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Delivery Status Notification (Failure) intermittent errors on incoming mail with Exhange 2003 server

Hi, We've been running Exchange Server 2003 for about 1.5 years with no problems. Then recently we've been having incoming emails bounced intermittently with the following message (i've changed the addresses, obviously):

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mail Delivery Subsystem <mailer-daemon@googlemail.com>
Date: Jul 20, 2006 11:36 PM
Subject: Delivery Status Notification (Failure)
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxx@gmail.com

This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

press@yyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.com

--

It only happens once in a while. and if the person re-sends the email a couple minutes later it will usually go through in 1 or 2 more tries.

I'm not very familiar with managing exchange server. is there a place i can look to see what happened (like a log file)? any idea why this is happening?
thanks!

pbeckford

This looks like directory access problem, at least that is where I would start looking as it appears that when exchange receives the email, it looks up the recipient but cannot access a GC or access to a GC is timing out. Where is your DC/GC in relation to your Exchange server, are you having any other authentication problems on the network?

The first thing I would do would be to check if all the Domain controllers listed under the Exchange Server Properties / Directory Access Tab are available? Next, try increasing the logging level on the exchange server properties / Diagnostics Logging / MSExchangeDSAccess to Maximum and watch your event viewer. With logging at maximum, restart the System attendant and check the logs very carefully for any errors.

pvmatt

ASKER

Thanks for the help. We have two Domain Controlers: 1. the exchange server (MAIL) and 2. another server (PVSERVER01). they are both in-house on the same network switch.

Under the Exchange Server Properties/Directory Access tab, i see: MAIL listed three times, 1 for each type: Config (auto), DC (auto), GC (auto).

Does that all sound OK?

I've got the DSAccess at Maximum and i have the event viewer open and watching.

Thanks again

pvmatt

ASKER

also: this info was posted in the event viewer:

Event Type:      Information
Event Source:      MSExchangeDSAccess
Event Category:      Topology
Event ID:      2080
Date:            7/21/2006
Time:            2:15:22 PM
User:            N/A
Computer:      MAIL
Description:
Process STORE.EXE (PID=3852). DSAccess has discovered the following servers with the following characteristics:
(Server name | Roles | Reachability | Synchronized | GC capable | PDC | SACL right | Critical Data | Netlogon | OS Version)
In-site:
pvserver01.PVRECDOM      CDG 7 7 1 0 1 1 7 1
mail.PVRECDOM      CDG 7 7 1 0 1 1 7 1
Out-of-site:

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

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

pbeckford

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pvmatt

ASKER

thanks so much! when you say "message tracking" what do you mean exactly?

pvmatt

ASKER

Thanks again for your help. you pointed me in the right direction. as it turns out: it was ONLY gmail that was bouncing. We were using SpamCop and it was blocking *some* gmail server IP's, but not all. So sometimes the email would come through, sometimes not.
I went ahead and turned off spam cop, sent over 50 test emails in an 8 hour period with 100% success. Just as a test, as soon as i turned SpamCop back on, i would get about 25% of gmail test messages blocked!

Thanks again