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Unable to Open Mailbox

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by paul.hampton

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We have quite a few users who need to be able to have open in their folder list view a number of mailboxes. I give these users permission to the mailbox(s) through Exchange Administrator and then have them open up an additional mailbox through their Outlook client, by going to Tools, Services, Exchange Properties and then Advanced. The mailbox is then added to their folder list view but when they try to open it they get Unable To Open Mailbox or Browse Contents of Folder.

I must say thisdoesn't happen all of the time and when it does it usually clears itself out by the next day, we affectionately call it the 10 Hour rule here. I would just like to know why this happens so that I can give an explanation to my users who I have to tell, "just give it 10 Hours".

I am running Exchange Server 5.5 w SP3 and all clients using Outlook 2000. My e-mail address is phampton@worldaccess.com.

Thanks in advance for your help.

5 replies

by brasslet

From the June 4 2001 Exchange TechMail:

FORCING RAPID UPDATES
Ever noticed that changes made to the primary NT account on a mailbox don't take effect right away? The new account can't get into the mailbox, and the old account still has access for up to two hours. To quote Microsoft, this behavior is "by design." The information store caches reads from the directory, presumably for performance reasons. The IS reloads this cache every two hours.

You can modify this behavior by performing a registry edit.

1. Open Regedt32 and navigate to the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\
MSExchangeIS\ParametersSystem.
2. On the Edit menu, click Add Value.
3. For the value name, enter Mailbox Cache Age Limit.
4. Enter REG_DWORD for the Data type.
5. Enter 1 for Data (type HEX) and click OK.
6. Stop and then restart the information store service.

The "1" instructs the information store to reread the directory cache every minute. Now when you change a primary account, it will take effect within a minute.

NOTE: Be sure to back up your registry before editing it so you can restore it if something goes awry.

by dynamo2003

If hacking the registry is not you style as advised previously, you can access the mailbox from your Outlook and give permission manually by adding desired permission through the mailbox properties. Simply right click on the mailbox choose properties and add the user in permissions and give access to the required mailbox item (calendar etc).

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