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Archive file can not be access.

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8 replies

by ayje

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Hi all,
We are running exchange 2003. Few users are having problem with archive file. Some of error they are getting. pst already in use, unable to access archive.pst server unavailable. I realized that users who having this problem have a big archive file, some of them over 10gb.
Any ideas.
Thank you

8 replies

by retro77

1.) Keep each archive under 2GB
2.) An archive can only be opened by one person at a time. To allow someone else to open it, the first person needs to close Outlook completely to release the file lock.

Hope this helps.

by ayje

I will try it. However, It will be dificult because I work with layer and they do not believe in deleting email.
thanx

by martin.hoes

Hello,

We have thesame problems here. Exchange server 2003 running with Outlook 2003 clients.
Archive files ranging from 0 up to 2.5 Gig.
People get different Error messages, Map is not Valid, Access is Denied, Message-interface has reported an unknown error.

If you get the error-message and wait for about 10 to 15 minutes, Outlook will somehow repair the Archive and it will function good again.. But the problem repeats itselve at every boot of the pc.

We can't figure it out what the problem is. I hope maybe Tatito has found a solution already since the original post was last year?

Hope to hear from you,

Martin

by ayje

I am sorry Martin, but we have not found any solutions yet. My personal opinion is that there is a DNS issue at work. I noticed that sometime when the problem happens, we can not ping the server by its name. But, I am a junior System Administrator and my co-workers are not going to listen to me. If we find any solution I will post it.
regards,

by martin.hoes

Hello AYJE,

I posted a question of my own as well, and got an answer that the cause might be the server the Archive files are on.
We put some files on a dedicated server now and the problems (after testing a few days) seem to have disappeared.
In our case we could still ping the server, so no problems with that. The Userdata is also on thesame server and still usable even if a client of us had the archive problem at thesame time.
So when we moved some archives from the usual share (My documents on xxxsvr01) to the D$ share on another server, the problems seemed to be over. Maybe it has something to do with paths being too long in combination with the large files?

So, now the only thing we have to do is to move about 1200+ archive files... I'm glad i didnt get that task :)
regards,
Martin

by ayje

It sounds like a good idea. Our users folder where the pst are stored, are really long. I will suggest that to my co-workers. Thank you for the info.

by garza04

If you check the MS web site, you will find that PST files are not supposed to be accessed across a network; they are supposed to be locally stored. If your users are opening their PST files in Outlook on the server, it will cause corruption to become more and more likely as the files get bigger. Users need to copy the PST file to their local machine and then access it. Unfortunately, Outlook does not come with efficient archiving functionality that allows network storage and constant user access.

Also, there is a file called Scanpst.exe that will fix corrupt pst files manually. It comes with XP- do a search for it.

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