Help Needed Public Folders Unavailable

[kennycad]

Had an interesting day today, unsure as to what has caused the problem but scenario is as follows:

All working well in morning.

Automatic update bubble poped up saying update available. This particular update was the SP2. Opted to install, all seemed to be going well until installation was not successfull. Error message as follows:

"Service pack 2 setup error - failed to install catalogue files"

System was not rebooted at this stage, didnt appear to have any issues with exchange. Public folders were still available at this point.

Later in the day we moved a large group of emails from one users mailbox to a public folder. This did not appear to have any issues.

Issues started popping up after this. Public folder became unavailable from within client outlook, some sort of message about "outlook been unavailable" mind you emails are still working fine.

I have attempted to access public folders from within server management>advanced>exchange>folders but was met with the following error message:

"The HTTP service used by public folders is not available possible causes are that public stores are not mounted....."

Attempted to access public folders via OWA but also get a error message:

"HTTP/1.1 503 service unavailable"

If anyone has any ideas or definite solutions that would be fantastic. Could this be as simple as re-mounting the folders? If so could someone give me a hint as to how this is done.

Thanks in advance.

 

[dotobi]

Hey

To re-mount the Public Folder Store...

Start > Programs > Microsoft Exchange > System Manager
then....
Administratve Groups > First Administative Group > Servers > your_server_name > First Storage Group > RIGHT-CLICK Public Folder Store and selct 'Mount Store'

I also had problems installing SP2. The automatic update didn't report what the problem was so I attempted it though the windows update website. This actually told me the problem which was... I didn't have enough disk space on the system volume to carry out the installation. So, try it though Windows Update and see what it says.

Hope this helps.

 

[kennycad]

Thanks for the reply

I followed your instructions and successfully mounted the public folders. The only problem is that they seem to dismount by themselves a short while after.

Would it be correct to assume that this problem has been caused by the failed SP2 upgrade? How much free space does the machine need to successfully install SP2?

I am considering restoring the server from a backup which was done the night before, is this an easy process and is it possible to restore only the operating system, therefore not disturbing recent file changes etc.

Thanks for your help.

 

[ncolsgk]

Sounds like an information store size problem to me. What version/service pack is your exchange?

 

[kennycad]

Small Business Server SP1 i assume.

 

[ncolsgk]

No, Exchange.

 

[dotobi]

This site is good for telling you how to find out versions of everything, including exchange:

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/computer/advanced/checkversion.mspx

I think the stores will dismount if you are low on disk space. Are the exchange files stored on the C: drive? And how much space is left? I'm asking beucase you had problems installing SP2 too and it could all be becuase of disk space.

If your exchange files (logs etc...) are stored on your C drive, info on how to move them can be found here:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/821915