XCON: Event ID: 246 An Internal MTA Error Has Occurred (168536)

SUMMARY

When you send a mail message from Microsoft Mail to a Microsoft Exchange Server distribution list (DL), you may see the following error message:

   EventID:    246
   Source:     MSExchangeMTA
   Type:       Error
   Category:   Internal Processing

   An internal MTA error occurred. An attempt has been made to read beyond
   the end of an object. Attribute ID: 30. Object at fault: 060000NN.
   Offset reached: 1. Contact Microsoft Product Support Services. [MTA
   DISP:FANOUT 12 223] (14)

The referenced object in the error is not found in the Mtadata directory. The referenced object may vary but the attribute ID and offset are the same in most cases.

CAUSE

The error occurs when the message transfer agent (MTA) looks on the message for an attribute called Private Extensions. The MS Mail Interchange (MSMI) does not create messages with this attribute, because it did not used to exist. The MTA sees the value of this attribute has a length of 0 and so it records the error 246.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0. This problem was corrected in the latest Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0 U.S. Service Pack. For information on obtaining the service pack, query on the following word in the Microsoft Knowledge Base (without the spaces):

S E R V P A C K