Hello - First let me introduce myself because I've never posted on this forum before: my name is Charlie and I'm a "generalist" in the IT department at a hospital here in Toronto, Canada. I'm hoping that someone can offer some insight into a strange problem with email.
A user called today that she didn't receive mail from an "outside" colleague. Of course I assumed that it was just going into junk mail, or some other obvious problem. However, looking a little more deeply this is what i found:
1. The Email hit our external name server (ns1), was addressed correctly, passed SPF, found recipient in relay table, queued and sent (postfix) to our mailfilter
2. The Email hit our mailfilter, passed spam/virus check, queued and then delivered successfully to exchange. (I checked to make sure it wasn't held up in any queue).
3. The Email is nowhere to be found on Exchange. Using message tracking centre, the email address of the sender is not found in any logs for the last week. Also, checking messages delivered to recipient, no emails are logged at the time when it was handed off from our mail filter. Also, checking McAffee Groupshield (running on Exchange) there are no logs of that sender. Also checking the SMTP queues in ESM they are all at 0. Lastly, when I tried message tracking for an outside "test" email that I sent to myself (from gmail to exchange) it showed up in message tracking right away.
So... where did it go?
This appears to have only happened to SOME emails (or emails from a specific sender) - tests that I have sent myself all work and in general our mail flow is normal.
I would GREATLY appreciate ANY input or feedback or ideas to try, because I'm really stumped!! Our email setup uses postfix on our linux boxes and Exchange 2000 (running on windows server 2003) internally. Thanks again for any ideas!!
Assuming the topology goes such: Internet > Postfix/Linux > Mail Filter > Exchange 2000/Windows 2003
I'd be interested in analyzing an NCSA log on the Exchange server for such kind of 'missing' mail transaction!
To enable NCSA, enable logging from properties of the Default SMTP Virtual Server; and the logs (by default) would be stored in "C:\Windows\System32\Logfiles"
Thanks for the reply - we had SMTP logging turned on already and I had completely forgotten about that as a place to look.
I ended up finding the problem - it was the McAfee groupshield.
For some reason, when I used the message tracking centre from my machine (I installed the exchange 2k toolpack on my pc) it didn't turn up - but when I ran the message tracking from the server itself the message was found!
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All Forums >> [Microsoft Exchange 2000] >> Message Routing >> Mail Disappears (without a trace) when it hits Exchange! 
Mail Disappears (without a trace) when it hits Exchange! - 
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