Out of Office Assistant 1

[naifyboy]

Hi

Using Exchabge 5.5 and Outlook 2002.

I have one user and one user only whose out of office does not seem to send the automated message.

It's definately turned on at the server because when i access his mailbox logged on as me it's active.

there are no rules set up apart from the out of office.

all other users on the same server have no problems with this.

any ideas guys???

 

[Grenage]

I've had this once before and I eventually wittled it down to a corrupt mailbox. I exported the contents to a PST file, deleted the mailbox then imported the data back in.

Russell.

 

[fuego007]

Russel is dead on! Whenever you have a problem like this, it will be due to a corrupt mailbox. Exporting to a pst and creating a new mailbox is the best solution. You could attempt a fix using the isinteg:

isinteg -test alltests -pri -fix

to see if it will fix the corruption. DO NOT use the eseutil to fix this problem. A hard repair using the eseutil is a solution of LAST RESORT. To run the isinteg you must stop the Information Store service. To export to a pst, you need only run Exmerge (found on your Exchange CD), which you do with the store running. Perform a two-step merge, not a one-step.

After exporting the mailbox contents, compare the size of the pst to the user's mailbox size (right-click on Outlook Today - Mailbox - user name, and select Properties, then mailbox size). The two numbers should be fairly close, but do not have to match. Once you are sure you got a good export, delete the mailbox.

When you create the new mailbox, you can use the same name as the original mailbox on the General tab of the mailbox properties, but switch to the Advanced tab and alter the Directory Name by adding a digit to the end. This can ONLY be done while creating the mailbox! Once you have closed the properties page, the Directory Name CANNOT BE CHANGED!

This will prevent any corruption associated with the original Directory Name from affecting the new mailbox - trust me, I've seen it happen!

Send a test message to the new mailbox before importing the pst contents into it. Otherwise, nothing will be imported, as Exmerge will not populate an empty mailbox (unless MS has fixed it).

Good luck,
Bob

 

[zbnet]

Deleting the entire mailbox can sometimes be overkill. OOF (like all the mailbox rules) is an associate message in the (hidden) associate messages folder. These can be cleaned by using ExMerge in Archive mode, it has a tick box to include the associate messages folder - this would be the only thing that you would select from the mailbox in question. This approach has worked in every case where I've had corrupt rules or OOF on a mailbox.

 

[dneisler]

Hey zbnet,

Any chance you can post the exact steps needed to run through the procedure you recommend. I want to try it but I'm afraid I'm going to choose the wrong options. I would really appreciate it.

 

[beckas]

Hi

The cleansweep tool has resolved problems with the Out of Office Autoreply not working on a couple of our mailboxes. I did not have to delete mailboxes or take down our e-mail server in order to fix the problem. It might be worth a try for you.

Here is a link to some info:

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?SQID=627363&SPID=10&newpid=10&page=2

 

[dneisler]

Thanks Beckas but I dont have the Microsoft BackOffice Resource Kit. Any idea where I can get the CleanSweep program?

 

[beckas]

Hmmmmm....I can't find the download on the internet any longer. I can send you the Clnswp32.dll file. It is only 21 kb in size. If you want it sent to you, send me an e-mail at depechebeckas at yahoo.com.

 

[zbnet]

dneisler, instructions as requested:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;262482&Product=ech

 

[beckas]

Cool deal zbnet. Thanks for sharing the info. I didn't know that exmerge could do this.

 

[dneisler]

Thanks zbnet. I really appreciate it.

I'll try it and report back.

 

[dneisler]

AWESOME!!! That fix worked perfectly! Thanks so much zbnet!

 

[Notleks]

Just to add to what Fuego007 said earlier about renaming the Directory Name, to use the second stage of the merge you will need to rename the pst file to be the same as the new directory name for the import to work.