General Troubleshooting for Stuck Messages in Internet Mail Service (197792)



The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Exchange Server 4.0
  • Microsoft Exchange Server 5.0
  • Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5

This article was previously published under Q197792

SUMMARY

The Internet Mail Service may stop working, and log error 4116 or others in the event log, such as event 4116, or it may Dr. Watson on Store.exe. This may be because a message is stuck in the Internet Mail Service queues.

MORE INFORMATION

To correct for messages stuck in the Internet Mail Service queues follow these steps:
  1. In the Control Panel, double-click Services, and then stop the Internet Mail Service.
  2. Locate the exchsrvr\Imcdata directory. You can verify this, by checking the registry under the following key:

    HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MSExchangeIMC\Parameters\RootDir
  3. Create a temporary directory named TempIMS under \Imcdata.
  4. In the Exchsrvr\Imcdata directory, delete the Queue.dat file.
  5. Copy the two directories, Imcdata\IN and Imcdata\OUT, to the TempIMS directory.
  6. Delete all the files in the Imcdata\IN and Imcdata\OUT directories.
  7. Clear out the MAPI queues in MTS-IN and MTS-OUT in the information store. Otherwise, if there are mailboxes on the Exchange Server computer, you need to use one of the following utilities: Gwclean, Profinst, or Mdbvu32.

    If you use Mdbvu32, run the Profinst program to install the MAPI profile to be used by Mdbvu32.

    For additional information about how to view and delete messages in the MTS-IN and MTS-OUT queues, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

    165505 How to View/Delete Messages in the MTS-IN and MTS-OUT queue



    Note If you cannot clear the MTS-IN queue and the MTS-OUT queue by using the Gwclean, the Profinst, or the Mdbvu32 utilities, update Store.exe to the latest version. For additional information about how to update Store.exe, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

    330045 XADM: Information Store May Stop Responding Under Low Memory Conditions

    Store.exe converts Internet mail to MDBEF format. The conversion is typically where the problem occurs. After you install the update, restart the computer.
  8. After you clear the queues, restart the information store and the Internet Mail Service. If this fails, check the message transfer agent (MTA) queues. Run the mtacheck /V /F filename.txt command. You may want to use the /rd or /rl switches.
  9. Replay the messages; stop the Internet Mail Service, delete the Queue.dat file, copy the files from TempIMC\IN and TempIMC\OUT to the corresponding directories under Imcdata\IN and Imcdata\OUT, and then restart the Internet Mail Service.



Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/25/2003
Keywords:exc55 kbinfo KB197792