One User constantly has mail stuck in SMTP queue 3

[wahnula]

Hi there,

Since my NDR problems and implementing the information in:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=886208

I have noticed there is one user, and one user only, who constantly has a small amount of his mail stuck in the SMTP queue. Today it's 6 emails, since 10 am. I guess they eventually go through, or get deleted, but this bother me, that a user has unpredictable mail service. As I said, this only happens to this one user. I have noticed that his stuck emails tend to have multiple recipients, and one of the addresses is called out as in "SBS SMTP connector - aol.com (SMTP CONNECTOR). There are no "postmaster" emails.

When I ran the KB above, this user was flooded with emails from months before, I'll bet it was when I stopped & started the Virtual SMTP Server.

Since it's just this one user should I save his email & contacts into a .pst file, delete the user, and re-create the user? I sure would like to solve this, I feel like a failure as a sysadmin.

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[markdmac]

Assuming it is a problem with the mailbox, where there is one problem there are likely to be others that just are not apparent. I would suggest that you run ISINTEG against the Private store.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[wahnula]

So, (please bear with me) at the end of the day (or remotely from home) according to

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/182081

I would open cmd, then type isinteg [-pri] [-fix] ?

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[ShackDaddy]

Tony, it seems more likely to me to be the unique nature of the people that that user sends mail to, rather than any problem with the mailbox. I don't know if I've explained greylisting to you in the past (I think I have), but it's fairly normal for mail to some of the larger ISP's to take up to an hour or three sometimes when sent out from a small-fry mail server, since part of AOL's anti-spam measures include introducing delays that spammers won't put up with.

As far as old mail being redelivered, this can be caused by all sorts of things, including bad rules, mismanaged .pst and .ost settings, IMAP users and mobile sync.

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[wahnula]

Hmmm....I just checked and half the messages have been sent, just a few left. We're not talking about an hour or two or even three, we're talking two or three days. Question one: Will Exchange delete these messages eventually? Where is this setting? I'm not sure if the letters are being sent or deleted.

As far as old mail being redelivered, this can be caused by all sorts of things, including bad rules, mismanaged .pst and .ost settings

Examples? Question two: Would it be a mistake to run isinteg with the syntax as listed above? It's just this one user, nobody else has a single stuck email.

This user also has a tendency to forward crapola several times a day (I'm King of Forwarders!) and of course all of that gets through, but his proposals (pdfs) get stuck. Maybe it's the attachments, but the crapola has attachments too. Maybe it's because he copies his personal account on every email, the ones that don't arrive he resends with his personal account, and that looks horribly unprofessional. Besides, I don't want customers contacting him outside our system for business reasons.

Anyway I'm tired of feeling like a failure, an hour or two delay is OK it's the two-three days the messages stay in the queue that bothers me. **depressed sigh**

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[ShackDaddy]

Yes, that's what you'd do with isinteg. You could even just to "isinteg -fix" since it will run against the priv by default. You will need to dismount the mailstore prior to running isinteg. Hopefully this will resolve the issue, but from your symptoms it sounds like more of an issue with your outbound SMTP than the mailbox.

A test you could do would be to have him send you a copy of one of the emails that's stuck in the queue and have you compose the same message, including attachments and send it out from your mailbox. See if it gets delivered from you even while it waits in the queue after being sent by him. It would be nice to narrow this down and see if it's really mailbox-specific.

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[wahnula]

OK, will do, although it will come to me through inter-office email.

To dismount the store, I will right-click on Mailbox store, dismount, then reverse the process to remount. Will update.



Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[ShackDaddy]

Just to make sure you understand the test I was suggesting: you'd be sending mail outbound to the same recipient that he's been sending mail to and experiencing delays with. I would expect your mail to be held up in the same way that his is, but if it doesn't get held up, it's worth noting, and may indeed indicate a mailbox issue.

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[wahnula]

Got it. In fact, I will have him forward me the email that's stuck there right now, and send it out with my mailbox. Thanks for your help.

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[markdmac]

ISINTEG -s servername -fix -tests alltests

faq955-5581

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[wahnula]

I must be doing something wrong, as when I try start-run-cmd- ISINTEG -s servername -fix -tests alltests I get the message:

"ISINTEG is not recognized abd an ionternal or external command, operable program or batchfile"

I have tried all variables of capitalixation and just running "isinteg" with the same results.

Should I be looking at getting to the DB i.e c:\program files\exchsrvr\MDBDATA isinteg etc? Sumpin ain't right here, although mounting & unmounting the stores "freed" 3 of the 7 stuck messages.

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[wahnula]

Here we go:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/301460

I guess you guys assumed I knew about the rest of it...

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[wahnula]

I give up. CMD tells me "C:\program" is not recognized as a blah blah blah

ipconfig /all and other CMD Line stuff works fine, but I'll wait to get back in the office to try it again, in case it's a remote thing.

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[markdmac]

I assumed only that you would follow the directions in my FAQ.

Note: Add the path to your Exchsvr\Bin directory to your Environmental Variables PATH statement. That way you can execute ESEUTIL from within your MDBDATA directory.

RTFM : read the faq man!

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[wahnula]

Mark, I did RTFM as you so eloquently put it, but for people that don't work in command line everyday like myself it may as well have been written in Chinese. As it was, it served as a reminder I needed to get away from the default "Documents and Settings\Administrator" by simply doing a cd to the directory I wanted, then running isinteg. All tests were clean as a whistle, both public and private. I thank you for your input.

I will try the double-emailing that ShackDaddy recommended to see if it's just the one box or farther reaching. One question I would like answered: Does Exchange keep those messages in queue indefinitely or are they deleted after a certain amount of time?


Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[markdmac]

Messages will eventually time out.

I hope you find this post helpful.

Regards,

Mark

Check out my scripting solutions at

http://www.thespidersparlor.com/vbscript

Work SMARTER not HARDER. The Spider's Parlor's Admin Script Pack is a collection of Administrative scripts designed to make IT Administration easier! Save time, get more work done, get the Admin Script Pack.

 

[paulha]

does dnsreport.com indicate that reverse dns is set up correctly ?

(yes, a long shot, I know, & assuming that it is not actually unique to the sender)

 

[wahnula]

Messages will eventually time out.

What is the timeout interval and where is it displayed?

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it

 

[ShackDaddy]

The default is 2 days. You can find it in the Default SMTP server properties, on the Delivery tab...

ShackDaddy
Shackelford Consulting

 

[wahnula]

does dnsreport.com indicate that reverse dns is set up correctly ?

Yes, reverse DNS is OK. The only FAIL is "Acceptance of postmaster address" which I deleted due to the 980 messsages from spammers to "postmaster@myserver.com" which started this whole mess, as my server was trying to send NDRs and I was receiving alerts that the SMTP queue was huge, leading me to run:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=886208

and bounce all emails to recipients not in my AD. Could this be the problem?

When I followed the KB instructions a flood of old emails went out. Now I'm checking the queues regularly and finding emails from this one user, and this one user only. I am going to follow ShackDaddy's recommendations, having the user copy me on all emails, then sending them out through my account, to see if it's the user or the machine.

I've changed the default timeout to 10 days, that should be enough time to tell if the email's getting out or getting deleted.

Tony

"If it can't take it, I don't want it