Archive for the ‘mail’ Category

Virus/Phantom message stuck in Exchange Mailbox Root Store

12-19-08

I have been pulling my hair out trying to resolve a backup issue with a client’s backup on Veritas BackupExec 9.1. What happened was that backup was failing on 1 message because the antivirus couldn’t scan it, and locked the backup from reading it.

BackupExecs error was:
0xa0008488 - Access is denied
Backup - \\SERVER\Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes
Access denied to file FirstName LastName [user]FW: Your Tracking # 835503826372.

Now this particular message was found in the Inbox, I then deleted it and emptied the Deleted Items.
Backup still failed! But this time the message was it the root_store IE. The top level of the Mailbox and I couldn’t see it with OWA Client etc. I had to pass it on to another engineer who started looking at it, who then gave me the right tact to search.

I deleted the message by using a Microsoft tool called MDB Viewer, this is a low level tool for Mailboxes,  It’s on the exchange CD-ROM CD-ROM_Drive\Server\Support\Utils\I386\Mdbvu32.exe

I then basically (Remember I don’t do Step by Steps, I do summarys) Choose the Server, Choose the Mailbox (username), then clicked  OpenMessageStore on the MDB menu,
Click Open Root Folder on the MDB menu
From there I saw the message in Messages in Folder Column, I selected it, Choose the operation IpFld->DeleteMessage() and called the function!

Woo Hoo Backup now works!

Merry Christmas to me and you! :P

Posted by admin on December 19, 2008

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Outlook to use 2003 PST file format with IMAP

12-03-08

So I was back the stupid clients that had the crappy mdaemon / IMAP setup. This time upgrading there MS Office version to 2003 in an effort to stop the IMAP pst file hitting the 2GB limit. Anyway after pulling my hair out to get it to use the 2003 UNICODE PST type store I came across this post: link

“This issue occurs if the DWORD value for the NewPSTFormat registry entry is set to 2. This condition requires Outlook to use the Unicode-based personal folders (.pst) file format. This file format is incompatible with IMAP. ” Fuck! Looks like stupid internet standards win again!

You know the worst part - The client is a lawyer and he explicitly asked me in a email if this will fix the problem, to which I replied “Yes it will”

Now I just need to find that damn message…….

Posted by admin on December 3, 2008

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How to empty a full PST file from Outlook 2000, with Mdaemon IMAP

11-17-08

This is a guide, Not a step by step walkthrough! What are you an end user or an admin? FFS!

First create a new outlook data file in outlook - give appropriate name (eg. Archive 2008)

Navigate to the IMAP store in Outlook select all the msgs you would like to “Move” to the archive Eg. Hold shift and click top msg and bottom msg
Right click select Move to Folder etc, Select destination folder. Click OK
Depending on how well outlook is behaved the msgs wont move - in fact they will still be there, but they probably copied to the Archive 2008 data file (Quick go check) Now that you have the msgs copied, you can try delete them, go on try, it doesn’t work does it….no.
–Close Outlook –
On the server navigate to C:\MDaemon\Users\<DOMAIN>\<USERNAME>
delete all the messages that you backed up (Organised by date helps :) )
–Open Outlook –
Get Outlook/IMAP to update the ‘Cached Headers’ Completely (Usually does this automatically after opening outlook?)
Right Click IMAP store in Outlook

Properties - Advanced - Compress Now - Waiting a long time (hours if we are talking gigabytes)

Posted by admin on November 17, 2008

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