Hi Guys,

I wonder if someone can point me in the right direction.

I have just installed my first Windows Server 2012 R2 , which went fine, then Exchange 2013 and installation went fine. have setup one user on the system and connected Exchange to the user, also setup in mail flow send connectors as well not an issue.(We do have internet on the server)

But when I try and send email using OWA they seat in the Draft folder, for the life on me I can't find why the emails are not going out.

Can some point me in the right direction as to what I have missed out.

Many Thanks.

Do you have enough free space where your Queue and Log databases sit? Can you verify DNS is working properly? The main problem with a message sitting in the 'Drafts' folder in your case would be the message isn't getting processed by the Transport Service. Can you run Get-TransportService and verify your NICs DNS settings? Have you tried rebooting this machine?

Are there any logs showing on that exchange box?

Hi JP,

As Josh pointed out, email sitting on drafts ideally mean issue with the transport service.

Check if the Transport service on the Mailbox server is running. A quick glance on the server manager dashboard should highlight any issues in RED.

Hoping that your DC and Exchange Servers are not on the same server. Its not recommended and might give weird issues.

Below article addresses\highlights one.

http://exchangekb.com/2014/03/19/exchange-2013-emails-stuck-in-drafts/

Hi Satyajit,

Thank you for yours reply

The DC and the Exchange Servers are on the same box :( is this going to cause a big issue, as the client only has room for one server and there are only 6 users on the system.

JP

Hi JP,

I thought its a lab setup :o.

Use the info below to set expectations with your management.

Installing Exchange on a domain controller is not recommended

• Exchange services may not start correctly when the domain controller is also a global catalog server.

This point might be the issue you are facing. As Exchange needs atleast 1 GC and if your's is the only one then it has to be a GC too, and problems would start. It's not like it won't work, but reliability is in question.

Installing Exchange 2013 on directory servers

Hi JP,

Thank you for your question.

Did the issue occur all users?

Did you try to send emails by OWA in different clients?

Did you send email to internal user to check if the issue persist?

Is there third-party software on Exchange server?

If emails which was sent to Internet is in draft folder, we could disable A/V to check if the issue persist.

We could restart IIS and the service of Microsoft Exchange Transport to check if the issue persist.

In addition, Exchange server was installed on domain controller is not recommended. It is just for testing instead of production.

If there are any questions regarding this issue, please be free to let me know. 

Best Regard,

Jim