Auto Accept Agent not working correctly on single Exchange server in Exchange Organization
Hello, I'm having a problem with Auto Accept Agent on one of my Exchange servers. It is not processing appointments, the appointments stay in the Inbox of the Resource Mailbox. The server is a Windows Server 2003 machine with Exchange 2003 Enterprise edition (SP2 plus latest patches). On other (similar) Exchange servers it's working fine. AAA has been installed with default options. The AAA service is started and the COM application is present and looks fine (like on the other servers). And also, I have a few mailboxes registered. When using the MailboxStatus.vbs script I get the following result for a single mailbox: D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Agents\AutoAccept>cscript.exe MailboxStatus.vbs /M:oct-test-resource@oce.net Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved. <MailboxStatus> <Summary> <CurrentTime>15-3-2010 11:39:00</CurrentTime> <MailboxCount>1</MailboxCount> </Summary> <Mailbox EmailAddress="oct-test-resource@oce.net"> <Server>EXBE04-V</Server> <RegistrationStatus>1</RegistrationStatus> <RegistrationTime>2010-03-15T10:28:35.624Z</RegistrationTime> </Mailbox> </MailboxStatus> However, when running the ListMailboxes.vbs script, there are no results: D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\Agents\AutoAccept>cscript.exe listmailboxes.vbs /S:exbe04 Microsoft (R) Windows Script Host Version 5.6 Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1996-2001. All rights reserved. As pointed out before, the AAA does not handle the requests, nothing happens and the meeting request simply stays in the Inbox. In the AutoAccept.config.xml file, I have set logging to level 4 but I don't get any messages in the Event Log or in the .txt log file: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> - <Configuration xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="urn:microsoft.exchange.agents.autoaccept.config" xsi:schemaLocation="urn:microsoft.exchange.agents.autoaccept.config AutoAccept.config.xsd"> - <GlobalSettings> <BookingWindowInMonths>12</BookingWindowInMonths> <DeleteAttachments>true</DeleteAttachments> <DeleteComments>true</DeleteComments> <DeleteNonCalendarItems>true</DeleteNonCalendarItems> <DisableReminders>true</DisableReminders> <EnforceRecurringMeetingEndDate>true</EnforceRecurringMeetingEndDate> <RecurringMeetingConflictPercentageAllowed>0</RecurringMeetingConflictPercentageAllowed> <RecurringMeetingMaximumConflictInstances>0</RecurringMeetingMaximumConflictInstances> <RemovePrivateProperty>true</RemovePrivateProperty> <TraceLevel>4</TraceLevel> <TraceListenerFile>c:\temp\log.txt</TraceListenerFile> <TraceToEventLog>true</TraceToEventLog> <EnableResponseDetails>true</EnableResponseDetails> <IncludeDebugInResponse>true</IncludeDebugInResponse> <CustomResponseText /> </GlobalSettings> - <Mailbox EMailAddress="conf-room1@company.com"> - <Settings> <BookingWindowInMonths>12</BookingWindowInMonths> <DeleteAttachments>true</DeleteAttachments> <DeleteNonCalendarItems>true</DeleteNonCalendarItems> <DisableReminders>true</DisableReminders> <RecurringMeetingConflictPercentageAllowed>25</RecurringMeetingConflictPercentageAllowed> <RecurringMeetingMaximumConflictInstances>4</RecurringMeetingMaximumConflictInstances> <TraceLevel>0</TraceLevel> </Settings> </Mailbox> - <Mailbox EMailAddress="conf-room2@company.com"> - <Settings> <BookingWindowInMonths>8</BookingWindowInMonths> <DeleteAttachments>true</DeleteAttachments> <TraceLevel>4</TraceLevel> </Settings> </Mailbox> </Configuration> I have already uninstalled and reinstalled AAA on this box, but that didn't change anything. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks a lot in advance. Kind regards, Thijs.
March 15th, 2010 6:46am

Hello, Could you do one quick test and get back with the results?What happens if you create a brand new ressource mailbox and try to register it with AAA?Does it get listed when you run the list.vbs script?This will help us rule out any issues with the present mailboxes that are already in the server.Thanks, Mihai
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March 15th, 2010 10:46am

Hi Mihai, Thanks for your answer. When I create a new resource mailbox and register it with AAA, the registering result is OK. However, when trying to list it again it does not show up. I get no results at all (like pasted in original question). So the problem also is happening on newly created mailboxes. FYI: if I move the mailbox to another server it works like a charm. So it seems to be a server problem that is not mailbox related. Thanks.
March 15th, 2010 11:34am

It sounds like the event sink isn't really getting registered correctly on the mailbox.Does the user account you're using have the correct rights into the store/mailboxes on that particular server?
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March 15th, 2010 3:08pm

I agree with you that it's very likely it has something to do with the event sink. But all mailboxes on this server have the same problem and reinstalling AAA does not resolve the issue. The user account that is used to run the AAA service is LocalSystem. The most difficult part of this issue is that also no logging is created whatsoever. The COM application does not seem to work. Any other suggestions? Thanks guys.
March 15th, 2010 5:05pm

AAA being set to use LocalSystem is only relevant once the event is correctly registered on the mailbox. What user are you using to do the event registration? What rights does it have on the server and to the Exchange objects? It can be a perms problem locally on the server, or it could be that perms have been set on specific exchange servers/stores in AD and not on the new server you have.
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March 15th, 2010 10:39pm

The account I'm using is an Enterprise Administrator in the forest, an Exchange Enterprise Admin and Domain Admin in the domain the Exchange server is installed in and so also a local Administrator on the server. So it doesn't seem to be a permissions issue but let's not jump to conclusions. On the other hand, if it is a permissions issue it would explain why it is not working on one single server. Is there a way to log or audit the event registration? Maybe we can learn something from that logging. At the moment, I don't see any log entry whatsoever in Event Viewer or in the logfile that is stated in the .xml file.
March 16th, 2010 9:42am

It may well be that account causing you issues. Remember that the Enterprise and Domain administrators have an explicit deny ACE on the mailbox stores to prevent them from blindly having access to everyone's mail.If you create an account that is an Exchange Admin, a local admin on the server, and also granted SendAs/Owner rights to the resource mailboxes, you may have better luck with the event registration.It would be interesting to look at the various Access Control Lists on the other servers/stores in AD to see what accounts have access and also what accounts are in the local admin group on the other server.We used to sell a product called ERM and had these same permissions issues registering event sinks quite often.
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March 16th, 2010 11:57am

I agree with you that it's quite likely this problem has something to do with permissions. And I'm aware of the fact that Enterprise and Domain Admins have an explicit deny ACE on the stores. However, we have changed this, so that Enterprise Admins are able to log on to all mailboxes. This also still works, also for the AAA resource mailbox. I have checked the ACEs on the specific mailbox store and find no explicit deny ACE. Also, the ACEs are exactly the same on the store where the registration is failing. I have tried different stores on the same server and over there it works! More information: the problem seems to be happening on newly created stores on more than one server. When moving a registered mailbox from an "old" store to one of this new stores on any server the AAA stops working. Creating a new mailbox in the "old" store and registering it works like a charm! So it definitely is not a server problem but a store problem. Again, from this information you would say it's a permissions problem on the store but the ACEs on the "old" and the "new" stores are exactly the same. The following article describes a problem with the system mailbox: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316622. But I don't have the mentioned errors in my logging and the SystemMailbox and the user account in the Exchange System Objects container seem to be fine. The most strange part: I don't have any logging at all! Just nothing happens when trying to work with an AAA resource mailbox in a "new" store. That makes it very hard to troubleshoot. Could it be worth a try to completely remove the AAA COM+ application? Thanks.
March 17th, 2010 5:33am

It's worth a try, sure. You could also use OutlookSpy or another tool to look into the mailboxes themselves and see what is there. One thing we saw quite often when permissions were not quite right was that the failed event registration would cause an item to be created in the inbox of the resource. You would also be able to see if the event registration is present in the right way, but the store sync mechanism is not firing, although I suspect the registration isn't happening at all.
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March 17th, 2010 12:49pm

I'm not quite sure what you mean with permissions on a single mailbox? If I just create a mailbox in Store A on Server 1, it can be registered and used no problem. If I create a mailbox in Store B on Server 1, it seems to be registered but it cannot be used and it is not listed when using the ListMailboxes.vbs script. So actually I'm back at the point where I created this topic. What I learned so far is that it is most likely a store problem, not a server problem and neither a mailbox problem. That actually also rules out re-installation of AAA (which I have already tried) and completely deletion of the COM+ application as these are server related actions. Again, you would say it's a permissions issue on the store but I have checked and double-checked and the ACEs are exactly the same on Store A as they are on Store B (both on Server 1). Another option is that it has something to do with the System Mailbox in Store B on Server 1. But I don't see the problem there to be honest because the store is newly created and the GUID of the System Mailbox looks fine to me and also the user is available in Exchange System Objects container. I'm completely puzzled because there's no logging at all. Is there any way I can log the registration of a mailbox with AAA? Again, without logging I'm lost... Thanks for any hints.
March 18th, 2010 12:03pm

I don't know if you resolved this issue yet but I had similar issue with our Exchange 2003 environment. The fix for us was to reinstall the Auto Accept Agent and reconfigure the resources. We've tried reregistering the resources first but that did not work so reinstalling and reregistering it works.
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June 14th, 2012 3:22pm

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