Problems with Exchange 2003 SP2 on Win2K3 SP2

[FatBoy]

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has had a similar problem before and can point me in the right direction to solving it!

This week the exchange server has stopped accepting connections 3 times, (on the 25th, 27th and today). At first I thought it was something to do with the M$ Exchange Information Store at restarting it brings the server back up. But after some reading and it going down this morning I checked the 'mailbox store' in the System manager and found it to be dismounted. I right clicked the mailbox store and told it to mount and we were back up and running again, my only problem of course is to stop this happening in the future.

When the exchange server goes down the following events happen in the event viewer.
1st one:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeSA
Event Category: Monitoring
Event ID: 1005
Date: 30/04/2010
Time: 05:09:19
User: N/A
Computer: CSCOMAIL09
Description:
Unexpected error <<0xc1050000 - Unknown Error. The logon to the Microsoft Exchange Server computer failed. Microsoft Exchange Server Information Store ID no: 80040111-03ee-80040111>> occurred.

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

Then:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeSA
Event Category: MAPI Session
Event ID: 9175
Date: 30/04/2010
Time: 05:10:16
User: N/A
Computer: CSCOMAIL09
Description:
The MAPI call 'OpenMsgStore' failed with the following error:
The attempt to log on to the Microsoft Exchange Server computer has failed.
The MAPI provider failed.
Microsoft Exchange Server Information Store
ID no: 8004011d-0512-00000000

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

And lastly:
Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeSA
Event Category: Monitoring
Event ID: 1005
Date: 30/04/2010
Time: 05:10:16
User: N/A
Computer: CSCOMAIL09
Description:
Unexpected error <<0xc1050000 - The attempt to log on to the Microsoft Exchange Server computer has failed. The MAPI provider failed. Microsoft Exchange Server Information Store ID no: 8004011d-0512-00000000>> occurred.

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

And after the last event the Event ID 9175 (middle event) just repeats until I mount the mailbox store.

I checked the DB size under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Servic es\MSExchangeIS\<SERVER NAME>\Private-<GUID of the database> and in decimal it was set to 60GB. I then checked the priv1.edb which was 40GB and the pub1.edb is only 15MB so the size is ok, as I was told this could be a problem.

These files are on the D:\ drive of my server and it has 198GBs free so free space isn't a issue, altho my C:\ drive has only 1.19GB free.

Any help would really be appreciated
Thanks
FB

[danrhodes]

Try increasing your database size, if its getting too large it may dismount.

How to increase the Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2 18-gigabyte database size limit

D

[SYNACK]

It may also be an idea to run a defragment and possibly a check/repair on your database as small corruption can occour and will lead to random crashes. Eseutil /P Repair Mode Using the Exchange tools ISINTEG and ESEUTIL to Ensure the Health of your Information Store

Also how much memory do you have in that server, if I remember correctly you need to have the /3GB switch in your windows boot.ini to prevent fragmentation of the store.exe in memory if you have 2GB or more or ram thanks to 2003's handling of it.

[FatBoy]

Strange I have checked the eventvwr viewer after mounting the mail store and I have the below event:
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Event Category: General
Event ID: 9685
Date: 30/04/2010
Time: 08:15:55
User: N/A
Computer: CSCOMAIL09
Description:
Exchange store 'First Storage Group\Mailbox Store (CSCOMAIL09)': The current physical size of this database (the .edb file and the .stm file) is 63 GB. This database has exceeded the size limit of 60 GB. However, the logical free space in this database has not yet been evaluated. Therefore, it is possible that this database contains enough free space to bring its logical size below the maximum size limit.

If the logical database size exceeds the maximum size limit, it will be dismounted on a regular basis.

For more information, click http://www.microsoft.com/contentredirect.asp.

Well that says it all! But how is the database 63GB when I then checked the priv1.edb which was 40GB and the pub1.edb is only 15MB????

[SYNACK]

It is stored as a sparse file where large zeroed chunks are compressed. Your DB has obviously had lots of transactions and has not been compacted/checked in a long while and so even though the actual amount of real data may only be 40GB the file structure takes up 60GB. If you run the checks above it will find all of these empty data pages and compact or remove them cleaning up the DB structure and bringing it down to much closer to the file size. Even if you do up the limit doing this would be a very good idea as there is obviously a lot of empty structure in the DB slowing it down and making it more prone to corruption.

[FatBoy]

Thanks SYNACK, I'll take I look at that link and follow the instructions later, emergency postponed for the time being tho! I guess (haven't read yet) that you will have to take exchange down to run the maintenance anyway?

[FatBoy]

Just for a little update for everyone and information for anyone else that might be considering doing this...

DB size 64GB
Server has Intel Xeon 3.20Ghz processor and 2GB of RAM

Yesterday I ran ESEUTIL /g to check the integrity before a defrag which took just under 2 hours and all reported ok
Then ran ESEUTIL /d to defrag the DB which about 4 hours and reduced the DB from 64GB to 46GB so I'm very happy
No issues with running them either