Exchange 2010 message routing to public folders stuck

If you have two or more public folders databases in Exchange 2010 servers then you stosmailiprobably think that you have HA for public folders.

All of your public folders are replicated between those public folders databases and you think that when you will lost one server with PF database then you have another one and you wll have no problem with public folders.

If you think that then you are wrong !

In mailbox database you can specify public folder database for this mailbox database.

But if you shutdown one Exchange 2010 server with Public Folders database like your default server with PF’s then you will see that messages sent to mail enabled public folders stuck at the delivery queue on each Hub Transport server.
When you check this queue you will see that all of those messages are trying to get to public folder database on shutdown server, they are not redirected to available public folders database on another server.

So how to resolve this problem ?

First Microsoft recommend to install at least RU4 for Exchange 2010 SP2.
But this won’t help to resolve this problem.

You need to do something more.

In C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Bin directory find file:

EdgeTransport.exe.config

Edit it and manually add the following information to EdgeTransport.exe.config file:

<add key="SmartRoutingForPublicFoldersEnabled" value="True" />

Now save and restart Exchange Transport Service.

You need to do this on each Exchange 2010 Hub Transport server.

Now you will get fully redundant environment with Public Folders.

If one server with public folders database is missing then message are routed to another server with public folders database.

If this server will be missing for long time then remember to change default Public Folder database in mailbox database settings.

 

Exchange 2013 CU2 Issue – Public Folder Permissions Loss After PF Mailbox Move

Exchange Team Blog inform about some issue when you install CU2 for Exchange 2013 and you use Modern Public Folders.

This issue can occur when you move public folder mailboxes.

When you move public folder mailbox it’s possible that you will lost permission structure on some public folders, specially:

  1. If you move (via New-MoveRequest) a secondary public folder (PF) mailbox, the permissions on any public folder (including well known folders) not stored in the secondary PF mailbox would be lost from the secondary PF mailbox and replaced by the default ACL. The original ACLs can be restored via a full synchronization event by executing Update-PublicFolderMailbox -InvokeSynchronizer <Public Folder Mailbox> -FullSync.
  2. If you move (via New-MoveRequest) the primary PF mailbox, the permissions on any public folder (including well known folders) not stored in that public folder mailbox are lost and replaced by the default ACL.

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Exchange 2010 Public Folders Report

When you use Public Folders in Microsoft Exchange 2010 environment it’s good to know what kind of folders you have, what is size of those folders.

We can use script AggregatePFData.ps1, which you can find in Exchange 2010 installation directory like below:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V14\Scripts

 

With this script you can easly get information about Public Folders reside on Exchange 2010 server.

You will get informations like below:

  • Identity
  • Owner
  • ItemTypes
  • FolderType
  • MailEnabled
  • HasModerator
  • HasRules
  • ItemCount
  • TotalItemSize
  • LastUserAccessTime
  • LastUserModificationTime

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