orphaned mailboxes??

[dean]

My Exchange 5.5 SP4 server displays what I assume are orphaned mailboxes when viewing mailbox resources. There are 3 of these in all with alphanumeric names such as 5D243EF9-AF41-4980-...etc.(a total of 32 characters)
These resources are not displayed as recipients and they have "0" k listed for the mailbox size and "0" messages. This is an NT 4.0 SP6a box and is also running Novell's gateway for Exchange (ughh!). Where did these come from and how do I get rid of them? Can they simply be deleted?

[Margaret G.]

There are two workarounds for the "ghost mailboxes" in the mailbox resources container for a given server. One sign of a ghost mailbox is that the storage limits are "not available."

1) If you double click the mailbox on server A and you get a general properties page stating that it is on server B, the way to remove the ghost is to attempt to move the mailbox from server B to server A. You will get a dialog box claiming that there were problems during a "move mailbox" procedure during which the duplicate has been deleted. It works - I tested this on PHL02-MSX-04. Microsoft has a Q article on this somewhere.

2) If you double click on the mailbox on server A and get a dialog box stating something like "the object could not be found. Wait for directory replication," then there is a workaround.

First, make *really* sure that there is no object with the same directory name in the Recipients container. If you don't, you may have a mad client and a quick restore to do.

Change the view so that you see the full directory name of the ghost mailbox in the server's mailbox resources. (View > Columns > Directory name.) Make note of it.

Create a mailbox on by connecting to the Exchange administrator using server A. It must have the same directory name as the ghost resource. It is important that you create it on Server A. The other information is irrelevant.

Delete the mailbox that you have just created.

The object should disappear.



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dean at 1/16/2002 4:17:22 PM


My Exchange 5.5 SP4 server displays what I assume are orphaned mailboxes when viewing mailbox resources. There are 3 of these in all with alphanumeric names such as 5D243EF9-AF41-4980-...etc.(a total of 32 characters)
These resources are not displayed as recipients and they have "0" k listed for the mailbox size and "0" messages. This is an NT 4.0 SP6a box and is also running Novell's gateway for Exchange (ughh!). Where did these come from and how do I get rid of them? Can they simply be deleted?

[dean]

Thanks for your reply...I changed the view to include the full directory name and was able to determine that these are actually deleted Groupwise "connectors". (CON displayed at the end of the directory name). Double Clicking resulted in an Exchange stop message "Directory not found...replication may not have completed, etc." Last month while I was on vacation, this GroupWise gateway would not run. The individual trying to resolve this problem ran the Novell Groupwise Gateway setup thus creating another GroupWise connector...this later caused problems with mail remaining in the out queue for that connector. The connector was deleted to get the mail running again. These "ghost mailboxes" seem to be remnants of those deleted connectors. I'm thinking that when replication takes place between the Exchange box and the GroupWise box these 'ghost connectors" will dissappear, (once the tombstone life has expired...30 days). I'm still learning about this GroupWise/Exchange gateway. The Novell box is not local and is administered by people unfamiliar with Exchange. The tombstone life for one of these connectors is up in a few days so I'll wait till then to see what happens.

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Margaret G. at 1/23/2002 12:45:14 PM


There are two workarounds for the "ghost mailboxes" in the mailbox resources container for a given server. One sign of a ghost mailbox is that the storage limits are "not available."

1) If you double click the mailbox on server A and you get a general properties page stating that it is on server B, the way to remove the ghost is to attempt to move the mailbox from server B to server A. You will get a dialog box claiming that there were problems during a "move mailbox" procedure during which the duplicate has been deleted. It works - I tested this on PHL02-MSX-04. Microsoft has a Q article on this somewhere.

2) If you double click on the mailbox on server A and get a dialog box stating something like "the object could not be found. Wait for directory replication," then there is a workaround.

First, make *really* sure that there is no object with the same directory name in the Recipients container. If you don't, you may have a mad client and a quick restore to do.

Change the view so that you see the full directory name of the ghost mailbox in the server's mailbox resources. (View > Columns > Directory name.) Make note of it.

Create a mailbox on by connecting to the Exchange administrator using server A. It must have the same directory name as the ghost resource. It is important that you create it on Server A. The other information is irrelevant.

Delete the mailbox that you have just created.

The object should disappear.



------------
dean at 1/16/2002 4:17:22 PM


My Exchange 5.5 SP4 server displays what I assume are orphaned mailboxes when viewing mailbox resources. There are 3 of these in all with alphanumeric names such as 5D243EF9-AF41-4980-...etc.(a total of 32 characters)
These resources are not displayed as recipients and they have "0" k listed for the mailbox size and "0" messages. This is an NT 4.0 SP6a box and is also running Novell's gateway for Exchange (ughh!). Where did these come from and how do I get rid of them? Can they simply be deleted?