Exchange Not Creating Mailboxes

[Bungle76]

Morning All,

This morning, I created a user in Active Directory Users And Computers, ticked the box in Add User Wizard to create a mailbox and this finishes successfully.

However - the mailbox does not appear in the mailbox store in Exchange System Manager and on the client machine the mailbox cannot be found.

I'm at my wits end here. Tried creating a couple of test users but I get the same outcome.

Has anyone got any ideas on what to check next? I'm using Exchange 2003 (no Service Pack yet) on Server 2003 Platform.

Kind Regards,
Colin Anderson.
System Administrator.
Keppie Design.

 

[NortonES2]

The mailbox won't appear until an email has been sent to it.

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If it doesn't leak oil it must be empty!!

 

[Bungle76]

Mailboxes always appears in System Manager whether an inital email is sent to it or not, do they not?

But - I can't send an email because the mailbox(es)I created this morning don't appear in the Global Address List.

Colin.

 

[NortonES2]

Mailboxes don't appear in System Manager until an email has been sent.

If the Hide from Address List option is not checked then Active directory has probably not replicated to the GAL.

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If it doesn't leak oil it must be empty!!

 

[Bungle76]

Hide in address list is not checked.

This is a brand new user account / mailbox. The Account details appear in AD Users + Computers. Looking at Exchange General Properties in the properties of the user gives the path to the mailbox as being in the Mailbox Store.

But on going into System Manager - there is no corresponding mailbox in the mailbox store.

I can't send an email to it as it does not appear on the GAL.

I'm at a loss.

Colin.

 

[Empmark]

Mailboxes always appears in System Manager whether an inital email is sent to it or not, do they not?"

In my experience they usually don't. I have a generic New Mailbox message I always send to the new address before I see it appear, or even check to see if it is there anymore for that matter. Also after getting the mailbox to appear I've noticed it can sometimes take a bit of time to actually see the new user address in the GAL.

 

[MrBean17]

In my experience, it takes a few hours for the mailbox to be created. Unsure to as why, I'd like to know actually.

 

[Bungle76]

I dialled in about midnight last night and rebooted the Exchange server.

This seems to have cured all the issues I was having.

I hate it when this happens, as I like to get to the bottom of things.

Colin.

 

[pnoo]

If it happens again, try this one:

CAUSE
This issue may occur if the Recipient Update Service is not assigned the correct permissions to access the mailbox. This may be true if the Allow inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object check box on the Security tab in the user's Properties dialog box is not selected.

RESOLUTION

ON THE FIRST DOMAIN CONTROLLER:
To resolve this issue, modify the properties of each affected user account to allow inheritable permissions. To do this, follow these steps:
1. Click Active Directory Users and Computers.
2. In the console tree, click Users.
3. Right-click the user account, and then click Properties.
4. Click the Security tab, and then click Advanced.
5. Click to select the Allow inheritable permissions from parent to propagate to this object check box.
6. Click OK.

 

[xmsre]

When you mail enable a use in ADUC, certain user attributes are populated. When the RUS stamps the user, other attributes are populated. The mailbox is not instanced, or viewable in Exchange System Manager, until either a message is received or the user logs onto the mailbox.

Finding the path to the server and mailbox store is a good indication that ADUC updated the attributes it was supposed to. Not visible in the GAL could very well be an indication of RUS failure. The RUS also processes recipient policies, so to confirm I would verify that no addresses are populated on the email addresses tab. If the addresses are populated, then I would look for AD replication issues. If not, then it's time to troubleshoot the RUS.

The two most common problems with the RUS are endpoints and proxy address generation dlls. Let's say you have fax software in your environment. Most fax packages generate custom addresses to define fax routing information. If the new Exchange server does not have the proxy dll, then the RUS will fail and an event will be logged in the application log.

If the issue is with endpoints, it could be permissions, or it could be an invalid endpoint. Either way, you should see some entries in your application log to help you track it down. After you fix the problem, you have to rebuild the RUS to restamp all users.