exchange black hole

[JCOest]

Hey everyone,

I'm having a problem with my some of my users on Exchange 2k, with outlook 2k, running on winxp pro. When they are cc'd or put into the To: line with multiple other addresses they can not receive the e-mail. This is not a constant occurence it's a every so often occurence and they can receive mail that is sent when only they are the only one in the To: and nobody being cc'd. Even strange there are others also in the company who are also on these e-mails and they recieve it no problem.

I check the MIME headers and the e-mail address are correct, exchange it looks like is just dropping them.

Any ideas?

Thanks

 

[chrisstyles]

First place to look is in the bad mail folder. This will be the black hole. If exchange can't route it anywhere it will go in here.

Chris Styles

NT4/2000 MCSE

 

[JCOest]

Okay I went into the bad mail folder and did a search for text containing one of the e-mail addresses. Is there a way to view the e-mails from going to bad mail and a way to view them so I know which ones i want to prevent?

Thanks for you quick reply and advice.

 

[JBL312]

You should be able to open the file with Notepad. Or if you have Outlook Express on the server you can use that. Tell it to buzz off when it starts talking about setting up an account. It will only do it the first time.

 

[JCOest]

Okay, I opened up the e-mail that got rejected. Is there a way that I can keep them from ending up there?

 

[chrisstyles]

So we have now established that the mail is being rejected by your ex server. It looks like some sort of problem checking the SMTP address probably against the Global Catalogue. This can show up intermittently. NDR's would however have been produced.

Check the headers of the rejected mail, see if they are correct.

Check the Event Log for anything suspicious at the time, if its gc related it will be in there.

I'll take another read of this post tomorrow as I have to finish the ironing before betime!!!!

Good Luck.

Chris Styles

NT4/2000 MCSE

 

[JBL312]

Typically email that gets placed in the Bad Mail folder has a good reason for being there. If your server receives an email for an address that does not exist, the email will be placed in this folder. In other words, if an email can not be resolved it typically ends up within the Bad Mail folder.

Look through the header section of the email that is in the bad mail folder and verify that the email address it was being sent to is valid. If it is not then that is probably why it is in there.

You might also look into the possibility that a virus scanner, spam filter, or other software might be placing the email in the Bad Mail folder. From what I have read spam and virus scanners that are designed to be installed on an Exchange server typically have installed an Event Sink. This lets the software get access to email prior to the server doing much with it. These event sinks have the ability of telling Exchange to not deliver the message. If this were happening Exchange might be placing the messages in the Bad Mail folder.

 

[chrisstyles]

It's the fact that it's not a constant occurence that would lead me to believe that the addresses can't be checked against the GC. However if this were the case you would also get problems with people opening outlook occasionally. As you havn't posted that symptom I would strike the GC from the list.

JBL312 is correct in that it is normally Virus Checked messages that are binned to the Bad Mail folder as some Virus Software has the habit of altering a message causing Exchange to reject it. This is not normally by design as Exchange has not features to handle / monitor the badmail folder.

I would put some tracing on the smtp server and trace the rejected messages when they occur. This should give you some very good insight into what is going wrong.

Chris Styles

NT4/2000 MCSE

 

[JCOest]

Thanks for all your help guys.
I browsed thru the bad mail file again in notepad, and found that the ihatespam server software we are using had indeed tampered with the file.
thanks again for your help.