Bloody Exchange!!!!!

[judge]

I have an Exchange server I am looking after and knowing very little about them have managed to almost sort their email delivery problems out.

They have their domain hosted with an external hosting company and use a global mailbox to collect all their email. Then the POP3 connector collects this mail and delivers it to the users on the exchange box..... for all except one of the users who doesn't receive any email except from internal users but can send them fine.

Is there a way of looking at the collected mail on Exchange to see what if anything is sitting there? I know from checking the mail account for the global mailbox at the hosts there is nothing sitting there so by my reckoning the email is being delivered to the domain host and collected by the exchange box but in this one instance is not passing it on.

I hate Exchange

 

[Clive]

It's been a while since I used Exchange Server 2000 and I don't have a copy handy to check, but there was a way of viewing individual Mailbox items (headers at least, not the content)

Have you tried setting the (POP3 connector and Delivery) detailed tracing on - then email that User from outside and see where Exchange is routing it to.

 

[wheeledwidewebb]

Yeah, turn the logging to full on the POP3 connector and you will be able to then use event viewer to see the whole POP3 conversation between the connector and the remote server.

I assume you are using the MS POP3 connector for Exchange under SBS are you?

If you are certain that the SMTP email alias is correct for this user then why not run a command prompt and telnet to 127.0.0.1 on port 25 and manually send an email to him, this will allow you to bypass the incoming POP3 system and treat the exchange server as if it were a normal SMTP server (like it was designed to be). Therefore ruling out your ISP or any POP transfer issues.

 

[LiquidLAN]

Judge, before getting elbow deep in exchange, have you looked and the one client pc that's causing the issue?. If you've got all but one client working it sounds as if the Exchange bit might be ok

is there anything different about the client PC, the user that's been set up, the internet account, etc, etc?

 

[Steve]

I have an Exchange server I am looking after and knowing very little about them have managed to almost sort their email delivery problems out.

I hate Exchange

That rings a bell.

 

[shugie]

Judge, before getting elbow deep in exchange, have you looked and the one client pc that's causing the issue?. If you've got all but one client working it sounds as if the Exchange bit might be ok

is there anything different about the client PC, the user that's been set up, the internet account, etc, etc?

Sounds about right, slight misconfiguration of email address in the client and on Exchange maybe?

I did once have fun with a elderly Mac running Outlook, it collected some, but not all, emails. Never got that one sorted.

Exchange is ok, if a bit unnecessary in some places, although I've seen applications written for it that do make use of a lot of otherwise seemingly pointless features.

Turning on all the POP3 logging is useful, but will fill the event logs quite fast too.

I don't know which version of Exchange your client has, but I think all versions have the ability to look at queues (Exchange Server Manager - server - queues) or (Exchange Management Console - Toolbox - Exchange Queue Viewer)

 

[judge]

Thanks fellas

After some jiggery pokery following some of the advice given it seems all was well at the exchange end and the client end - it was the fecktard domain/web host (not my own one but theirs managed by their web developer ) who back in December sent a confirmation to me stating they had removed the pop3 box for this user as I had instructed (and as they had done for all the other users), we did this one by one with confirms at each stage. So whilst the catch-all was working OK and the POP3 Connector was working OK, collecting and distributing to the exchange users... except for this one user whose POP account was still active, still collecting and holding mail but not being delivered to the pc as I had removed the POP3 account settings AFTER the account on the mail server had been deleted

That rings a bell.

Yes doesn't it, we thought we had this cracked, our combined efforts sorted the mess that was for all but this user, trust it to be the bosses missus for whom I'm not her favourite person at the best of times

Exchange is ok, if a bit unnecessary in some places, although I've seen applications written for it that do make use of a lot of otherwise seemingly pointless features.

Bang on, this client and one other I have were mis-sold this set-up and it pre-dates my involvement, I can see no useful reason for them to host their own Exchange server, if they think they need it they should at lest buy in a remote Exchange Server service which will get managed and looked after properly.

All they needed was a file server and some back-up and Dell Business sold them the whole 9 yards of misery and having paid it they won't junk it and move to an outsourced solution