In an Exchange Server 2003 environment, after the SMTP
service is restarted, the Store service is restarted, or the server is
restarted, the e-mail recipients may receive old messages that were sent
several days before. Or, the e-mail senders may receive Non-Delivery Report
(NDR) messages for the delayed e-mail messages that they previously sent.
When this problem occurs, these messages are not visible in the SMTP
queues in Exchange System Manager. However, these messages are visible the SMTP
Temp tables in the mailbox store. Also, the e-mail senders do not receive an
indication that the messages are held by the Exchange Server 2003 server until
they receive the NDR messages when one of the services is restarted or when the
server is restarted.
When the store starts, the GuidTimestamp is generated on the
store side and passed over to Internet Information Services (IIS) store driver
(Drviis) through a proxy.
However, in some cases, the information that contains the GuidTimestamp is sent to
the store driver two times, and IIS receives a different time stamp than the
Store receives. When a new message is rendered, the store stamps and
submits the messages to the send queue, and
then the GuidTimeStamp is changed on the IIS side. Sometimes the messages are
not delivered to the next hop on
the first try because a remote SMTP host has "Greylisting" enabled. In
this case, the SMTP host sends a Temporary Error (4.7.1) message back
to the sender that indicates that the sender should retry the transmission of a
message in a few minutes. In this scenario, the message is set to a "retry"
state by the SMTP service. When the “retry†happens the time stamp on the
message is compared with the time stamp of the store driver. When there is a
mismatch, the message is considered invalid, and it not delivered until the
SMTP service or IIS is restarted.
Hotfix information
A
supported hotfix is available from Microsoft. However, this hotfix is intended
to correct only the problem that is described in this article. Apply this
hotfix only to systems that are experiencing this specific problem. This hotfix
might receive additional testing. Therefore, if you are not severely affected
by this problem, we recommend that you wait for the next software update that
contains this hotfix.
If the hotfix is available for download, there
is a "Hotfix download available" section at the top of this Knowledge Base
article. If this section does not appear, contact Microsoft Customer Service
and Support to obtain the hotfix.
Note If additional issues occur or if any troubleshooting is required,
you might have to create a separate service request. The usual support costs
will apply to additional support questions and issues that do not qualify for
this specific hotfix. For a complete list of Microsoft Customer Service and
Support telephone numbers or to create a separate service request, visit the
following Microsoft Web site:
Note The "Hotfix download available" form displays the languages for
which the hotfix is available. If you do not see your language, it is because a
hotfix is not available for that language.
Prerequisites
This hotfix requires Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack
2 to be installed on the server because of file dependencies.
For more information, click the following article number to view
the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
836993 Â
(http://kbalertz.com/Feedback.aspx?kbNumber=836993/
)
How to obtain the latest service packs for Exchange Server 2003
Restart requirement
The server must be restarted if the Wmiprvse.exe process is
running.
Hotfix replacement information
This hotfix does not replace any other hotfixes.
File information
The English version of this hotfix has the file
attributes (or later file attributes) that are listed in the following table.
The dates and times for these files are listed in Coordinated Universal Time
(UTC). When you view the file information, it is converted to local time. To
find the difference between UTC and local time, use the
Time
Zone tab in the
Date and Time item in Control
Panel.
Collapse this tableExpand this table
| File name | File version | File
size | Date | Time |
|---|
| Drviis.dll | 6.5.7654.2 | 135,680 | 17-Jul-2008 | 17:56 |
| Exsmtp.dll | 6.5.7654.2 | 407,552 | 17-Jul-2008 | 18:14 |
| Gwart.dll | 6.5.7654.2 | 66,560 | 17-Jul-2008 | 16:48 |
| Phatcat.dll | 6.5.7654.2 | 504,320 | 17-Jul-2008 | 02:52 |
| Reapi.dll | 6.5.7654.2 | 848,896 | 17-Jul-2008 | 18:14 |
For
more information about how to use the Mfcmapi.exe utility to view and work with
messages in the SMTP TempTables, click the following article number to view the
article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
906557Â
(http://kbalertz.com/Feedback.aspx?kbNumber=906557/
)
How
to use the Mfcmapi.exe utility to view and work with messages in the SMTP
TempTables in Exchange 2000 Server and in Exchange Server 2003
For more
information about the idle messages issue in a Windows Server 2003 SMTP server,
click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:
934709 Â
(http://kbalertz.com/Feedback.aspx?kbNumber=934709/
)
On
a Windows Server 2003-based SMTP gateway server, some messages may remain in
the queue folder until the SMTP service is restarted
Microsoft
has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed
in the "Applies to" section.