XFOR: MTA Terminates Unexpectedly with Event ID 2051 and 9405 (177328)

SYMPTOMS

The Microsoft Exchange Server message transfer agent (MTA) may terminate unexpectedly with the following sequence of events recorded in the Windows NT Server Event Viewer Application log:

   Event ID: 2051
   Source: MSExchangeMTA
   Internal Processing
   Description: A fatal internal MTA error occurred. Contact Microsoft
   Technical Support. An illegal GET from element 5CF03901 occurred at
   offset 1. [BASE XFER-IN 23 70] (16)

   Event ID: 9405
   Source: MSExchangeMTA  Field Engineering
   Description: An unexpected error has occurred which may cause the MTA
   to terminate.  Error: Exception 0xe0050803 occurred at Address
   0x77f1cd91. [BASE XFER-IN 23] (16)

CAUSE

The MTA may experience a performance problem expanding extremely large distribution lists. The problem can also be triggered if the Recipient Name field being transferred into the MTA is larger than the buffer space available.

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in Microsoft Exchange Server, version 5.0. This problem has been corrected in the latest U.S. Service Pack for Microsoft Exchange Server version 5.0. 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

MORE INFORMATION

If an older version of Exchsrvr\mtadata\Dbserver.sch is written over the version supplied in this hotfix, the MTA will crash and log the 2051 errors listed above.