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Russell Holloway

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Exchange 2010 stops sending and receiving outside email after a few hours. Transport service quits responding.

I had this question after viewing Exchange 2010 stops responding on port 25.

I'm running Exchange 2010 SP3 with all rollups, and the Transport service keeps failing.

The server has been working fine for years until now.

I'm seeing no backpressure errors (I have hundreds of gigs free, and far more than enough memory).

There are no errors that I can find (except for Service MSExchangeMailSubmission.  Unable to process anything for over 30 minutes) which comes up a while after the Transport fails.

I can't telnet to port 25 (it just tells me it can't open the connection).

I also can't manually stop or restart the Transport service (it times out trying to stop it).

If I reboot everything works fine for a while (sometimes most of a day, other times only an hour or so), I can send and receive mail, telnet, restart the service, etc.

I have renamed the Data folder under Transport Roles (it rebuilt correctly after a reboot), and removed the antivirus software.

I'm at a loss, and cannot come up with anything else to check
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timgreen7077

remove you antivirus and any antivirus transport agents if you have any and see of that changes anything
Avatar of Russell Holloway

ASKER

I already removed them and nothing changed (it still locks up with the same frequency).
Do you have any other software running on that server other than exchange. also have recently updated the .netframework since this happened? has anything changed with that server?
The only thing running is Exchange 2010.

I just checked and there was a .NET rollup installed a few days ago.

Other than that, there haven't been any changes.

I'll pull that update off and see if it has any impact.
what versions of .net are you running on that server
Exchange 2010 uses only the .NET .NET Framework 3.5 and .NET .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 libraries
The .NET update was for .Net 3.5.1 through 4.7.2.

I have Windows\Microsoft.NET entries for 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, and 4.0.
remove 4.7.2 no versions of exchange supports that version. that may be you issue. definately remove 4.7.2
The servers that are having problems in my environments do not have .Net 4.7.2 (only 4.5.2), although an update for .Net was applied in the July 2018 updates and 4.7.2 was one of the versions included in the title of the update (KB4340556). Thanks
I don't have 4.7.2 either, it's just that the last .NET patch covered versions from 3.5.1 to 4.7.2.

I do have .NET 4.7.1, but that's been on there for five months now.

What's weird is that there are no errors in any log when it goes down.

It just quits working, then about half an hour later I get errors that there has been no response from the Hub Transport for 30 minutes.

It's possible it does have something to do with the .NET patch because that's the only thing that's been updated for the past two weeks or so.
Do you see event ID 16002 or event ID 16022 in your Windows Application event log around the time of the failure?
Hi , I have the same issue, I have applied the July update and since then every 4 hrs all inbound external emails stop coming through, unable to restart any services, the only option is to restart the server, which resolves the issue temporarily for next 4 hrs.
try to uninstall that update.
I have just un-installed the .net 4.7.1 from July, will keep you posted in next 4 hrs.
good luck man. I know that can be a hassle with those patches. that is the worst week for me ever month. patch and cross your fingers.
I don’t have either of those errors. In fact, there are no errors at all for about 30 minutes, then it complains that hub transport is not responding.

I’ve removed the .net update from a few days ago, and I’m waiting to see what happens.

It’s still working as of now, but I ‘ll have to wait until tomorrow to know if it solved the issue.
There are several reasons Exchange 2010 stops sending and receiving outside emails which are given below-

•      The error “Exchange server unable to receive external email” result in the crashing of the program running at that moment.
•      The system crashes continuously and displays the error message of MS Server does not receive external emails in the same program.

If you are getting an error while transporting. So you can try the solutions given below :

1.      Fix Exchange Server not sending External mail Via PowerShell commands or you can create New Send Connector to fix Exchange not sending External Mail- https://it.toolbox.com/blogs/manishg/how-to-resolve-exchange-2013-not-sending-external-emails-error-050218

2.      To solve the issue in receiving emails, check the step in given link- https://www.experts-exchange.com/articles/32032/Exchange-Not-Receiving-External-Emails-In-2010-2013-2016-Mailbox-Server.html

Thanks and Regards

Robinsanshaw
(Exchange Server Expert)
Hi All
Just letting you know, after 8 hrs the server packed up again, this time I have completely uninstalled .Net 4.7.1
Will keep you updated how it goes in next 8 hrs.
Regards
Sam
I'm still having the same issue.

I've already recreated the send and receive connectors, and that had no effect.

I'm thinking now that I might restore one of the Exchange images from 10 days ago or so when it was working, and then replace the databases with the current versions.
I am running Windows Server 2008 R2 & Exchange 2010.   I am having the same problem that started on Wednesday, July 11th.  That is the same day that 4 Microsoft patches were applied.   Hmmm.....

I am hoping someone has the solution.   Just wanted you to know that it would appear (based on the timing) related to the Microsoft updates!!!
As further confirmation re the source of this problem.   I have another site "identical" to the site having our problem (ie:  Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard with Exchange 2010) which did NOT apply the .NET Framework - it is still running .NetFramework 4.7.1 - and it continues to perform flawlessly!!

So, the bad actor appears to be the July 11th Microsoft Security Patch:   "Mcrosoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 for Windows Server 2008 R2 for x64 (KB4054530).
Question:    Here is the link to download the Version 4.7.1    https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=56116

Can I simply... Uninstall "Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2, reboot, install version 4.7.1 (ie, downgrade), reboot, and have everything back to working normally ?

Just making sure that I don't dig a deeper hole !

PS:  I have also turned OFF the automatic installation of WIndows Updates while this mess is unravelled !!!
Here’s another follow-up.

I restored a server image from July 1st (when I knew it was working).

I then copied the current mailbox databases over and restarted.

It’s now been running fine for 2 days.

My problem also started on the 11th, but removing the updates didn’t help.

I think the updates changed something that removing them didn’t undo.

I’ve blocked the updates for now to see if the problem reappears without them.

However, I’m 99% sure they are the problem.
agreed. that's unfortunate that you have to worry about updates breaking exchange
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The follow-up patch is what solved this.

.NET updates turned out to have nothing to do with it, and the follow-up patch released on 7/18/2018 fixed the problem.

I've been running on it for 3 days now with no issues, so I'm marking this one solved.