Question

Exchange queue backs up with mail

Asked by: StarfishTech

We have several clients running exchange 2003 sp2. These clients are also running AVG for exchange. Just recently, several of the clients are having issues where outbound mailflow shuts down. The mail just backs up in the queue. We tried disabling the AVG 8.5 for exchange plugin to see if that was the problem however that didn't release the mail. THe only way we can get the mail to release is by doing an IISRESET. After that the server runs fine for a while and then we have to do another IISRESET eventually. AVG's support is worthless so I haven't really talked to them as of yet.

This Question has been solved and asker verified All Experts Exchange premium technology solutions are available to subscription members.

Subscribe now for full access to Experts Exchange and get

Instant Access to this Solution

  • Plus...
  • 30 Day FREE access, no risk, no obligation
  • Collaborate with the world's top tech experts
  • Unlimited access to our exclusive solution database
  • Never be left without tech help again

Subscribe Now

Asked On
2009-07-21 at 14:09:20ID24589066
Topics

Exchange Email Server

,

Email Anti-Virus

,

Message Queue

Participating Experts
3
Points
500
Comments
11

Trusted by hundreds of thousands everyday for fast, accurate and reliable tech support.

  • "The time we save is the biggest benefit of Experts Exchange to Warner Bros. What could take multiple guys 2 hours or more each to find is accessed in around 15 minutes on Experts Exchange." Mike Kapnisakis, Warner Bros.
  • "Our team likes having a resource that is more secure than just using Google and most experts using this service really know their stuff. It's nice to look here first versus using Google." Dayna Sellner, Lockheed Martin
  • "Anytime that I've been stumped with a problem, 9 out of 10 times Experts Exchange has either the accepted solution or an open discussion of the potential solution to the problem." Kenny Red, eBay Inc.

See what Experts Exchange can do for you.

Got a question?

We've got the answer.

Experts Exchange has been collecting answers to technology questions since 1996…3 million and counting! If you have a question, chances are we already have your answer.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Need individual assistance?

Our experts are ready to help.

If you can't find the exact answer you're looking for, ask our exclusive community of 50,000 experts. You’ll get a personalized answer from a trusted professional.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Want to learn from the best?

Read articles from industry experts.

Thousands of free tech tips, tricks, how-to’s and tutorials are available in our peer reviewed articles section. See for yourself how smart our experts are, no login required.

Screenshot of an Article

Working on a long term project?

Store your work and research.

Save solutions to your questions, answers you’ve discovered through searching plus helpful articles in your personal knowledgebase for easy future access.

Screenshot of Experts Exchange Knowledgebase

Access the answers to your technology questions today.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

What Makes Experts Exchange Unique?

Members of the expert community talk about why the experience at Experts Exchange is different than what you will find anywhere else.

Trusted by the world's most respected brands.

image of each brand's logo

Faithfully serving IT professionals since 1996.

Experts Exchange Logo

Try it out and discover for yourself.

Subscribe Now

30-day free trial. Register in 60 seconds.

Related Solutions

  1. Mail sits in outbound queue
    Hello Experts, I have a problem with my exchange 2003 server. Incoming mail works just fine, but the outbound mail just sits in the queue. The error message is "The remote server did not respond to the connection attempt". There are no event viewer error messages. ...
  2. AVG E-mail Scanner on Windows 2003 SBS: "No plu…
    Hi, I'm having a problem with AVG Email Server on Windows 2003 Small Business Server. On the E-mail Scanner, I'm getting a message: "No plugin is not active". I know this should probably be a question for AVG support, but they've told me that the plugin is controlle...
  3. Mail stuck in outbound queue
    Hi, I have an exchange server accessing a pop account. The outbound mail gets stuck in the exchange queue. When a force connection is invoked the mail gets sent out fine. There is no anti-virus or firewall program I know about on the system. Any ideas, Cathy

Free Tech Articles

  1. WARNING: 5 Reasons why you should NEVER fix a computer for free.
    It is in our nature to love the puzzle. We are obsessed. The lot of us. We love puzzles. We love the challenge. We thrive on finding the answer. We hate disarray. It bothers us deep in our soul. W...
  2. SCCM OSD Basic troubleshooting
    SCCM 2007 OSD is a fantastic way to deploy operating systems, however, like most things SCCM issues can sometimes be difficult to resolve due to the sheer volume of logs to sift through and the dispe...
  3. Migrate Small Business Server 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Windows 2008 R2
    This guide is intended to provide step by step instructions on how to migrate from Small Business Server 2003 to Windows 2008 R2 with Exchange 2010. For this migration to work you will need the fo...
  4. Create a Win7 Gadget
    This article shows you how to create a simple "Gadget" -- a sort of mini-application supported by Windows 7 and Vista. Gadgets can be dropped anywhere on the desktop to provide instant information, ...
  5. Outlook continually prompting for username and password
    There have been a lot of questions recently regarding Outlook prompting for a username and password whilst using Exchange 2007. There are a few reasons why this would happen and I will try to cover t...
  6. Backup Exchange 2010 Information Store using Windows Backup
    There seems to be quite a lot of confusion around the ability to backup Exchange 2010 using the built in Windows Backup feature. This stems from the omission of this feature prior to Exchange 2007 s...

Cloud Class Webinars

  1. Avoiding Bugs in Microsoft Access
    Alison Balter takes and in-depth look at avoiding bugs in Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the immediate window to debug your applications, invoking the debugger, using breakpoints to troubleshoot, stepping through code, setting the next statement to execute, ...
  2. Top 10 Best New Features in Visio 2010
    Scott Helmers gives live demonstrations of the top 10 new features in Visio 2010. This webinar will teach you how to create compelling diagrams by adding shapes to the page with a single click, linking the shapes in a diagram to data in Excel (or SQL Server, or SharePoint), ...
  3. IT Consultant Business Secrets Revealed
    Michael Munger, Experts Exchange tech pro and IT consultant, pulls back the curtain on his very successful businesses and answers question on every IT consultant and business owner should know about. He shares secrets on what he did to solve the 5 most common problems in IT, ...
  4. Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity
    Quest CTO, Mike Billon, gives an overview of the steps involved in building a dunamic disaster recovery plan. Through case studies and an examination of software/hardware tooles for monitoring and testing, you'll gain a better understandin of where you are, where you want ...
  5. Organize Your Visio Diagrams with Containers and Lists
    Scott Helmers uses cross functional flowcharts, wireframe diagrams, data graphic legends and seating charts to teach you: how to ustilize all three new structured diagram components in Visio 2010, the best practices for organizeing shapes in previous version of Visio, how to organize ...
  6. How to Us Objects, Properties, Events and Methods in Microsoft Access
    Alison Dalter gives an in-depbth look at objects, properties, events and methods in Microsoft Access. In this webinar you will learn about using the object browser, referring to objects, working with properties and methods, working with object variables, understanding the ...

Join the Community

Give a Little. Get a Lot.

Join the community of experts here and help other tech pros by answering question in your area of expertise. You can earn FREE access to all Experts Exchange's premium features and resources.

Join the Community

Answers

 

by: shauncroucherPosted on 2009-07-21 at 14:16:45ID: 24909437

What are in the queues - just legitimate email or are there SPAM items in there for outbound delivery, or do you have any NDR's in the queues?

Shaun

 

by: StarfishTechPosted on 2009-07-21 at 14:28:22ID: 24909527

No these are legitimate emails. Also, if I attempt to send an email from their server, I will see it get queued.

 

by: xchangeknowledgePosted on 2009-07-21 at 14:32:32ID: 24909570

1) Do you see any event logged in the event logs? If any post that information here...
2) IIS reset or just SMTP service reset works?
3) Check the bad mail folder, make sure it's clean
4) If non of above helps try deploying http://support.microsoft.com/kb/950757 hotfix, you can uninstall later if you face any problem due to this, but I noticed this fixes some of they type of problems.

 

by: darrellarbaughPosted on 2009-07-21 at 16:23:15ID: 24910335

What queue is the inbound message getting held in?

 

by: shauncroucherPosted on 2009-07-22 at 00:40:21ID: 24912250

Do you use a Smarthost or DNS for outbound delivery? If you use a smarthost, you may wish to check if they have introduced any policies on the number of connections they accepts etc - I've seen this happen when smarthost tighten up their servers. Only relevant if your clients use smarthost.

Shaun

 

by: StarfishTechPosted on 2009-07-22 at 06:17:07ID: 24914404

XchangeKnowledge - I believe only an IISReset works. The badmail directory is empty - atleast at the moment. There are some events but they don't seem all that significant.

In system log there is nothing except for when we actually performed the IIS Reset. When we did the IISReset, we got the following events in the log:

IIS Reset encountered an error while stopping services, which was requested by BPCD01\Administrator.  The logged data is the status code.  Since the force option is on, IIS Reset will now terminate the services' processes.  This may cause SCM to report errors about the services exiting.

In the system log, I see the following entries while the problem was occurring:

The Unsolicited Commercial Email default filter level has been updated. The new value is 8.

I also see that it was doing database maintenance as far as cleanup and defraging. Other than that, there are no unusual error. Schauncroucher - All of these clients use DNS for outbound delivery. DarrellArbaugh - its just getting stuck in the outbound message queue for whatever domain the user is trying to send email to.



 

by: StarfishTechPosted on 2009-07-22 at 08:41:12ID: 24916347

I would also like to note that we seem to have found a pattern - the mailflow issue mainly occurs after a server reboot. To clarify the order - the server is rebooted for an unrelated reason - once the server has been rebooted, email starts to backup in the outbound mail queue, we do an IISRESET and the issue clears up. Then the server is fine until it needs to be rebooted for one reason or another.

 

by: shauncroucherPosted on 2009-07-22 at 09:25:58ID: 24916883

When mail stops, try to connect to a remote mail server using telnet such as

telnet smtp.google.com 25

Does this return a 220? If not, then try

telnet 74.125.45.25 25

Does this work?

If it does, DNS issue. Check DNS settings.
If not, then try to establish why there is no connectivity to port 25.
See if restarting just SMTP service fixes the issue.

Shaun

 

by: shauncroucherPosted on 2009-07-22 at 09:27:32ID: 24916905

Also, after a reboot, sort services by StartUp type. Are there any that are set to Automatic where the Status is NOT STARTED. There will be performance monitor in this state, but shouldn't be any others. If there are, let me know what they are.

Shaun

 

by: darrellarbaughPosted on 2009-07-22 at 18:10:04ID: 24921104

In the Recip Policy, goto properties and choose the SMTP address you created, then click Set as Primary..  This will solve your issue.  You can then do an update now on the RUS, which should start the propogation.  Have patience.  It may take some time for the changes to be made.

 

by: darrellarbaughPosted on 2009-07-22 at 18:11:19ID: 24921109

Sorry.  Posted in wrong area.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

3 Ways to Join

30-Day Free Trial

The Experts

98% positive feedback on 31,087 answers since March 2000. angeliii is a Microsoft Most Valuable Professional for his work with MS SQL Server & Develoment.

He has also proven his knowledge of Visual Basic Programming, PHP Scripting and Oracle Databases.

The Experts

97% positive feedback on 10,752 answers since July 2000. lrmoore has more than 18 years experience in the networking industry.

The six-time Mircosoft MVPs specialties include firewalls, virtual private networking, and network management.

Testimonials

"...and excellent source for support... Kind of like having your very own IT dept." Electriciansnet

Testimonials

"I was apprehensive at signing up at first. However... it has already made my life as an IT administrator much easier." JaCrews

Testimonials

"WOW! You guys have great, active, and knowledgeable people on here." moore50

Business Clients

Business Clients

In the Press

"If you’ve got a question... Experts Exchange can supply an answer.”

In the Press

"...an invaluable aid for both IT professionals and those who require tech support."

In the Press

"where IT professionals provide quick answers on just about any topic"

Business Account Plans

Loading Advertisement...