Hi, I'm running Exchange 2003 SP 2 SBS on Windows 2003 server, win32 Recently, the services related to IIS have started crashing. The SMTP and WWW publishing services stop working and when I try restart the services, they go into "stopping" state and do not stop normally. I have to end task InetInfo for the service to stop so that I can start it again. We are not using IIS for anything other than exchange. Any ideas how to troubleshoot this?

It might be The IIS Admin Service (Inetinfo.exe) crashes and mail builds up in the SMTP queue on a computer that is running Exchange Server 2003 It can also happen doe to your locally installed Anti-Virus. If you can, try running without Anti-Virus for a short period to see if the behaviour changes. Also check so that the correct paths are excluded from scanning: Overview of Exchange Server 2003 and antivirus software Lastly, there is also this issue: The Microsoft Exchange Information Store service stops responding after you enable an antivirus program that uses the Microsoft Virus Scanning Application Programming Interface (VSAPI) for Microsoft Exchange in Exchange Server 2003 Please also check the Application and System log files in Event Viewer.Jesper Bernle | Blog: http://xchangeserver.wordpress.com

Hi, Hopefully there will be some events logged in the application log. What do they say? Leif

Thanks for that quick response. The anti-virus was my first suspect. Excluding all the exchange folders from file scanning helped for a while but the problem came back. I have just applied that hotfix and will monitor how it goes. Jason Kaler

unfortunately the hotfix did not help. It crashed again within a few minutes. I can telnet into that server on port 25 and get the 220 welcome response, but that's it. there is no response to the "Helo" command. After a while, even the 220 welcome message stops. I am going to temporarily stop the VSAPI part of our anti-virus (AVG 2011) and see how that goes. Thanks Jason Kaler

No luck so far. I installed the hotfix mentioned by Jesper. AVG have confirmed a bug in the software. I disabled their VSAPI component and noticed a huge change in server performance however exchange only ran for a mere 5 hours and then died on me. I have excluded the following folders: C:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\ D:\Program Files\Exchsrvr\ (all databases sit here) C:\WINDOWS\system32\inetsrv\ C:\WINDOWS\IIS Temporary Compressed Files\ This covers everything. I have very few options left: 1. Uninstall this version of AVG and return to the previous version that used to work. 2. Uninstall all updates recently installed on the server by automatic updates. 3. Re-install exchange. NOOOO. Any other ideas?

No luck from that. Server performance is much better but still crashes.

Nothing in the event logs at all, until I force the service to shut down, then it says "The IIS Admin Service service terminated unexpectedly. It has done this 1 time(s)." KB910618 did not help there. Any other ideas?

... when I try restart the services, they go into "stopping" state and do not stop normally. I have to end task InetInfo for the service to stop so that I can start it again. Perhaps this method can remedy that behaviour - IIS may stop responding (hang) or may crash when you try to close it if an SMTP transport event sink that handles the IMailTransportOnPostCategorize::OnMessagePostCategorize event is registered with the SMTP service To try to figure out the root cause, use IIS Crash/Hang Agent & IIS DumpJesper Bernle | Blog: http://xchangeserver.wordpress.com

Thank you for that information. After disabling some components in our anti-virus things look a bit more stable. Holding thumbs. If the server is still running on Monday, then I know that was the root cause of the problem. Thanks Jason Kaler

Hello, Please apply the latest service pack and update for Windows and Exchange Server. In addition, we can use the ADPLUS tool to troubleshoot the process crash and hung issues: Install the ADPLUS utility on the server. 1. Please download it from the link given below: <http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtools/debugging/install64bit.mspx> 2. Run Adplus.vbs on the Exchange server console (not through Terminal Services). 3. Open a command prompt by going to Start, Run and enter the syntax: CMD 4. Navigate to the debuggers folder (Default is c:\Program Files\Debugging Tools for Windows): 5. Enter the syntax: cscript adplus.vbs -crash -pn <processname> -o c:\<processname>_DumpFile -NoDumpOnFirst Example to create a dump files for the IISadmin process: cscript adplus.vbs -crash -pn inetinfo.exe -o c:\adplusdump (Give the drive name where you have sufficient free disk space approx. 4-8 GB) For more reference, please see: How to use ADPlus to troubleshoot "hangs" and "crashes" http://support.microsoft.com/kb/286350 Thanks, Simon