Category Archives: Exchange

Fix: Blank page when loading ECP on Exchange 2013

On Exchange 2013 you might encounter a blank page after the login page of the Exchange ECP portal. The Login page will load without issues but when you login successfully, an empty blank page loads.

This could be due to the Default Website and Exchange Back End website do not have the same certificate. Sometimes this happens when you either change the certificate or renew it.

To solve this, open the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager
Expand Sites
Right click on Default Website and click on Edit Bindings

From the list click on the https with the port 443 cnad click the edit button and confirm that you have the new cerficate selected and take note of it.

Right click on Exchange Back End site and click on Edit Bindings

From the list click on the https with the port 444 and click the edit button. Here make sure that you have the same certificate assigned and click close. In my case the certificate assigned was empty as the certificate was deleted.

Run IISReset from the command prompt as Admin

The ECP will now load.

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Review: Kernel for OST to PST

Today I am reviewing Kernel for OST to PST application which in my Opinion, it should be renamed to OST to anything as apart from recovering from corrupted OST files and converting them to PST, you can export to practically anything including Office 365, Google Apps/Gmail, Live/Outlook/Hotmail, Lotus Domino and others. Bearing in mind the fact that there is a good number of businesses going to cloud, it’s a must to have such feature.

Conversion is pretty straight forward, all you need is to select either an OST file with the option to bulk input the file selection. The rest is done with the application. The first pass will just open the file and the other passes on the file will try to recover deleted or corrupted messages, which if you have a healthy file can skip easily. The conversion is pretty fast and reliable keeping in mind it can run on any platform being Windows 7/ 8/ 10 to server editions as well.

You can export to either PST, DBX or MBOX apart from saving to MSG, EML, PDF and other common extensions. The best part of the application was the ability to save directly to email servers such as Office 365, Lotus Domino, various Exchange server versions, Yahoo, Gmail and other. All in one console and with a user friendly interface. This really saves a lot of time as using the conventional way, you would need to use Outlook, export using Outlook to PST. This of course does not recover from corrupted OST so it’s a show stopper. Adding to this then if you want to import to Exchange, you would need to transfer all the exported PSTs to a central location and use the NewMailboxImportRequest keeping in mind that you have Exchange 2010 upwards and this must be done one by one. As stated above with Kernel for OST to PST you will can easily do this with a bulk job and you can also directly import to Exchange of any version or any cloud service of your choice. Adding to this, the application also scans the OST file for deleted and recoverable items from corruption.

From my experience I have gone through a number of problem-solving with regards to Exchange, but one time I was called in to assist with a corrupted EDB file and broken down Exchange server. Rebuilding the Exchange server was an easy task but re-importing the data was going to be an issue. With Kernel for OST to PST, I was able to copy all OST files from the computers to a central location and I was able to convert the OST files and import them directly to Exchange using Kernel for OST to PST. This incident had 20 mailboxes, but the software has saved me a lot of time and costs which would ended up in more downtime and recovery time for the client.

The software is easy to use and the export features are straight forward with minimal administration effort. It saved me a lot of time and stress and it is recommended for such operations. Pricing varies depending on what features you would need. The Personal license costs $99 with the option to go for Home license which give you the ability to install on various computers respectively costing $199. These two version will give you the ability to convert OST files to PST. If you want to upload OST files directly to Exchange and cloud, you would need to purchase the Corporate license for $299 and if you want all features including conversion of multiple OST files in bulk you need to purchase the Technician version which costs $399. More information on the website of Kernel For OST to PST.

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Review: Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery

Recovering data and mailboxes from Microsoft Exchange EDB databases can sometime be a nightmare. I came across the software from Stellar Phoenix called Mailbox Exchange Recovery and for a small software, I managed to solve huge problems while minimising the time of recovery and the time effort to recover the mailboxes/items or EDB databases versus the conventional tools available.

Apart from solving the problems I had, Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery is a simple to use software. When you open it, you just point the software to the EDB file and it will automatically scan the EDB file to list the mailboxes. Depending on the corruption of the EDB database you can choose between Quick Scan or Extensive Scan. Once the scan is complete, you will get a full preview of all mailboxes in the database with the facility to browse in the actual folders. Apart from that you can also have a preview of the email you are looking at in the right pane. With this software you can also scan and export from multiple EDB files if you have multiple departments and create an EDB for each one.

If you have a specific recovery criteria from the user, you can easily filter by To, From, CC, Subject, Body, Attachment, Importance and Item Type; apart from the date range. There are various export options you ca use which some are PST, MSG, EMAIL. It came very useful when I had to recovery mails or mailboxes from a decommissioned Exchange Server, where I just restored the EDB file and exported all the mailboxes to PST in one go. This version of Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery can server also in migration projects to Office 365, where for example I found it very useful with Exchange 2007 clients migration to Office 365 and apart from exporting all mailboxes to PST was very easy and fast. On the other hand, you can easily restore the mailboxes to a live EDB file or directly to an Office 365 tenant. Really came in handy for a client who was migrating to Office 365 from a Exchange 2007. The solution was to export all mailboxes to PST, upload them and importing them through Office 365 portal but then this software allowed me to open the EDB file and export/import the mailbox directly to Office 365 without any hassle with all the calendar, tasks ad folder structure the user had in his on-premise solution. So apart from a recovery tool, I found it an excellent tool for migration tasks.

To cut story short, you can go with the repair, scan and use other applications to recover a corrupted EDB, but to be honest why would you end up with a huge amount of time scanning and repairing where you can easily use this software to recover you data and not having raging users waiting to access their precious emails? With Stellar Phoenix Mailbox Exchange Recovery, one can easily create a new EDB file containing new mailboxes, export all mailboxes to PST using the application and restore business in no time.

In conclusion this is a great tool to have if you have Microsoft Exchange servers or if you are in a position to migrate to Office 365. The software is so easy to use and for the price, it’s really worth the money starting from $399 to $999 depending on the license needs. If you are still indecisive, you can always download the trial to check if your EDB file is recoverable. The software supports Exchange 2016 downwards to Exchange 5.5.

Check the software on the link below and get your trial now

https://www.stellarinfo.com/edb-exchange-server-recovery.htm

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Fix: No Suitable Directory Servers Found when accessing OWA and ECP

When accessing ECP or OWA on your Exchange server you will be the below Server Error saying that No Suitable Directory Servers Found in Site and connected Sites. On the Event Viewer you will get the error 0x80040a02 (DSC_E_NO_SUITABLE_CDC).

The below solution if for Exchange 2003, 2007, 2010 and 2013. Open the Domain’s Group Policy Management and edit the Default Domain Controllers Policy or your server policy as below.

Computer Configuration
Policies
Windows Settings
Security Settings
Local Policies
User Rights Assignment
Mange auditing and security log
Add ‘Exchange Servers‘ or ‘Exchange Enterprise Servers‘ to that policy.

Restart the Exchange server to apply the computer configuration.

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How to: Remove Exchange mailbox export requests

After a number of exports or imports, you might need to clean up the failed, completed or other status when running the get-mailboxexportrequest report in PowerShell. To clean these open the Exchange PowerShell and run the below.

Clean Export requests
Get-MailboxExportRequest -Status Completed | Remove-MailboxExportRequest
Get-MailboxExportRequest -Status Failed | Remove-MailboxExportRequest

Clean Import requests
Get-MailboxImportRequest -Status Completed | Remove-MailboxExportRequest
Get-MailboxImportRequest -Status Failed | Remove-MailboxExportRequest

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How to export mailboxes to PST in Exchange 2010

A new set of PST export cmdlets, introduced in Exchange 2010 SP1, make it easier for Exchange administrators to export primary and archive user mailboxes to Outlook Data Files (PST). Though not recommended for storing large amounts of enterprise data, Exchange administrators use the Outlook Data Files to back up individual user mailboxes in certain scenarios – such as an employee leaving the business. This can help meet regulatory compliance mandates without having to back up the entire database. Additionally, a PST file can serve as an easy destination for exporting user mailboxes from corrupt databases in order to later import them to a healthy one.

Which users are permitted to export mailboxes to PST?

All users, including administrators, need to be assigned Mailbox Import Export role in order to export mailboxes to PST. This can be done via the Exchange Management Shell. To assign Mailbox Import Export role to a user, run the following cmdlets in the Exchange Management Shell:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role "Mailbox Import Export" –User <user name>

For example:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment –Role "Mailbox Import Export" –User Administrator

lepide_1Figure 1.Assign Mailbox Import Export role to a user

To assign Mailbox Import Export Role to a security group, run the cmdlets:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "Mailbox Import Export" -SecurityGroup <Security group name>

For example:

New-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role "Mailbox Import Export" -SecurityGroup MailboxExportImportGroup

lepide_3
Figure 2. Assign Mailbox Import Export role to a security group

To check which users have the rights to export mailboxes, run:

Get-ManagementRoleAssignment -Role “Mailbox Import Export” | Format-List RoleAssigneeName

lepide_3Figure 3. Check for users who have the rights to export mailboxes

The location of destination PST

The destination PST file for the mailbox export needs to be in a shared folder that is accessible from Exchange. Share the destination PST folder and provide Read/Write permissions for the Exchange Trusted Subsystem over it.

How to export mailboxes to PST

Mailboxes are exported to PST by creating mailbox export requests. To create an export request for a user mailbox, run:

New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox <mailbox name> -FilePath <network share path to the target PST file>

lepide_4Figure 4. Export mailboxes to PST

Note: You can create as many requests as required; but a unique name need to be given for every request after the tenth one (after which Exchange will not generate unique names for requests). To name a request, use the parameter ‘–Name’.

To export an archive mailbox, use:

New-MailboxExportRequest -Mailbox -FilePath –IsArchive

Note: To include or exclude specified folders in the export, use –IncludeFolders or –ExcludeFolders parameter.

Getting the details

To get details about the mailbox request, run:

Get-MailboxExportRequest

lepide_5Figure 5. Get the details about mailbox export

A better way to export mailboxes to PST

Exporting mailboxes to PST using the Exchange Management Shell is not a quick process, and many IT teams find that it is not a viable method when faced with strict deadlines. Specialised Exchange recovery management solutions, like Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager, provide powerful PST export facilities and simplify the whole process of data recovery. Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager also works with all versions of Exchange to ensure maximum compatibility with your Exchange environment.

lepide_6
Figure 6. PST export options in Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager

The solution’s Export Mailboxes dialogue displays some of the important features included:

  • Select mailboxes to export in PST allows easy selection of one or more mailboxes for export
  • Filters provide granular filtering options that can be done according to a date range or item types
  • This solution allows users to browse for the destination, split the Outlook PST file and create Unicode PST

Getting user-friendly details about items, folders and mailboxes exported to PST

With Lepide Exchange Recovery Manager, getting item, folder, and mailbox details exported to PST is easy and the reports provided are simple to understand. The solution shows you information on the export operation, mailbox (es) exported, folders in the exported mailboxes and the messages in the exported mailboxes folders. The screenshot below shows a sample of the operation logs created when multiple mailboxes are exported to PST:

lepide_7Figure 7. Details about the mailboxes exported to PST

Conclusion

Microsoft Exchange (from 2010 SP1 onwards), uses a new set of cmdlets to facilitate exporting mailboxes to PST. The user that performs this operation must be assigned Mailbox Import Export role and the destination PST folder must be accessible from Exchange. If you’re looking for an easier and quicker way to export mailboxes to PST, Lepide Exchange Recovery Manger is a powerful, cost-effective and user-friendly option.

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Fix: Exchange error 0x800ccc6c – Verify that the mailbox exists and that the Exchange receive connectors are configured properly

When having especially SBS 2008 with the POP3 Connector to retrieve mail from an outside mailbox to your internal Exchange server, you may encounter the below error in the Event Viewer.

An error occurred while delivering mail to ‘mailbox@mydomain.com’ on the SMTP server ‘localhost’. The error code was 0x800ccc6c. Verify that the mailbox exists and that the Exchange receive connectors are configured properly.

Thou the error message is misleading, this problem can happen if the POP3 Protocol Errors meet the tolerance of the Exchange SMTP Receive connectors. Exchange will close an SMTP connection after a certain number of protocol errors. The default is 5.

To solve the issue, in my case I had to in increase the value of “MaxProtocolErrors” for the Exchange SMTP Receive connectors from Exchange Management Shell by using the below command.

Set-ReceiveConnector -identify “Name of Connector” -MaxProtocolErrors 999

After this, I have restarted the POP3 Connector retrieval of messages and it worked.

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Fix Error 0x80041820 when searching through OWA

When searching through OWA you might end up with an error saying “The action couldn’t be completed. Try again later“, while users using Microsoft Outlook don’t have any issue.

You might also see the below errors in the event viewer

Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Event ID: 9842
Task Category: Content Indexing
Level: Error
Description:
Function CISearch::EcGetRowsetAndAccessor detected that content indexing was disabled for database ‘‘ because of error ‘0x80041820’ from MSSearch.

Log Name: Application
Source: MSExchangeIS Mailbox Store
Event ID: 9877
Task Category: Content Indexing
Level: Error
Description:
Content Indexing function ‘CISearch::EcGetRowsetAndAccessor’ received an unusual and unexpected error code from MSSearch. Mailbox Database: Error Code: 0x80043629

This can be solved by doing the following steps

– Check the version of Exchange 2010 installed by running Get-ExchangeServer | Format-List Name, Edition, AdminDisplayVersion (So, version 14.2 is SP2, 15.00 is SP3. If you are still using SP1 I strongly recommend to upgrade to at least SP2).
– Download the correct Service Pack and extract it.
– Run Setup /PrepareAD and Setup /PrepareSchema.
– After this is done restart the services Microsoft Exchange Search Indexer and Microsoft Exchange Information Store.

If this doesn’t work, use the following steps

– Download the script Repair-ExchangeSearchSymlinks.ps1 from the Script Center and copy it to C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\v14\Scripts
– Open Exchange Management Shell and browse to the above folder.
– Run the script with ./Repair-ExchangeSearchSymlinks.ps1
– After this is done restart the services Microsoft Exchange Search Indexer and Microsoft Exchange Information Store.

One last step if this doesn’t work is to reset the indexer and start indexing of the database by doing

– .\ResetSearchIndex.ps1 [-force] []…
– You will receive an Event ID 109 when the rebuilding of the index starts for each database and an Event ID 110 for each database when the index rebuild has completed.
– After receiving Event ID 110 for each database, test to make sure search functions correctly with both OWA and Outlook operating in Online Mode.

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Fix: Your automatic reply settings cannot be displayed because the server is unavailable

When setting up the automatic reply and out of office from your Outlook 2010 having Exchange 2010 you might have the problem with a pop-up saying “Your automatic reply settings cannot be displayed because the server is unavailable”.

I have managed to solve this with a DNS record in your infrastructure. Create the following SRV record to fix the issue.

Service: _autodiscover
Protocol: _tcp
Port Number: 443
Host: myexchangeserver.mydomain.local

On the client PC run the following to refresh the DNS. Make sure you run the CMD as Administrator

ipconfig /flushdns
ipconfig /registerdns

This should fix the problem and the user will be prompted to enter his Out of office settings.

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How to: Delete and re-create the Exchange ECP Virtual Directory

To delete the ECP virtual directory of your Exchange server and re-create it from scratch, you can use the below to get the identity of the virtual directory.

get-EcpVirtualDirectory |fl

Use this to remove the virtual directory in question

Remove-EcpVirtualDirectory -identity "MYSERVER\ecp (Exchange Back End)"

Create the new virtual directory use the below

New-EcpVirtualDirectory -externalurl "https://outlook.mydomain.com/ecp" -internalurl "https://myserver/ecp" -Server "myserver.mydomain.local"

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