All I have two outlook 2000 users that are having email delivery problems. The Server is a Win2k server running Exchange 5.5. When an email is sent to the users, from a co-worker, it takes anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 1/2 hours before its delivered. I did notice though that if I click on the calendar or contacts the messages deliver. All other users are working fine... The problem seems to be on the users local machine.. HELP!!!!
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Delayed Delivery
- Thread starter tattl
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- #3
Yeah, I got that part but that is just too wierd to be helpful. Especially if a manual send receive does nothing.
They have no problems sending mail? Goes out right away, not to their outbox for any length of time?
Just to verify that it is the client machine with the problem I would set up a profile for one of those mailboxes on another machine to see if it behaved normally.
If it worked there I would just do an Uninstall/Reinstall of Office before I wasted too much time.
They have no problems sending mail? Goes out right away, not to their outbox for any length of time?
Just to verify that it is the client machine with the problem I would set up a profile for one of those mailboxes on another machine to see if it behaved normally.
If it worked there I would just do an Uninstall/Reinstall of Office before I wasted too much time.
nodowntime
IS-IT--Management
I don't know if this will help or not, but I figured I would just throw it out there anyway.
I had a similar problem a while back. We just recently installed routers on all our WAN links, and suddenly the same problem you described appeared.
To solve the problem I created persistent static routes on the Exchange Server to every possible IP address on every WAN segment.
If all your users are on the same LAN, then routing is not your problem.
I do remember that when an e-mail arrives in a mailbox, Exchange tries to send a UDP message to the client. If that fails, no new message pops up on the client. When you click on the different folders, the client is establishing a connection to the server, and it discovers the new message. Outlook I believe tries to contact the server every hour or so to see if there is new mail, or update the free/busy something-or-other, so I believe that's your 10 minutes to 1.5 hour delay.
I had a similar problem a while back. We just recently installed routers on all our WAN links, and suddenly the same problem you described appeared.
To solve the problem I created persistent static routes on the Exchange Server to every possible IP address on every WAN segment.
If all your users are on the same LAN, then routing is not your problem.
I do remember that when an e-mail arrives in a mailbox, Exchange tries to send a UDP message to the client. If that fails, no new message pops up on the client. When you click on the different folders, the client is establishing a connection to the server, and it discovers the new message. Outlook I believe tries to contact the server every hour or so to see if there is new mail, or update the free/busy something-or-other, so I believe that's your 10 minutes to 1.5 hour delay.
Static routes to all IP's sounds pretty extreme. Sounds like you are just fixing a problem with whatever router you have specified as the default gateway on the exchange machine (and doing it the hard way).
By the way how did you access your WAN links before you installed routers?
By the way how did you access your WAN links before you installed routers?
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- #7
The strange part of this problem is... this machine worked before. This machine is in a remote office where I have aprox 30 users all running the exact same apps with the same config. The WAN is a VPN... this problem started when I moved all mailboxes to my HQ office Exchange server, which is a better box. All other 29 users in that location don't have a problem.
nodowntime
IS-IT--Management
Oh boy, it's been a few years. I think we had Netware 4.11 servers with multi-protocol router cards in them, so it was doing TCP/IP over IPX somehow. So technically I guess we were always using routers for the WAN. What I meant in my post was that we ditched the multi-protocol router cards, and went with separate Cisco routers.
I remember for some reason the external default gateway had to be set to the router that led to our ISP, and we had to leave the default gateway on the internal interface blank. The Exchange Server at that time was also the Internet gateway. The static routes seemed to be the only way I could get the Exchange Server to go through the WAN router.
I knew someone was going to blast me about using the static routes, but I figured what the heck, when you're trouble-shooting a particularly perplexing problem anything is worth a try.
I remember for some reason the external default gateway had to be set to the router that led to our ISP, and we had to leave the default gateway on the internal interface blank. The Exchange Server at that time was also the Internet gateway. The static routes seemed to be the only way I could get the Exchange Server to go through the WAN router.
I knew someone was going to blast me about using the static routes, but I figured what the heck, when you're trouble-shooting a particularly perplexing problem anything is worth a try.
Yeah just couldn't resist. Glad you didn't take it personal.
We've all got a skeleton or two like that sitting around somewhere.
This one just seems like it has to be a wierd client thing though since it suddenly works if he clicks on calendar?
Thats actually got me totally stumped.
We've all got a skeleton or two like that sitting around somewhere.
This one just seems like it has to be a wierd client thing though since it suddenly works if he clicks on calendar?
Thats actually got me totally stumped.
nodowntime
IS-IT--Management
This might be a dumb question, have you tried going to that machine, blowing away the user's mail profile, and then recreate specfiying the HQ Exch Server?
Is the old Exchange Server still up and running? I know the old one is supposed to redirect any clients connecting to it to the new server.
Is the old Exchange Server still up and running? I know the old one is supposed to redirect any clients connecting to it to the new server.
- Thread starter
- #11
All thanks for your help... I found the problem!!! The more I thought about this I realized it had to be a communication issue with the Exchange Server and the users PC. Exchange initiates communication with the user’s client to notify the client when new messages have arrived. My user wasn't being notified of new messages until he initiated communication with the server via Calendar, Tasks of opening a message that has been already read. The problem - The user had turned on the internet conn firewall feature in XP... I turned this feature off and all is well. Thanks for all of your responses.
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