Unable to Mail Enable Public Folders

One of my clients had a recent issue. He wanted to create and "Mail Enable" a new public folder in their Exchange 2007 infrastructure. He used the UI (not the Exchange Shell commands) for the purpose. He did not receive any error messages when he right clicked the folder and selected "Mail Enable" from the context menu. However, then he wanted to verify the operation and tried to open up the properties of the folder. At this step, he received the following error:

The Active Directory proxy object for the public folder '\Root Folder\Sub Folder' is being generated. Please try again later. It was running command 'get-mailpublicfolder -Server 'ServerFQDN' -Identity "\Root Folder\Sub Folder".

We checked almost everything including the "msExchOwningPFTreeBL" attribute. Even if we created a top level folder, the behavior was the same. Mail Enable was running with no problems, but when we checked the properties of the public folders, we were getting the exact same error message.

Because we had retired the Exchange 2003 servers recently, I even thought this issue might be related. However I was not able to find anything to prove this.

My long Google search did not return much results either. Then, in Technet Forums, I found a post which was about a similar problem. In their case, they were working on the RTM version and they noticed that the "System Attendant " service had been shutting itself down intermittently. Their solution was to make sure that the "System Attendant" was running. After reading this post, we immediately checked and verified that the service was already "up and running". Then we thought, since we have nothing to lose, we could try restarting the service. After "System Attendant" restart, we "Mail Disabled" then "Mail Enabled" the public folder. Finally, when we checked the properties of the public folder, we got no errors and were able to verify the new e-mail address of the folder.

I really don't know what was wrong in the first place, but apparently "System Attendant" was not performing properly. Then the service restart fixed the problem. Since the other services do not depend on the "System Attendant" anymore, the service restart did not require us to take all the other Exchange Server services down.

We spent a couple of hours on this "interesting" problem, and with this post I am hoping to save you same time if you run into the same issue.

Update Rollup 7 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Can Kill OWA and Web Based Services

No matter how careful you are with your network, you cannot avoid getting bitten by patches or fixes occasionally. I have seen this exact same behavior with three different networks, so I think there's some sort of pattern going on. 

Here's what's been happening: Right after you install "Update Rollup 7 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1" successfully in your environment, OWA and ActiveSync may not work at all. I want to repeat this one more time: the installation might run without any errors or warnings, but you may still end up with a non-functional OWA. 

Uninstalling Rollup 7 might solve the problem, but I have found a better solution: Simply repeat the installation of the "Update Rollup 7 for Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1" package one more time. This second install will take care of OWA and Web Based Services problems for good. Only in one instance, the installation process failed to re-enable the Exchange services at the end of the installation. Simply re-enabling Exchange Services and restarting the server solved the problem.

I am not sure under what circumstances this issue occurs, but I hope this simple yet effective tip can save you from frustration.

Exchange 2007 Multi Node Single Copy Cluster and Additional MTA Issue

Based on my experience , there is no need for addinational MTA on Exchange 2003 Multi Node Cluster. If you have an MTA resource on first Exchange 2003 node, you don’t need additional MTA resource at other Exchange Nodes.

But If you install multi-node single copy Exchange 2007 Cluster, you have to create additional MTA in Active Directory (by using AdsiEdit) for every additional Exchange 2007 nodes. If you don’t do that you cannot create a mailbox on these Exchange nodes.

You receive the following error in Exchange Management Console: “A proxy generator DLL on server FQDN.serverName could not be found or failed to initialize. Proxy addresses for the current recipient cannot be calculated. Please ensure that all proxy address generator DLLs have been installed on the target server”

Additionally, the following event may be logged:
Event Type: Error Event Source: MSExchangeIS Event Category: General Event ID: 1201 Description: Error -2147221233 reading/decrypting the msExchResponsibleMTAServer attribute on the Server object in the Active Directory. For more information, see Help and Support Center at Data: 0000: 5b 44 49 41 47 5f 43 54 [DIAG_CT 0008: 58 5d 00 00 26 00 00 00 X]..&... 0010: ff f0 0d 00 00 00 00 00 ÿð...... 0018: 00 02 18 00 00 00 cd 4a ......ÍJ 0020: 20 10 00 00 00 00 bd 5f .....½_ 0028: 20 10 00 00 00 00 bd 5f .....½_ 0030: 20 10 00 00 00 00 .....

Move Mailbox operations doesn’t care about additional MTA on every Exchange2007 Server on cluster. You can successfully move mailboxes to these Exchange servers. But these clients cannot logon via Outlook Web Access or MAPI (Outlook).

You can find additional information at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928811 Microsoft support article.

Exchange 2007 Migration - Common Issues

During my recent Exchange 2007 Migration Projects, I had to work on and produce solutions for a number of interesting problems.

To ease your pain and shorten the troubleshooting process associated with such issues, I will try to list some of the most common issues and their solutions in this post. All of the problems and solutions listed here can also be found in different discussion forums, blog sites or KB articles, but so far I haven't seen any consolidated document for common issues in Exchange 2007 migrations. I hope this post will fill in this gap.

1. Problem with Autodiscover (Outlook Web Services) on Windows 2008
2. Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP) Does not Work on Windows 2008
3. ActiveSync (EAS) Issue with dedicated CAS and Exchange 2003 Back-end
4. Unable to Uninstall Legacy Exchange Server (2003)


1. Problem with Autodiscover (Outlook Web Services) on Windows 2008
Background:
When Outlook 2007 is used to connect to an Exchange 2007 server, by default Offline Address Book, Out of Office Assistant and Scheduling Assistant features try to connect to the Web based services. All these features actually depend on Autodiscover feature of the Exchange 2007 Client Access server (CAS).

Problem:
Outlook 2007 users detect problems with Offline Address Book, Out of Office Assistant and Scheduling Assistant. Especially, when trying to "Add Attendees" using Scheduling Assistant, Outlook crashes and restarts.

Solution:
The problem is caused by .NET 2.0 SP2. Uninstalling .NET 2.0 SP2 resolves the issue, all Autodiscover related features start to function properly.The details of the problem and recommended solution can be found at my previous post:

http://adventuresofanitpro.blogspot.com/2008/10/problem-with-autodiscover-on-exchange.html

2. Outlook Anywhere (RPC over HTTP) Fails on Windows 2008
Background:
For Outlook Anywhere feature to work properly, Client Access servers (CAS) need to access three TCP ports on the Mailbox Server: 6001, 6002 and 6004. Even in single server Exchange 2007 implementations, these three ports are needed.

Problem:
When you try to access these three ports through telnet tests, you will notice that 6001 and 6002 are accessible. However, you cannot access port 6004. If you check the ports on the Mailbox Server using netstat, you can verify that the server is listening on the all three ports. For some reason, because when IPv6 is enabled (and it's enabled by default on Windows 2008), it prevents access to TCP port 6004. There is one workaround and one permanent solution.

Solution:
For the quick workaround you can add the server's IP address and name in the local HOSTS file. Surprisingly this simple action re-enables access to port 6004.

For the permanent solution, you need to disable IPv6 for good. To disable IPv6, you need to perform the following steps:

In the Network Connections folder, obtain properties on all of your connections and adapters and clear the check box next to the Internet Protocol version 6 (TCP/IPv6) component in the list under This connection uses the following items. This method disables IPv6 on your LAN interfaces and connections, but does not disable IPv6 on tunnel interfaces or the IPv6 loopback interface.

Add the following registry value (DWORD type) set to 0xFFFFFFFF:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\Tcpip6\Parameters\DisabledComponents.

This method disables IPv6 on all your LAN interfaces, connections, and tunnel interfaces but does not disable the IPv6 loopback interface. You must restart the computer for this registry value to take effect.

You will also need to replace the following line in HOSTS file

::1 localhost

with this line:

#::1 localhost

and add the following lines
IPv4 address hostname of the computer
IPv4 address FQDN of the computer

(Please replace IPv4 address with the IP address value of your server and names with the actual name of your server for the entries given above)
After these changes, you need to restart the server. Following the restart you will notice that you can connect via RPC/HTTP(s) with no problems.

MS Exchange Team Blog has an excellent post about this topic at the following link:

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2008/06/20/449053.aspx

Also Aaron Marks describes the problem and the solution in detail at his blog site:

http://blog.aaronmarks.com/?p=65


3. ActiveSync (EAS) Issue with dedicated CAS and Exchange 2003 Back-end
Background:
During a well planned transition to Exchange 2007 from legacy Exchange environment, one of the recommended actions is to install a CAS server (on a seperate box other than Mailbox server) and redirect all OWA, RPC/HTTP and ActiveSync requests to this new CAS server. Since CAS uses a process called proxying, and has the ability to proxy for both Exchange 2003 and Exchange 2007 mailboxes, all requests will be proxied to proper back-end (or mailbox) server. For This setup provides the best co-existence support with the legacy Exchange mailboxes and lets you seamlessly transition to Exchange 2007. You can find more information on this topic at the following MS Exchange Team Blog post:

http://msexchangeteam.com/archive/2007/09/04/446918.aspx

Problem:
For mailboxes located on Exchange 2003 back-end server, you have to enable Integrated Windows Authentication on /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync virtual folder in the Exchange System Manager (ESM) interface. Otherwise, OWA and Activesync access fails. Now comes the tricky part: When you try to enable "Windows Integrated Authentication" for /Microsoft-Server-ActiveSync virtual directory, you will notice that you cannot click on "Authentication" button since it's dimmed by default. If you enable "Integrated Windows Authentication" on the virtual directory using IIS Manager interface, Activesync users will receive multiple username/password prompts and will fail to access their mailboxes. This is behavior is the result of DS to Metabase (DS2MB) process which turns off Integrated Windows Authentication on the Windows 2003 back-end server.

Solution:
Download and install the hotfix described in the following MS KB Article:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/937031

As described in the KB article, this hotfix enables the dimmed button, and lets you select "Integrated Windows Authentication" in ESM. Modifying the setting in ESM makes it permanent, and Activesync users can seamlessly access their mailboxes regardless of their Exchange server version.

4. Unable to Uninstall Legacy Exchange Server (2003)
Background:
At the final stages of an Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2007 Migration, you need to uninstall Exchange 2003 server(s) as a cleanup process.

Problem:
When you try to uninstall the old Exchange server, you cannot select "Remove" option and receive the following message:

The component "Microsoft Exchange Messaging and Collaboration Services" cannot be assigned the action "Remove" because:

-One or more users currently use a mailbox store on this server. These users must be moved to a mailbox store on a different server or be mail disabled before uninstalling this server.

You double check the old Mailbox Store and make sure that no mailboxes are listed, the mailboxes were either moved to Exchange 2007 stores or removed from the organization. However Exchange Uninstall still creates the warning message and does not let you proceed with the "remove" operation.

The problem is actually not directly related to Exchange mailboxes. The uninstall program queries AD for the msExchHomeServer attribute and tries to find the name of the old server. If a match is found, simply produces the above error message and refuses to proceed.

Solution:
To resolve the problem, you need to perform the following steps:

1. Right-click the domain container, and then click Find
2. Select the Advanced tab
3. Select User from the Field button
4. From the list of attributes displayed, choose Exchange Home Server
5. Set the Condition field to Ends With
6. Enter the Exchange server name into the Value field (Exchange 2003 server name)
7. Click Add
8. Click the Find
9. In the results Window, select the listed user account
10. Right-click on the user account name, then select "Exchange Tasks"
11. Click Next on the first screen
12. Select "Remove Exchange Attributes" on the second screen click Next and continue with the wizard till the end
13. Repeat the steps 9 to 12 for each user in the results list

After this cleanup operation, you will be able to select "Remove" during the Exchange Setup, and will be able to proceed with the uninstall with no problems.

Following Microsoft KB Article discusses the same topic with a slightly different resolution:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/924170

Oz Ozugurlu also describes the problem and resolution at his blog site:

http://smtp25.blogspot.com/2007/04/having-trouble-to-uninstall-exchange.html