Hello, Just installed 2013 excahnge server 3 days ago. We noticed after the first night that we did not receive any external emails throughout the night. I could not find anything wrong with receive connectors. Telnet works internally when this happens but NO access from public side testing with telnet. After I reboot the exchange server everything functions just fine and normal for about 8 hours until it happens again. I dont know what to check or look for at this point. Very new to exchange 2013. Any kind of advice would be helpful at this time. It is not a firewall issue. Same firewall and set of rules that we use for other/old mail servers. We only have 1 exchange server that has all roles.Lead Pusher

Check the event logs for any issues How is the behaviour in owa Check all the exchange server services.Regards from ExchangeOnline

Check the event logs for any issues How is the behaviour in owa Check all the exchange server services. Regards from ExchangeOnline Im looking through the logs now not finding much so far but i will post anything that is obvious issue. OWA continues to work, users phones continue to sync, and everyone can send email out. Plus internal mail still works fine. Which makes me think there is some setting on the external receive connector that stops smtp process after a certain time limit or message limit. When the problem occurs and we test with a telnet command I see this 421 4.3.2 Service not available Connection to the host lost. And internal telnet show normal with regular banner. Next time it happens I will double check all services and events. Thanks Lead Pusher

It just happened again and Restarting the Microsoft Exchange Transport service gets it working again like restarting the server. At least we know what service to restart instead of rebooting the server. Now I can just restart the service every 4-8 hours instead. :( I will look for logs. Lead Pusher

I will make a wild guess, could AV be causing Microsoft Exchange Transport services to stop ? can you disable AV to see if that makes a difference --ocdOz Casey, Dedeal MCITP (EMA), MCITP (EA), MCITP (SA) Visit smtp25.blogspot.com Visit Telnet25.wordpress.com This posting is provided AS-IS with no warranties or guarantees and confers no rights.

AV has not been installed. Right now I have a Powershell task that runs every 4 hours and restarts the transport service. If I cant find an answer soon we will be calling Microsoft to try and figure this out. The transport service never stops... It is still running but restarting the transport service resolves the issue of not collecting mail until we can figure out what the real problem is. I am sure it is not good practice to be restarting the service every 4 hours. Thanks for you input.Lead Pusher

Hi, same problem here. In the meantime we have no AV installed. All services are running, restarting the transport service resolves the issue. We installed all Microsoft updates. BR Stephan

Hi, same problem here. In the meantime we have no AV installed. All services are running, restarting the transport service resolves the issue. We installed all Microsoft updates. BR Stephan Hi Stephan Please post back if you find a solution to this most irritating issue. I will do the same when and if I find a resolution. ThanksLead Pusher

I have been having exactly the same issue's for over 2 weeks although it seems to sometimes work for up to 2 days before the incoming emails stop!, i thought it was something i had caused!, i had a suspicion it was something to do with the Windows Backup since it is taking an image of the server each time along with the exchange data, plus there is a new service which is installed when you install the Windows backup role, its called 'Microsoft Exchange Server Extension for windows server backup".... at first i thought the incoming emails would stop during or after a backup but i have managed now to get backups completing successfully and then today the emails stopped again. I do not have an AV installed, i think there is something wrong with the transport service! MS need to fix this urgently... @Lead_Pusher How did you setup the powershell task?

Nickyp103 Create a powershell file with extension .ps1 and have the command "Restart-Service MsExchangeTransport" in the file then use Task Scheduler to run the command as often as you need it to run. Lead Pusher

Nickyp103 Create a powershell file with extension .ps1 and have the command "Restart-Service MsExchangeTransport" in the file then use Task Scheduler to run the command as often as you need it to run. Lead Pusher Thanks, i came across this post below, all tho not quite the same issue, it could be DNS related, i had 127.0.0.1 in the DNS of the LAN card, ive changed it to the actual ip of the server as it is also the DNS server, will post results... http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangeserverpreview/thread/48331a35-fd58-4bb7-957d-08814905149b

Does this server have more than one NIC? Miguel Fra | Falcon IT Services, Miami, FL www.falconitservices.com | www.falconits.com | Blog

I started a case today with Microsoft and this seems to be a known issue. The tech I was talking with said he has experienced this exact same thing with colleagues. We went over alot of my config then he gathered a ton of log files and now I wait. The tech support said they are working with the exchange team to find out why and a solution to the issue. I have noticed that I am needing to restart the transport service about every 2.5 - 3.5 hours. Hoping to get some results soon and will post results. Thanks Lead Pusher

Awesome, thanks for letting us know.Miguel Fra | Falcon IT Services, Miami, FL www.falconitservices.com | www.falconits.com | Blog

Quick update I have received a couple of kind emails since the original support ticket was created. Basically saying they are working on it and will get back to me as soon as they have a cure. Lead Pusher

Also experiencing the same issue on a clean install of Exchange 2013 on a clean install of Windows Server 2012. The connectors being used are all the connectors that were created by default. No external AV software being used yet so that's not the issue. The issue starts anywhere from a few hours to a day after Exchange starts. I have been rebooting daily but will just restart the Transport Service since someone suggested that restores functionality. The mail is not being accepted by the server while the issue is occurring so some mail is returned non-deliverable if I don't restart Exchange soon enough. Hope this is resolved ASAP.

Quick update I have received a couple of kind emails since the original support ticket was created. Basically saying they are working on it and will get back to me as soon as they have a cure. Lead Pusher Wow, how did this transport thing get by QC? Every 8 hours and nobody noticed? Miguel Fra | Falcon IT Services, Miami, FL www.falconitservices.com | www.falconits.com | Blog

an update from me. After i changed the DNS settings on the network adaptor to the server ip i.e 10.77.100.2 instead of 127.0.0.1 and also made sure the DNS reverse look up zone was setup correctly using the wizard i have not had the problem, emails have been flowing in perfectly for over 2 days! i am not sure if the issue has gone away but it seems to be more stable! lets see, ill post back if anything happens. my setup is one server with the following roles installed (including Exchange 2013) AD DS, APP SERVER, DHCP, DNS, FILE AND STORAGE SERVICES, IIS, REMOTE ACCESS plus Windows server back up.

False alarm, the issue has returned! Time for Microsoft to get a hot fix out ASAP!

I just collected another 2 gigs of dump files for the Microsoft support techs to study. Hope something good comes out of this soon.Lead Pusher

Hi, I did not hear anything on this topic until now so it would be great to know the results. Best regards Christian

I hope something is resolved soon. Restarting services every few hours - on a brand new product that was a clean install - is extremely frustrating and bad for business - for Microsoft and for partners that promote the upgrade of products. So far - between this issue and the removal of many management features from the administration interface - I am disappointed with Exchange 2013 versus Exchange 2010.

This problem is getting worse and worse, i am having to restart the transport service every 4 hours! @Lead_Pusher Is your Exchange 2013 on and DC the same machine?

No official news from any tech support cases or from the Exchange team? If so - that's very disappointing that such a significant issue for multiple organizations is not being resolved immediately. I'm moving back to Exchange 2010 because I can't keep restarting server EVERY 4 HOURS and the Transport Service won't restart properly. My Exchange 2013 is (soon to be was) on its own Server 2012 Std virtual server that is not a DC. Exchange 2013 is the only role for that server.

This problem is getting worse and worse, i am having to restart the transport service every 4 hours! @Lead_Pusher Is your Exchange 2013 on and DC the same machine? Our Exchange Server is only an Exchange server , no other services and it is not a DC. And we also restart the transport service every 3 hours. Lead Pusher

@Lead_Pusher Have you heard anything back about a fix yet? can you post back when you do? ThanksMiguel Fra | Falcon IT Services, Miami, FL www.falconitservices.com | www.falconits.com | Blog

@Lead_Pusher Have you heard anything back about a fix yet? can you post back when you do? Thanks Miguel Fra | Falcon IT Services, Miami, FL www.falconitservices.com | www.falconits.com | Blog I will post back when I have some new info. No answer and have had no response in the last 2 days. Lead Pusher

This is so incredibly disappointing that even the official support request hasn't been handled with such a critical issue. Some companies would have to pay a significant amount of IT dollars for their server to be restarted or services restarted throughout the holiday weekend. 3+ weeks now on this issue being brought up here and no resolution yet. I didn't even know the last 2 replies were up since I hadn't restarted the server all day. A patch/hotfix would be great right now!

I am also having the same trouble for over a month now. Sometimes the mail server makes it several days before needing to be rebooted. I am unable to restart the transport service when the problem happens, it just hangs on restarting the service. I am running exchange on a VM server 2012. There are two nic cards installed, one is disabled within Windows Server. Syncing and sending e-mails still works fine when the problem happens. I have looked in the logs and see nothing obvious. Everything else on the server still works fine including IIS and Remote Desktop.

I have some semi Good news. Our exchange has been working correctly for over 3 days now. The Microsoft techs wanted to test by disabling the Receive connector I had created. It was only for internal mail testing to make sure and allow anything in our internal development network the ability to send mail through our exchange server. It was set up the exact same way we used it in exchange 2007 and 2010. Something is definetly buggy about having to disable this receive connector. Since that was really about the only thing we had done to our exchange install that was not DEFAULT that is why they wanted to disable. Very strange since so many techs had looked at it and just dismissed it since it is NOT something that is so out of the ordinary. Supposed to get a call back today sometime to go over the logs from the weekend. This is still not solved but maybe for our Exchange server we are getting closer. Anyone else with custom recieve connectors may want to consider disabling as a test to see if it helps or not. That is all the info I have for now.Lead Pusher

I dont have any additional receive connectors setup, i just have the standard ones from install, i made a small change to some of the settings but thats it!, i am not really seeing a pattern, sometimes the server is fine for a day other times i have to restart the transport service every few hours, i fear this will not be a quick fix!!! i think i will wait another week or so then switch back to Exchange 2010!

I am having the exact same problem. I think it has to do with backpressure. However there is no guidance out there on what settings to use for exchange 2013. Also, what the hell is with these exchange diagnostics logs being generated in \Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Logging\Diagnostics\DailyPerformanceLogs these are HUGE and filling up my C: drive...

By the way... another sign Exchange 2013 was rushed out the door. If you cant keep something as fundamental as an SMTP relay running on your server, it's flawed. Wake up MS and fix this.

I am having the same issues here with clean install win 2012 and virtual 2012 running 2013. I noticed something that may be related: 2010 Outlook cannot find a password once the transport problem starts. In addition, my internal DNS goes haywire - I cannot find my 2012 DC under it's name, but I can connect under it's static IP. When I try to connect using the name, it pops out of remote desktop with a "this is not the server you were looking for" error. If I ping the name, it shows the same IP address as the mail server! Which, with a static Ip, should not be possible. When I review DNS on the DC, all is as it should be. Tried the ipconfig/dnsflush on the client and no help - still messed up IP. Reboot only the mail server and all is right with the world - for a few hours anyway. DNS is not installed on the virtual mail server -so how does it get control of the DNS requests? Update: DNS issue was a hyperV setting - it seems it is entirely possible and a default setting to have the management operating system and the guest use the same NIC even though you told it not to in the NIC setting directly. Stupid me,not looking through EVERY setting possible. My transport will not stop in many cases, so I'm rebooting ona daily or more basis.

I've had EX2013 running for 3 weeks without a hitch and now suffering the same issue as you guys for the last 3 days - restarting the transport service every 4-8 hours...! Could this have anything to do with WSUS, which I added to our network around a week ago?

I've had EX2013 running for 3 weeks without a hitch and now suffering the same issue as you guys for the last 3 days - restarting the transport service every 4-8 hours...! Could this have anything to do with WSUS, which I added to our network around a week ago? No it cannot be anything to do with WSUS because i dont have it installed as a role on our server! what i did do a few days ago is clean up the database's, i had created a new database and moved all the mailbox's to it, but the old one would not delete because it said it was still in use, i then used some commands to move the discovery mailbox along with all the arbitrations to the new database, this then completely emptied the original database and i was able to delete it and the rest of the logs/files, so lets see now how it goes, not sure if this is actually going to fix the issue but at least everything is now cleaned up.

I had setup a receive connector for SSRS to communicate with Exchange which this morning I disabled. Since then, mail flow has been absolutely fine, no transport restarts required at all, so I can only presume that the settings in the receive connector were causing the issue. Could someone else try disabling any non-default connectors to see whether this works?

I dont have any non-default receive connectors or SCCM/SMS or WSUS, so it's not that.

Okay, WSUS was a long shot but as I say, since I disabled my custom receive connector, this problem has not re-occurred. Troy12n - have you modified any of the default connectors, in any way?

I am using just the default receive connectors and the problem is the same. I am running an experiment to see if the anti-malware filter is the cause after reviewing the logs - lots of anti-malware errors which, naturally, have no additional information available. I have bypassed the filter in the EMC. The anti-spam agents have been: (1) not installed (same problem); (2)enabled (same problem); and (3) disabled (same problem). My users are not too happy about all the spam but they are understanding once I explain it's a Microsoft product. So far its been 12 hours of uptime. Will update as my experiment proceeds. Update 1-8-13: System has been stable receiving emails for 24 hours. Lots of emails with both anti-spam and anti-malware turned off ;-) Update 1-9-13: system up and stable for 48 hours. Logs lookk "normal". Not positive, but it looks like the anti-malware agent is messing up the transport for me.

I am curious then - I re-enabled the custom receive connector and sure enough, the problem arose after an hour. I have since disabled it again and mail has been flowing fine.

Okay, WSUS was a long shot but as I say, since I disabled my custom receive connector, this problem has not re-occurred. Troy12n - have you modified any of the default connectors, in any way? Only the permissions, which should not have any effect on this. In fact the permissions are the same as I have them currently for 2010.

My custom receive connector is exactly the same as I had in EX2010, but it still causes the issue.

Hi again, Just got off the phone with Microsoft techs again. They are able to reproduce the issue with custom receive connectors on an Exchange server that host CAS and Mailbox roles. So an all in one Exchange server like my setup. The problem was with the New Custom Receive connector being associated with the HubTransport instead of the FrontendTransport ??? So me and other users just following the same steps as they did in Exchange 2007 and 2010 would cause a problem. You can force the issue (replicate the problem) to occur faster if you shutdown the Microsoft Exchange Transport Service and Shutdown the Microsoft Exchange Frontend Transport Service... then start up the Microsoft Exchange Transport Service FIRST then start Frontend Service. This will force the port 25 conflict that stops the external mail. If you created a custom receive connector on Exchange and are experiencing issues delete that connector and recreate but this time choose Frontend instead of Hub for the role when creating it. Shell command - New-Receiveconnector -Name <Name-It> -Usage Custom -Bindings 0.0.0.0:25 -RemoteIpRanges <xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,etc> -TransportRole frontendtransport OR the web interface They told me that they will be releasing some notes on how to set the Receive Connectors up to clear up any confusion and at this point are not considering this a BUG in Exchange 2013. I hope this helps some of you fix your Exchange servers from not excepting external email. Lead Pusher

My receive connector was to enable SQL database mail and SSRS to relay via exchange. I have set up a Frontend connector as suggested but neither database mail or SSRS will work - mailbox unavailable 5.7.1 unable to relay. With a hub transport connector, SQL mail and SSRS worked but of course the incoming mail stopped...!

My receive connector was to enable SQL database mail and SSRS to relay via exchange. I have set up a Frontend connector as suggested but neither database mail or SSRS will work - mailbox unavailable 5.7.1 unable to relay. With a hub transport connector, SQL mail and SSRS worked but of course the incoming mail stopped...! Probably just need to tweak your permissions on the receive connector and make sure it has the correct IPs of the servers trying to send email. This page should get you going http://exchangeserverpro.com/how-to-configure-a-relay-connector-for-exchange-server-2010 Its for 2010 but about the same process using the web interface. Lead Pusher

You're spot on - the permissions were nothing like the ones I had needed for the hub transport. Thank you!

I hope this helps some of you fix your Exchange servers from not excepting external email. Lead Pusher Thanks for sharing that info.Miguel Fra | Falcon IT Services, Miami, FL www.falconitservices.com | www.falconits.com | Blog

Hi again, Just got off the phone with Microsoft techs again. They are able to reproduce the issue with custom receive connectors on an Exchange server that host CAS and Mailbox roles. So an all in one Exchange server like my setup. The problem was with the New Custom Receive connector being associated with the HubTransport instead of the FrontendTransport ??? So me and other users just following the same steps as they did in Exchange 2007 and 2010 would cause a problem. You can force the issue (replicate the problem) to occur faster if you shutdown the Microsoft Exchange Transport Service and Shutdown the Microsoft Exchange Frontend Transport Service... then start up the Microsoft Exchange Transport Service FIRST then start Frontend Service. This will force the port 25 conflict that stops the external mail. If you created a custom receive connector on Exchange and are experiencing issues delete that connector and recreate but this time choose Frontend instead of Hub for the role when creating it. Shell command - New-Receiveconnector -Name <Name-It> -Usage Custom -Bindings 0.0.0.0:25 -RemoteIpRanges <xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx,etc> -TransportRole frontendtransport OR the web interface They told me that they will be releasing some notes on how to set the Receive Connectors up to clear up any confusion and at this point are not considering this a BUG in Exchange 2013. I hope this helps some of you fix your Exchange servers from not excepting external email. Lead Pusher so is it the highlighted receive connector in my screenshot below that i need to delete and recreate as frontendtransport?

@Lead Pusher Did you see my screenshot above? these were all installed by default and i have not changed anything but still get the problem with mail stopping!!! im sure there is stil a bug

My install has been stable for a week after bypassing the anti malware filter

My install has been stable for a week after bypassing the anti malware filter how did you apply this? i will give it a try!

Not sure if this is how it was applied but I am trying this method below. My install had no custom connectors setup either & the only changes made after the clean install were the steps published by MS to setup various incoming mail filters using the Exchange Powershell commands. This still wouldn't explain why it works fine for a short variable amount of time then stops accepting ANY e-mails. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150526(v=exchg.150).aspx

The article referenced by gtheo3 is what I used. I tried this after reviewing the transport roles logs and noticing that the antimalware filter was posting errors that seemed to "build up" killing the transport on port 25. I hope this helps.

FYI - our mail server has been running 6 days now without the mail rejection problems that were previously occurring every 4-24 hours for the last couple months. Bypassing the malware filter using the method below is what solved the problem for us. We are still very disappointed that a brand new, clean install would've involved such a critical BUG that would cost a company SO much in labor costs (troubleshooting, loss of mail productivity & rebooting mail server FREQUENTLY) and it still has yet to be resolved officially by MS. Also disappointed with the change (lack of) in the management GUI related to SPAM and filters. So much for any ROI for the exciting new Exchange 2013. http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150526(v=exchg.150).aspx

On Wed, 23 Jan 2013 20:25:09 +0000, Gtheo3 wrote: > > >FYI - our mail server has been running 6 days now without the mail rejection problems that were previously occurring every 4-24 hours for the last couple months. Bypassing the malware filter using the method below is what solved the problem for us. > >We are still very disappointed that a brand new, clean install would've involved such a critical BUG that would cost a company SO much in labor costs (troubleshooting, loss of mail productivity & rebooting mail server FREQUENTLY) and it still has yet to be resolved officially by MS. Also disappointed with the change (lack of) in the management GUI related to SPAM and filters. So much for any ROI for the exciting new Exchange 2013. > >http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150526(v=exchg.150).aspx Sorry, but anyone that jumps on the new software bandwagon without first testing to see if it meets their requirements . . . --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

I have the malware filter enabled and I am not experiencing this problem. In fact, since I changed the custom receive connector from hub to frontend, exchange 2013 has been the most robust and easy to use exchange installation I have had the pleasure to work with.

my receive connector was the default installed one which was front end transport anyway! but since i temp disabled the malware filter it seems more stable as well, almost 3 days now with good mail flow, i will monitor further and see.

OK... Did alot of testing and spent some time with Microsoft's support on the phone. I believe there is actually two problems going on in this thread. 1. Exchange 2013 Admins that have changed the default receive connectors are experiencing a conflict on the scope settings. Make sure that none of the receive connectors are using the same ports, and that you have not modified the security settings in anyway unless you really know what you are doing. If you are unsure of what the settings should be after you have change them, the only suggestion I have right now, (as I have not taken the time to do screen shots or write down all the default settings) is to install Exchange 2013 on a virtual machine and look at them, then change back the settings that do not match. 2. The Malware Agent has a flaw that is causing the the Microsoft Exchange Transport service to endlessly wait on the Malware Agent to process a message that it just can't handle. (Two reboots of the entire server may be needed to clear this, or sometimes you can get away with restarting the Microsoft Exchange EdgeSync service.) The Microsoft technician had me perform a sequence of steps that highlighted this. To see if this is infact your problem you can perform the following steps. A) Once the Exchange server stops processing messages, figure out the rough time it stopped processing messages. B) Open the event viewer. C) Under "Windows Logs", right click "Application", select "Filter Current Log...", check "Warning" and "Error", then click "OK". D) Scroll down the log to the rough time that your Exchange Server stopped processing messages. You are looking for a slew of errors about the same time from "MSExchange Extensibility" (1051), "MSExchange Transport" (9201), "MSExchange Transport" (9201), "MSExchange Extensibility" (1056), "MSExchangeTransport" (10003), and "MSExchange Common" (4999). It is the "MSExchangeTransport" (10003) that I believe is the real problem. The Microsoft technician agreed. He did not want to spectulate as to exactly what was going on, but it seems to me that since he had me disable the "Malware Agent" for now, that it is indeed the problem. E) So.... Open the Exchange Management Console and type "Disable-TransportAgent", followed by enter. It will prompt "Supply values for the following parameters:". Enter "Malware Agent", press enter again. Type "A", for yes to all. or http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj150526.aspx" F) Go to run, enter "services.msc". On the window that opens, find "Micorosoft Exchange Transport" and restart it. I know this is NOT a fix, but a work around that is less than desired as the Malware Agent is a filter to keep unwanted emails out. I highly recommend running some sort of 3rd party spam/Malware filter that has been fully tested to run with Exchange 2013 if you do this. Microsoft is to contact me back once they can figure out why this is happening, and I believe in the end a patch for Exchange 2013 will be produce to correct the problem. In the mean time.... don't waste your money on paying Micorosoft for support, as I have already done this. For the individuals who say they are not experiencing trouble, I am going to go out on a limb here and say that either you have a 3rd party software program that is filtering the mail before it reaches the Malware Agent, you have disabled the Malware Agent, or you are using another mail server to forward email to your Exchange 2013 server. With either of these cases you are much less likely to see this problem. One last issue that a few people may be experiencing, is Exchange 2013, running on Server 2012 that is a VM. Several VM setups have a bug with the VM NIC management interface and Windows Server if you are using the same NIC for both. For example Xen Server 5.6 and XEN XCP both have this bug. There is an patch for XEN Server 5.6, but so far nothing for Xen XCP. I have spent many hours trying to figure my problems with Exchange 2013 and I will not swear that my entire post is correct, but I have gotten very much closer to a stable mail server after much work. If you feel that anything is incorrect, please reply back and let me know why, so that we may all benifit. P.S. Sorry for the mis-spellings and what not, I am very tired at the moment, and was forced to use explorer, because this site is not liking Chrome at the moment. (Will not let me login)

Sorry, but anyone that jumps on the new software bandwagon without first testing to see if it meets their requirements . . . --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP MCSE? MVP? People like you are the reason I never bothered with such exams. Accusing somebody of poor planning by using RELEASE software is making excuses for Microsoft that you ought not to be making. This is a well developed and mature product put out by one of the largest software companies in the world. Such obvious and glaring errors should not exist and sure as hell shouldn't be defended by somebody like you. The GUI (non-GUI) in this version is a joke. The first time in my life I've ever used Firefox was on my Exchange server because straight out of the box, IE10 would crash while managing my server. No spam filter or blacklist settings? The whole layout of the management frontend has changed without any fundamental shifts in the backend to necessitate it. This isn't some stupid little open source project for an Android phone, THIS IS MICROSOFT EFFING EXCHANGE!!!!! Stop making excuses for these smacks.

hi there! have exactly the same problems (described it here: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/exchangesvrsecuremessaging/thread/d696e5d9-fd5b-4511-8072-266315313de7) ... anyway, deleting the self-defined receive-connector, which was an hint in this thread, on my new server keeps it up & alive for 1 day right now - will look forward & keep on reporting here! cheers

Since around January 15th when I disabled the built-in malware processing using the steps below, Exchange has been delivering mail without any restart. Prior to that, we were restarting the Exchange server (clean install) about every 4-24 hours for a couple months. We had no custom connectors - only the pre-installed connectors. My feedback/complaints are that this release software probably shouldn't have been released with such a significant problem but then there were official tech support requests made and no real solutions other than what we figured out in trial & error. My install was a clean install on a clean install of Windows Server 2012, which is what I would expect MS wants me to pitch as a partner. I still have yet to see any official release of this being an issue and how customers can resolve it - or a patch that resolves it for the customer. The GUI feedback I suggested is just that - feedback. It is disappointing to us that the management of the new built-in anti-malware, spam filters & other filters aren't able to be managed outside of PowerShell. It seems to be a part of the MS push of customers toward the hosted Exchange, which is a great solution but isn't for all industries/clients. Removing GUI/web management of features is a step backwards for many Exchange management users - some people love PowerShell & are fast with it but not everyone.

On Mon, 11 Feb 2013 11:00:06 +0000, Crand wrote: >Sorry, but anyone that jumps on the new software bandwagon without first testing to see if it meets their requirements . . . --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP > >MCSE? MVP? People like you are the reason I never bothered with such exams. >Accusing somebody of poor planning by using RELEASE software is making excuses for Microsoft that you ought not to be making. There's an awful lot of "released" software that doesn't meet expectations, expecially newly released software. Simply assuming that what you think is the way something works isn't the best way to run a business. >This is a well developed and mature product put out by one of the largest software companies in the world. Such obvious and glaring errors should not exist and sure as hell shouldn't be defended by somebody like you. I'm not defending anything. I'm simply pointing out that junmping on a new release bandwagon isn't always a smart thing to do. >The GUI (non-GUI) in this version is a joke. The first time in my life I've ever used Firefox was on my Exchange server because straight out of the box, IE10 would crash while managing my server. No spam filter or blacklist settings? The whole layout of the management frontend has changed without any fundamental shifts in the backend to necessitate it. > >This isn't some stupid little open source project for an Android phone, THIS IS MICROSOFT EFFING EXCHANGE!!!!! Stop making excuses for these smacks. I don't recall making any excuses. If that's what you've inferred, well, that's not what I said. --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP --- Rich Matheisen MCSE+I, Exchange MVP

UPDATE: I thought all was good after disabling the malware filter however the transport service has once again hung and could not be restarted, so a full server reboot was required before email flow started to work again! This is crazy, i think i will hold out for the CU1 update but if it continues then back to Exchange 2010 for me.

Same with one of our installations as well - we restart the transport service every 2 hours through a scheduled task... With our own installation we have no problems like that - running like a charm. Must be a specific problem in some envinronments... Hope for a solution from Microsoft - hopefully with CU1. Further it would be great, if MS can provide more detailled information, whether this bug is addressed with CU1 and when it would be released...

Hi again, Well the malware agent has struck our system too. What is the solution? If the agent is disabled mail flow works fine but the amount of spam is overwhelming. If the agent is enabled then spam stops but so does the mail flow. It seems that the agent takes forever or hangs up processing the mail. Lead Pusher

Just got off phone with Exchange support and the Malware Agent issue is a known BUG. It is expected to be resolved in CU1 which i was told hopefully would be released in 4-6 weeks. Look for and error with event ID 10003 in the application logs. At least that is what i was told to look for and I had a bunch of them. Work around for us is to bypass the malware agent. Exchange management shell - Set-MalwareFilteringServer -BypassFiltering $true and you can check the settings with Get-MalwareFilterServer | fl to see all the parameters for it. Hope this helpsLead Pusher

We disabled the malware filtering already: No change... We still need to restart the transport service every few hours...

I m having the same problem... We have Exchange server 2003 installed. It stops working on every 12th day. Outlook shows msg REQUESTING DATA FROM SERVER and doesnt download new emails. but all clients are able to send email to outside and inside. Every time I have to restart the server. After restarting the server exchange works fine and all clients recieve emails in outlook. what is the cause ?? Every 12th day it happens from the date of restarting the server.

tbh it seems the only thing we can do is wait for the CU1 update at some point this month, apparently there are several fix's issued including the malware filter problem.

I'm having the same issue here. Sending emails out is perfect. Internall emails is also fine, however external emails is a issue. Mailware-AntiSpam has all been disabled, but I have no idea why externall emails are coming in late.

I just want to add that I've been having this exact same problem for a couple of months now. Seems that If I set the server to reboot at 4am every morning it makes it through the day just fine. This is obviously not a fix, just throwing in some input and I'm thrilled to find I'm not alone in this.

This one is killing me. MS, please fix it! For me, the service will not restart on its own. I have to use "kill" to get it to shut down. Any suggestions?

We had similar issues at a customer, which was unsupported to begin with btw. They had a SBS 2003 server (exchange 2003 thus) was hoping to migrate that to 2013 directly. Well apparently there's no migration path at all (unless you consider dumping everything to PST and importing it again a migration path - I call it crap (nice going btw MS)). So I installed 2008 R2/Exchange 2010 trial, migrated everything there, removed exchange 2003, installed exchange 2013 on windows 2012 and migrated again. So far so good. But then ran into this issue. It turns out the installation had a 'Internal Relay' connector (Hub Transport) which probably originates from the 2003 server (I never created it on 2013 nor 2010 anyways) that was only set for the .2 IP in the subnet there (so the database server could send out e-mail w/o authenticating). Just removed that and re-enabled the malware filter (disabled it after reading here it would help - it did not :)). Anyways, so far it's been stable for ~36 hours now. Just FYI - HTH.

Anybody thought about disabling this to see if that would help? http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb201658(v=exchg.150).aspx

Since I have Exhange running in a Hyper-V virtual machine with only 2.5GB RAM (but only a few mailboxes) I disabled Back Pressure, but it didn't help. The thing that worked for me (any many others) was to delete my custom receive connector and recreate it with Frontend transport. I'm running Exch2013 in an Exch2010 environment, moved all mailboxes and everything works fine now, despite the lack of Exch2013 CU1... Edit: Disabling Malware Agent didn't help, either.

I called MS support and they got on my server and disabled the Malware Agent. Since then, it has been running smoothly. They did check my receive connectors and said they looked good before they addressed the Malware Agent. They are planning an update soon.

I had the same problem, after 8~10 hours the smtp connection from public side went down. Telnet could connect internally but not from public side. The problem origin was the remote access server, I uninstalled it and installed again, reconfigured it and now everything works good.

Has anyone resolved this issue? When this happens, I have to reboot the server because the transport service fails to restart. I also have CU1 installed.

I had the same problem. i opened an incident with Microsoft. What the tech did to resolve the problem was add my ip in the hosts file. After he did this, everything started working just fine. hosts file is in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc he appended: <ipaddress> <servername> <ipaddress> <FQDN> for example: 192.168.1.10 felix 192.168.1.10 felix.acme.local Hope this helps.

Hi JPeebles1434, I just tried your solution, but after doing it a ping still returned the IPv6 Address of the server. I'm assuming that Microsoft requested you add the IPv4 address to force traffic through IPv4, but I fail to see what that would do if a simple ping would still go via IPv6. I have since discovered Windows 8 and 2012 both prefer IPv6 over IPv4 SOO, my question. 1) is your Exchange server running on Server 2012? 2) If you ping your servername from the server does it return the IPv4 address or the IPv6? Thanks!

Hi cookmi1, Try to stop the remote access service (vpn) before restart exchange transport service. This not resolve this issue but not need to reboot your server.

Hi JPeebles1434, after added the ip in the host file the problem was gone away. Great!

I had the same problem. i opened an incident with Microsoft. What the tech did to resolve the problem was add my ip in the hosts file. After he did this, everything started working just fine. hosts file is in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc he appended: <ipaddress> <servername> <ipaddress> <FQDN> for example: 192.168.1.10 felix 192.168.1.10 felix.acme.local Hope this helps. Thank you, I have the same problem and this proposition had fix my problem.

I had the same problem. i opened an incident with Microsoft. What the tech did to resolve the problem was add my ip in the hosts file. After he did this, everything started working just fine. hosts file is in c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc he appended: <ipaddress> <servername> <ipaddress> <FQDN> for example: 192.168.1.10 felix 192.168.1.10 felix.acme.local Hope this helps. Thank you, I have the same problem and this proposition had fix my problem.

We have had the same issue whereby at random intervals (around 8 hours apart but not always) email functionality will stop working and we receive the following symptoms: 1.emails will get stuck in outbox in outlook 2.emails will get stuck in drafts in OWA 3.Emails cannot be received externally (They bounce back to the sender) 4.if you telnet in to the system from remote, you get a service temporarily unavailable error. 5.If you try to restart the transport service, it gets stuck stopping. I have tried the following, and confirm none of the below prevented the issue from re-occurring: 1.I have a custom receive connector (for receiving scan to email messages from photocopier), I set this to frontend, and this did not solve the problem. 2.I have disabled the malware filter and this did not solve the problem. I manage to temporarily resolve the problem by the following procedure: 1.Stop the routing and remote access service 2.restart the exchange transport service 3.restart the routing and remote access service. Because of the above procedure, I have a feeling that maybe it is routing and remote access causing the problem (as mentioned above) and possibly the server trying to listen on the IP assigned to the server for routing and remote access?? Today I have implemented the suggested fix above regarding the adding of static DNS entries for the server name and server FQDN in hosts file. I will report back if this resolves the issue. Additional info: Windows server 2012 with Exchange 2013 with CAS and Mailbox roles. Brand new build. only 1 custom receive connector.

Hi, I installed two enviroments with Exchange 2013 and all had the same problems. I disabled all logs in send conectors and receice connectors to resolve in both. Andr Mailer [MCP, MCSA, MCTS, MCITP, MCSA, MCT, ThinPrint Master]

We are actually having this same issue, but with EX 2010. We only have the one receive connector, and no malware on 2010. We are having identical symptoms though and they just started out of the blue. We do use an internal relay, as we only use exchange for a few mailboxes in our environment. I can't find anything that would seem to cause this.

Put the local host's (Exchange server) IP address into the Internal Relay receive connector and restart the FrontEnd Transport service. I don't know WHY it worked, but it did for me. It was a "Try it and see what happens" stab in the dark. I don't know how long it will last before I have to restart the FrontEnd Transport service again.

I had been battling this since day 1 of install. And it seems to give results. Setup: Single server with Active Directory, Routing and Remote Service, File and printing service, Exchange 2013. For the first couple of weeks, I had to reboot almost everyday, because I could not restart the Transport Service. The memory consumption goes to close to 100%, but strange enough, there is hardly load. But anyhow... mails are not delivering internally nor externally. Now, it has been running stable with mails flowing fine for 3 days. Here is what I did: * Disabled malware filter. * Set the IP of my host and FQDN in hosts file. 10.0.0.2 myserver myserver.mydomain.com * Delete custom Receive Connector that I have created as Hub Transport, re-created it as Front End transport (I set this with no encryption and no autnentication/anonymous access for internal scanning/fax delivery). * I do have anti-spam configured for sender filtering, content-filtering, etc. And... everything seems to run fine now. I do think that my last change, re-creating the custom Receive Connector as Front End transport was the one that stopped all of this madness. I hope that helps. Andy

I had been battling this since day 1 of install. And it seems to give results. Setup: Single server with Active Directory, Routing and Remote Service, File and printing service, Exchange 2013. For the first couple of weeks, I had to reboot almost everyday, because I could not restart the Transport Service. The memory consumption goes to close to 100%, but strange enough, there is hardly load. But anyhow... mails are not delivering internally nor externally. Now, it has been running stable with mails flowing fine for 3 weeks. Here is what I did: * Disabled malware filter. * Set the IP of my host and FQDN in hosts file. 10.0.0.2 myserver myserver.mydomain.com * Delete custom Receive Connector that I have created as Hub Transport, re-created it as Front End transport (I set this with no encryption and no autnentication/anonymous access for internal scanning/fax delivery). * I do have anti-spam configured for sender filtering, content-filtering, etc. And... everything seems to run fine now. I do think that my last change, re-creating the custom Receive Connector as Front End transport was the one that stopped all of this madness. I hope that helps. Andy

I had been battling this since day 1 of install. And it seems to give results. Setup: Single server with Active Directory, Routing and Remote Service, File and printing service, Exchange 2013. For the first couple of weeks, I had to reboot almost everyday, because I could not restart the Transport Service. The memory consumption goes to close to 100%, but strange enough, there is hardly load. But anyhow... mails are not delivering internally nor externally. Now, it has been running stable with mails flowing fine for 3 days. Here is what I did: * Disabled malware filter. * Set the IP of my host and FQDN in hosts file. 10.0.0.2 myserver myserver.mydomain.com * Delete custom Receive Connector that I have created as Hub Transport, re-created it as Front End transport (I set this with no encryption and no autnentication/anonymous access for internal scanning/fax delivery). * I do have anti-spam configured for sender filtering, content-filtering, etc. And... everything seems to run fine now. I do think that my last change, re-creating the custom Receive Connector as Front End transport was the one that stopped all of this madness. I hope that helps. Andy

I solved the problem with reinstall the server with Setup /m:RecoverServer /IAcceptExchangeServerLicenseTerms http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd876880%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx

Same issue also occurred to SMTP traffic from Ex2007 to 2013 SMTP after creating a custom hub connector. I've now removed the hub connector and thing are working well. I think this really is a bug.