inboxes. Once I deleted that message, the problem went away!

+rep to me! :D

XcOM
09-05-2007, 07:18 PM
well done, im sure someone else might need this info later on when the prolbem happens.

Killdrath
09-06-2007, 10:54 AM
Good catch. At my office, they just flat out tell everyone to disable cached exchange mode, with no explanation. I forgot to turn if off on a new install and it totally failed until I fixed it.

Luke122
09-06-2007, 11:08 AM
We use cached mode here due to the age of our mail server.. it takes a load off of the server if the user has all their mail cached locally, plus, mobile users can access their calendar and mail store even when they are disconnected.

I've forwarded the problem and the fix to MS support, hopefully they'll make a bulletin for others who see the same issue.

It's odd that there was nothing unusual in the event viewer when this happened...