Message Delivery (Full Version)

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protekcs -> Message Delivery (22.Feb.2007 12:48:01 PM)

Hello,

I am having a problem with message delivery.  Mail is initially received at the ISP.  Some users connect directly to the ISP to download their mail while others connect to the Exchange server in the office to download mail.  Those that connect to Exchange have their mail downloaded into Exchange via the POP3 Connector.  In order for users that do not have Exchange mailboxes to receive mail from Exchange users, I have set the server to relay mail to the ISP's smtp server for unknown mailboxes.  The problem appears to reside here.

Sometimes when an Exchange user sends mail to another user in the company using ISP mail, the message gets stuck in the outgoing queue for extended periods of time (a couple days).  This does not happen with every message, it is hit and miss.  I have determined that messages sent to ISP users appear to have a strange pattern in the Message Tracking Centre.  The output appears like this:

SMTP: Started Outbound Transfer of Message
Message transferred to and/or through SMTP

This can repeat many times, depending how long the message is stuck.  I also get an error message pop-up for each of these instances:

Exchange System Manager
----------------------------
The object 'and/or' in the message tracking logs can't be found in the directory.  The object may have been deleted.  The tracking history may be incorrect.


First of all, why are there these delays, and secondly (and maybe related), why does it not say something like "Message transferred to mail.isp.com through SMTP" when sending messages to the ISP mail users?  One thing to note, if a message is being sent to someone that is in a domain outside of the company's domains, the messages appear to transfer just fine and the "Message transferred" line resolves the proper mail server.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

-Regan



dholder97 -> RE: Message Delivery (27.Feb.2007 9:23:42 AM)

I'm no expert, but as I've been trying to wing this Exchange thing, I did recieve some good help from the ISP themselves (I was shocked!).  Try calling them and see what it looks like on their end.  Maybe their server is causing yours to queue up mail that should otherwise go on out.



mohsindabomb -> RE: Message Delivery (3.Sep.2008 8:58:37 AM)

Hi,
 
I have a fair bit of experience with Exchange message flow troubleshooting but stuck with a similar situation.
 
One of our users regularly sends emails to a domain and for every message sent to that domain, the message tracking shows the same "Message transferred to and/or through SMTP" message.
 
So far I haven't seen mail stuck in queues at all. However the user has reported some messages were not received by destination. Even these messages don't show a delay in tracking. I'm curious to know why we're seeing "and/or" and not the actual receiving server name.
 
One thing I know is I can't trust Exchange 2003 message tracking as it shows message transferred via smtp" even when the recipient server temporarily refuses to accept the message.
 
Also saw http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Windows/microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs/2008-04/msg02744.html but doesn't look relevant to me.
 
I'm using network monitor now to capture smtp traffic and see what happens.
 
If anyone has any ideas, I'll much appreciate it if you could write.
 
Thanks,
 
Mo.



uemurad -> RE: Message Delivery (3.Sep.2008 9:21:25 AM)

If you are sending all your outbound messages to a smarthost, that would be consistent with the Message Tracking results you see.  Message Tracking only reports on what Exchange does with the message.  Once the message is delivered to the next hop (not necessarily the final destination), the message will not be in a queue and Message Tracking ends.

You could also look at the SMTP log to see what might be happening.



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