lost emails with pop3 connector

[dotobi]

Hey Everyone

The other day I introduced an SBS 2003 R2 Server to one of my clients. Temporarily, they were working with pop3 mail for their emails so we were using pop3 connector.

At one point during the day it became apparent that emails were no longer getting through. They weren't bouncing back, or getting delivered, but they were being downloaded (and deleted) from the pop3 server.

After changing the pop3 connecter logging level to maximum, it appeared that everything was working (i.e. mails would get to the final stage of:

The message <id: {8C81DEC0-69DA-4358-8327-3F19FAFC61BC}> was routed by a global mailbox mapping as follows:
Original Recipient: <name@domain.com>.
- routed via domain substitution to <name@DOMAIN.COM>.

I re-ran E-mail and Internet Connection Wizard, and this sorted it out and it has been working ever since.

However, the mails that never got delivered are now lost!

After consulting

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/885685,

I have checked:
"%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\\Networking\POP3\Incoming Mail"
"%PROGRAMFILES%\Exchsrvr\Mailroot\vsi 1\PickUp"
"%PROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft Windows Small Business Server\\Networking\POP3\Failed Mail"
and they are not there.

After searching a lot I have pretty much accepted these emails are lost (unless you have any other suggestions) but what I thought I should be able to do is find some log somewhere that at least says who emailed who (with recipient and sender addresses). Is there a log with this info?

Thanks!

 

[ShackDaddy]

Sorry to break it to you, but this is a bug. Those emails are gone forever. This happened to me too a few years ago, and I always wondered what happened.

A couple of weeks ago I managed to hang out with a M$ support lead and he was describing a feature of SBS 2008 that no longer allowed messages downloaded by the POP3 Connector to get black-holed like they did on SBS 2003.

I was like, "So you mean when the POP3 Connector would download mail and it would disappear into the ether, it doesn't do that any more?"

"Nope."

"So that DID happen, right? And there was no way to get it back?"

"Yup."

Dave Shackelford
Shackelford Consulting