MTA service won't restart 1

[Griffyn]

Hi all,

I have an exchange server that has an automatic backup that I set up with a simple batch file. At the beginning, I use NET STOP commands to stop all of the exchange services in this order:

Norton Anti-Virus for Exchange
Exchange Event service
Exchange Information Store
Exchange Message Transfer Agent
Exchange Directory service

I then backup the files and restart these services in reverse order. But at least 2 days a week, the MTA service just hangs while restarting, and I must manually reboot the server. The MTA always restarts promptly upon restart. I've had no other issues with the MTA freezing.

Running on NT4 SP6. Exchange is 5.5 SP4 build 2653.23

Any clues?

 

[chipk]

Could this be your problem?

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/163297/en-us

 

[Griffyn]

Hi chipk,

Thanks for that link. I've looked at the number of .DAT files at the moment - 78. Plus the article seems to indicate that in the scenario it talks about, the MTA starts in the service manager, but doesn't begin operations for a long time.

I've had the MTA wait all night - 11 hours trying to start. A server reboot and it starts straight away.

I'll have a look tonight at the number of .DAT files and I'll turn on maximum logging for the MTA, but for the moment I'd appreciate any more suggestions.

 

[chipk]

When are you starting the System Attendant service? That's a dependency that needs to be running before the MTA.

 

[Griffyn]

I don't stop the System Attendant. The System Attendant doesn't depend on any of the services I'm stopping prior to the backup, so it won't be stopping automatically.

Therefore, the System Attendant service starts when the server is booted.

Do you think I should be stopping the System Attendant last before the backup, and restarting it prior to any of the other exchange services? What does it do? I thought it was there only as a shortcut to starting all of the exchange services.

 

[chipk]

System Attendant is a dependency to MTA, it may be going squirrelly when the rest of the services go down. This may be what's causing your problem, but hard to be sure. I'd stop it after the Directory service, and start it up in reverse order, before the MTA, as you've been doing with the rest of them. Let's see if that does the trick.

 

[Griffyn]

done. I'll post back in a week or sooner depending on how things go. Thanks for your help chipk.

 

[Griffyn]

I thing it's done the trick - it's behaved for an entire week. Thanks heaps chipk!