[kpoland]

I've spent a good deal of time on the phone with RIM about this, and they have no solution thus far. In fact, I'm worried that they won't have a solution at all.

The problem is, when new mail arrives to someones mailbox, Exchange is supposed to send a flag to the BES so the BES knows there is new email, and can deliver it. The BES has a backup system in place that scans mailboxes every 20 minutes or so, to see if it missed anything. Apparently, my Exchange server is not sending flags, because I'm only getting email on the BES sweeps.

I did not set up the Exchange server and I don't know a thing about it. Can anyone point me in the right direction? What to check? Anything I can test to prove that be the case?

Thanks
k

[geek101]

BES receives MAPI notifications from the exchange server, once the notification is received over UDP the Blackberry Server will pick up the message. Usually in cases like yours depending on the number of users, exchange might be having performance problems. We will require more information to identify the issue.
Please specify the number of exchange servers, their versions, BES version, OS Version, number of users, ping time to the exchange server, location of the exchange server.

If you have already tried rebooting the BES, you can recreate the MAPI profile but make sure the subsystem keys are deleted.

Go the the registry while logged in as the "BESAdmin" service account, go to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\BlackberryServer, Export the Blackberry Server folder key to your local drive and then delete it. After the key is dropped Go to Blackberry Server configuration and recreate the MAPI Profile.

Reboot the BES and monitor. Post results.

[geek101]

also to get the terminology right....BES receives MAPI notifications, so it picks up messages using a notification method. Also for consistency it scans every mailbox apporx every 20 minutes and the process is called Rescan. The logs will indicate "new mail through notification" vs. "new mail through rescan"

[kpoland]

Originally Posted by geek101

BES receives MAPI notifications from the exchange server, once the notification is received over UDP the Blackberry Server will pick up the message. Usually in cases like yours depending on the number of users, exchange might be having performance problems. We will require more information to identify the issue.
Please specify the number of exchange servers, their versions, BES version, OS Version, number of users, ping time to the exchange server, location of the exchange server.

If you have already tried rebooting the BES, you can recreate the MAPI profile but make sure the subsystem keys are deleted.

Go the the registry while logged in as the "BESAdmin" service account, go to HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Windows Messaging Subsystem\Profiles\BlackberryServer, Export the Blackberry Server folder key to your local drive and then delete it. After the key is dropped Go to Blackberry Server configuration and recreate the MAPI Profile.

Reboot the BES and monitor. Post results.

Exchange: 1 cluster, 2003 + latest SP's and HF's -- 200 users
BES: 4.1 + latest HF (1, I think) -- 140 users
Both running Server 2003 Standard
Ping time <1ms
Servers are located in the same room.

We've rebooted the BES, and actually totally removed and reinstalled the BES on the phone with RIM. I'm assuming that would have recreated the MAPI profile, but I could be wrong.

How would rebooting the BES help, anyway? Isn't this an Exchange problem? Or not so much? Sorry, I'm coming from Notes and don't really have my feet on solid ground yet here with the Exchange thing... It's totally different...

[kpoland]

Fixed.

After a few days on the phone with RIM, they told me something they probably should have asked day 1:

KB902400 blocks UDP traffic from Exchange to the BES.

I uninstalled the hotfix from the BES and rebooted, and it's running perfectly. Curiously, the hotfix is installed on the Exchange server, but it doesn't seem to affect anything, so we left it there.

Also, when I rebooted the BES, 3 of the services hang on startup. This happened almost every time I rebooted. We fixed that as well, by setting dependencies in the registry for those 3 services (dispatcher, synch and something else... don't recall). Apparently they need MSSQLSERVER to start before they do. Why that wasn't already set as a dependency is beyond me...

Hope this helps someone.
k

[slimbim]

I had the same issue when I went from 4.0 SP4 Hotfix 3 to 4.1 Hotfix 1. I even rebooted, as I always do, when the upgrade was finished. Every 20 minutes I'll get emails, not as soon as it was received in outlook. But I rebooted BES once more, and the problem went away. When in doubt, reboot is my motto.

[ashworth]

Originally Posted by kpoland

Apparently they need MSSQLSERVER to start before they do. Why that wasn't already set as a dependency is beyond me...

All the data for the BES is stored in the Database, if the sql server does not come back up online then the BES will not be able to get the information to start the services... The bad part about this is that the SQL server could be remote so it would be hard for RIM to put it into the dependency's if the service does not exist on the BES server...

Glad to see the issue if fixed...

[Korbyn]

Gee, I reported that issue about MS05-051 back in October, never resolved it other then uninstalling it, but RIM support thought I was on crack... sheesh. Apparently it takes about 50 people to report an issue before they take you seriously...

Has anyone noticed if -051 has been replaced by a newer security patch?