Missing emails after server trouble
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Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 7:00:47 AM
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Kremlar
Posts: 12
Joined: 25.May2007
Status: offline
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We're running a Windows 2000 Server with Exchange 2000, and GFI MailEssentials 12 (build 20071203) on a separate Windows Server 2003 box. We had some sort of server issue (users reporting no email from the outside) a couple weeks back, and I wasn't informed so did not see the issue first-hand. The servers were simply rebooted, they came back online, and mail flow started as normal. Event Viewer errors around the time of the server issue aren't very telling.
Only problem is that a bunch of users are reporting that emails they were expecting are simply missing - never arrived in their Inbox, not in their Junk GFI folder, original senders never received bounce backs or delivery errors. I'm guessing our server was down for 6-12 hours (certainly no longer).
I'm trying to figure out what might have happened to those missing emails. Normally, I would expect one of the following to happen:
- bounce back to the original sender because our server was down for an extended period
- sender server would retry after our server came back online
- if it made it into our queues, emails would process and get delivered to the users once our server came online
But, none of the above seemed to happen. What other possibilities exist? Anything GFI related? I have 2 modules that are set to simply 'delete' emails upon detection:
- The DNS blacklist - we did this after much thought and discussion, and decided the risk of an occasional false positve being lost was worth it to us. Is it possible for this module to malfuction and start marking all incoming emails?
- The Directory Harvesting module. Is it possible for this module to malfunction and/or get bad information from the Active Directory server and start marking all incoming emails?
Any help would be appreciated...
Thanks
< Message edited by Kremlar -- 26.Sep.2008 7:04:15 AM >
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RE: Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 8:01:08 AM
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RSP
Posts: 445
Joined: 31.Oct.2006
From: UK
Status: offline
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The first step would be to check the GFI log files against known missing emails. If there are no references to them, then they probably never made it to your server. If they are logged, then the files should give you some indication as to what ME did with them.
Do you have a backup MX record that might be holding these emails waiting for you to retrieve them?
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RE: Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 8:12:21 AM
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Kremlar
Posts: 12
Joined: 25.May2007
Status: offline
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Unfortunately we did not have logging enabled on those modules, but we do now.
No, no backup MX record.
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RE: Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 9:28:00 AM
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RSP
Posts: 445
Joined: 31.Oct.2006
From: UK
Status: offline
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Anything listed in the Exchange message tracker (assuming you've got tracking enabled!)?
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RE: Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 10:24:26 AM
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Kremlar
Posts: 12
Joined: 25.May2007
Status: offline
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Unfortunatley we did not. We typically only enable Message Tracking if we have a particular email issue we're trying to track, but to be honest email has been very smooth for us up until this issue.
I realize it's pretty much impossible for us to go back and figure out what happened, but I'm curious if anyone else has ever seen a similar scenario where the DNS Blacklist or Directory Harvesting modules marked all incoming email as spam (or something similar where all incoming messages were somehow lost for a period of time).
I'm just trying to come up with a couple possible scenarios and be sure we plan or them in the future.
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RE: Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 10:55:08 AM
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RSP
Posts: 445
Joined: 31.Oct.2006
From: UK
Status: offline
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I have seen the issue before, but I've been unable to locate the messages in the forum. I believe it was an older version though.
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RE: Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 11:49:04 AM
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Kremlar
Posts: 12
Joined: 25.May2007
Status: offline
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Do you remember what the cause was? Any more details at all?
Thanks again...
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RE: Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 11:54:17 AM
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RSP
Posts: 445
Joined: 31.Oct.2006
From: UK
Status: offline
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I don't remember a cause, but an IISRESET fixed it. It was a one-off I think.
Check your debuglogs folder - debugging is on by default on most installations, and the ase_action.gfi_log.txt says what happened to an email that passed through ME.
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RE: Missing emails after server trouble - 26.Sep.2008 12:12:34 PM
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SoCal_HEMIHead
Posts: 18
Joined: 14.Aug.2008
Status: offline
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You may also want to look in the c:\inetpub\mailroot\ folders (i.e. queue, etc.) I've seen where messages are stuck in the queue and you have to reset IIS or stop & restart SMTP to get them flowing again.
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