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Exchange server 5.5 intermitent failure

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by windsong

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I have MS Exchange 5.5 running on a Win 2000 Server Machine (Compaq Prolient ML370). Users are intermittently experience E-mail failures. A user will attempt to send or read an e-mail and it will not go or not load. A second attempt is almost alwayssuccessful. We use Norton Anti Virus Corporate Edition with the virus definition files up to date. We did have Code Red II but that's been cleaned. We also use this server as the VPN server for PC Anywhere. 1 remote user is experiencing unexpected disconnects. Then event log indicated the user requested a log off but he denies doing so.

All services are running as expected. The hard drive has 4 Gb of open space. Performance monitoring does not show any undue stress on the system but it?s slow at random times.

Any ideas on what to check next would be greatly appreciated.

4 replies

by mckaytech

A couple things you could check. First, if you are running Compaq Insight Manager, you can watch and see if you're getting any error messages indicating the network link is dropping.

Second, from Exchange Administrator, you can open a Link Monitor and see if RPC calls are failing. I've found that often the first sign of a network problem is when Exchange RPC calls fail and it shows up as a link failure in Exchange Administrator.

If you have a network with managed switches, you can look at the switch ports for collisions, fragmented packets or other evidence of network problems.

Your last, best, but most complicated test would be a packet capture to see what is actually happening during these episodes. If you don't have the equipment and interpretive ability in-house, this might be worthwhile thing to subcontract.

Although it could be a server thing, my gut sense is that it is a network problem.

paul

by windsong

Thanks Paul.
We're setting up some network/packet monitoring now.

I certinaly appreciate your help

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