Store.exe Memory Leak 3

[sqladmin99]

Hi All,

We recently implemented Exchange 2k (SP3) in a domain with one DC. Server has 15 mail boxes and we did not make any changes to default installation. Server is running fine without any problem. We also have Symamtec AVF(3.0) for exchange installed on this server. Server has 512 MB RAM.

On this Server, I have been monitoring the virtual memory for last 3 days and it seems that the memory used is constantly going up. We rebooted the server this morning and it had 59% memory available for other program. After 5 hours it shows only 13% memory available. Is this normal?

I appreciate your suggestions.

Thank you,


Rajan

 

[bballmama]

I have had the same thing happen and have discussed with Microsoft extensively. MS says that Exchange will use all available memory at any given time, and this isn't a "real" leak. I have written a batch file to stop Exchange services and restart them on a daily basis. Then use scheduler to run during the off hours. It takes a couple of minutes to complete, and has saved me tons of grief. It looks like this:

@echo off
net stop "microsoft exchange pop3"
net stop "microsoft exchange imap4"
net stop "microsoft exchange information store"
net start "microsoft exchange information store"
net start "microsoft exchange pop3"
net start "microsoft exchange imap4"

 

[sqladmin99]

Thanks "bballmamav", You made my weekend. I was really worried about this but now I will also use batch file to solve this problem.

Rajan

 

[SteveBurkett]

Ah, Exchange 2000 has a built in dynamic memory allocation system, which means it will pinch every bit of ram it can get it hands on, and as other processes require memory, will give it back to them.

It's not unusual to see Store.exe using most of the servers memory, a 1Gb equipped server might have Store using over 800Mb, which is completely normal.

I'd only be concerned if you started finding things bombing due to lack of memory.

 

[speedracercjr]

Yeah STORE.EXE will eat it up, but it plays nice most of the time and give memory back when needed. I have E2K and SQL2K on the same machine and usually STORE.exe will have about 800MB RAM consumed, whenever i run a sql heavy script it gives up alot of memory to SQL. Like Steven said if its not causing you any grief don't worry about it.

 

[bballmama]

Microsoft gave me that same advice many times when I was agonizing over my memory leak problem. In theory, I agree with you. In reality, there are occasions when store.exe does not give it back, and it will eventually lead to a BSOD. At one point, I could count on a BSOD every 2.5 days. Performance Monitor counts would watch memory decrease to store.exe until it failed. In fact, Microsoft finally just gave me my $245/tech support fee back because they couldn't solve it. My humble opinion is that this may also be related to antivirus software scanning the Exchange email although I couldn't find that through my extensive monitoring. But, the bottom line is that stopping and restarting the services doesn't hurt anything unless someone is trying to send an email at that exact time. And, since I choose the off-hours, this doesn't really affect anything for me but spam! And by running this little batch file daily, I have eliminated the problem and the routine BSODs.

 

[Phizzle]

I experienced the same issue, however, I had my virus software (InocuateIT v6) to ignore Store.exe and the problem went away. Don't know if this would be applicable in your situation or not....good luck.

Phizzle :~)

 

[Andreh]

In CA eTrust InoculateIT 6.0 you need to also exclude certain directories for scanning in the configuration of the virus software e.g. (*\echsrvr\mdbdata) . I had this problem on NT4.0 Exchange 5.5. It's a different setup but the problems were relative to Windows 2000 Exhcange 2000 that i am now on.

I wonder if your AV software has a similar feature.

The problem with scanning the priv.edb with eTrust is that this database can get rather large. It is also constantly changing, so every time the database is modified the virus software starts scanning from the start. This caused the store.exe to max out.