Hello all

Little background.  my company is currently using 2 companies to host our emails.  bluehost has our domain and x7hosting has our emails.  It is a simple pop email service.  We want to change over to exchange so we purchased a server that will act as a file server and a exchange server.  About 1 month ago I set up exchange server and was able to sent out emails with no issues but was not able to receive emails due to x7hosting still holding on to our domain. flash forward to today we want to redirect our domain to our in house server with exchange.  OUT of the blue i am no longer able to send out emails. we have not yet redirected our domain to our server but we would like to do so ASAP.  currently our emails are staying in our drafts.

i have gone through multiple forums but cannot find any luck

currently using this server with 2 NIC cards one is for a file server

• Edited by rvelasco Thursday, August 27, 2015 6:04 PM

Hi,

What is the NDR received on the sender side ?Please post NDR that the user receives for further analyse.

Please ensure that you have the correct DNS record(MX record,A record) for the Exchange Server.You can use Nslookup to check it. You can refer to the below link : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/200525

Then try to restart Microsoft Exchange transport service. If it doesnt work ,I suggest you can check your receive connector configuration .

Also check your firewall and ensure some essential  port(25 443 110) can be opened for internet emails.

Regards,

David 

• Edited by David Wang_Microsoft contingent staff 57 minutes ago

Hi,

What is the NDR received on the sender side ?Please post NDR that the user receives for further analyse.

Please ensure that you have the correct DNS record(MX record,A record) for the Exchange Server.You can use Nslookup to check it. You can refer to the below link : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/200525

Then try to restart Microsoft Exchange transport service. If it doesnt work ,I suggest you can check your receive connector configuration .

Also check your firewall and ensure some essential  port(25 443 110) can be opened for internet emails.

Regards,

David 

• Edited by David Wang_Microsoft contingent staff Monday, August 31, 2015 6:32 AM

Hi,
According to your description, I understand that mail stay in Draft folder and cannot be delivered while send message.

Does the issue occur on OWA? Please try to login OWA and test mail flow.

If it occurs on owa, it seems that something wrong with Exchange server, for example send connector or receive connector, transport service.
Besides, please try to run Test-MailFlow or Telnet to test the communication of Exchange server. 

If it works fine on owa, it indicate that the problem is related to Outlook client. Please try to run Outlook with safe mode or re-create a profile for testing.

Hope it's helpful to you.

Regards,

David 

• Edited by David Wang_Microsoft contingent staff Tuesday, September 01, 2015 1:23 AM

Hello,

All the testing I have been doing is from OWA just in case to eliminate any other program issues.

For my test mail flow i got a failure

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Test-Mailflow


RunspaceId         : aac60d29-e094-4e38-a43a-17e5c2a89c01
TestMailflowResult : *FAILURE*
MessageLatencyTime : 00:00:00
IsRemoteTest       : False
Identity           :
IsValid            : True
ObjectState        : New

For the telnet i keep getting a relay error.

550 5.7.1 Unable to relay

How is the Send Connector configured (please look at the beginning of Mark Gossa's post)?

Does it use DNS? A Smart Host?

Otherwise, was anything changed with the Receive Connectors since this was working?

I would compare settings to the defaults. This is Exchange 2013, correct?

Yes, I know you've posted in a Exchange 2013 forum, but sometimes people post for 2010 in 2013 and 2007 in 2010, etc, etc..

yes it is 2013

My send connector delivery options has MX record associated with recipient domain enabled. use the external dns lookup settings.. is disabled.

for scoping the - the address space is type smtp - domain is * - cost is 1

source server is the server that exchange is installed on and fqdn is mycomputername.domain.com

I might have changed settings with the receive connectors but i have gone back to all default settings.

You should find that emails are queuing up on Exchange in which case, you'll be able to use the below command to get the error from the last attempt to send emails out. Try send some emails to the internet then run this command:

Get-Queue | fl identity,messagecount,lasterror

Let me know what the error is. 

If you can, please post the output of the below command:

Get-SendConnector | fl

Also, try send an email to a test account from a PowerShell window running on your Exchange server and post any errors:

Send-MailMessage -To yourtestaccount@hotmail.co.uk -From test@yourdomain.com -SmtpServer mx4.hotmail.com -Subject "subject"

Thanks.

I have couple emails stuck in draft and surpised first result came back with no issues

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-Queue | fl identity,messagecount,lasterror


Identity     : KubServer\Submission
MessageCount : 0
LastError    :

2nd request

[PS] C:\Windows\system32>Get-SendConnector | fl


AddressSpaces                : {SMTP:*;1}
AuthenticationCredential     :
CloudServicesMailEnabled     : False
Comment                      :
ConnectedDomains             : {}
ConnectionInactivityTimeOut  : 00:10:00
DNSRoutingEnabled            : True
DomainSecureEnabled          : False
Enabled                      : True
ErrorPolicies                : Default
ForceHELO                    : False
Fqdn                         :
FrontendProxyEnabled         : False
HomeMTA                      : Microsoft MTA
HomeMtaServerId              : KUBSERVER
Identity                     : Kubtec outgoing
IgnoreSTARTTLS               : False
IsScopedConnector            : False
IsSmtpConnector              : True
MaxMessageSize               : 10 MB (10,485,760 bytes)
Name                         : Kubtec outgoing
Port                         : 25
ProtocolLoggingLevel         : None
RequireOorg                  : False
RequireTLS                   : False
SmartHostAuthMechanism       : None
SmartHosts                   : {}
SmartHostsString             :
SmtpMaxMessagesPerConnection : 20
SourceIPAddress              : 0.0.0.0
SourceRoutingGroup           : Exchange Routing Group (DWBGZMFD01QNBJR)
SourceTransportServers       : {KUBSERVER}
TlsAuthLevel                 :
TlsCertificateName           :
TlsDomain                    :
UseExternalDNSServersEnabled : False

last request

Send-MailMessage : Mailbox unavailable. The server response was: Requested action not taken: mailbox unavailable
At line:1 char:1
+ Send-MailMessage -To rvelasco0819@yahoo.com -From administrator@kubtec.com -Smtp ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (System.Net.Mail.SmtpClient:SmtpClient) [Send-MailMessage], SmtpFailed
   RecipientException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : SmtpException,Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.SendMailMessage

having to active NIC cards would that make a difference?

Hi

Also please run get-TransportService | fl *dns*, to make sure that we dont have any external DNS settings configured.

Regards,

David 

I might have figured out something.  as stated before i had this exchange server working fine sending out emails. after that i added another NIC card to connect other computers to the server for a file server.  after that is where things went south.  So i took another computer set it up as a fresh windows server 2012 with enterprise and went through the set up.  i only connected one connection to the second server with a static ip. right away exchange server was working with no issues and was able to send out emails.

therefore is there a special way to set up a exchange server in a windows server that corresponds with a file server?

both NICShad different dns servers and ip addresses.

Update- just tested it again.  connected 2nd computer directly to our static IP and works fine. the issues come into play once i go through a router. i tired opening the ports 25-110-443 but no luck.  any ideas?

• Edited by rvelasco 16 hours 3 minutes ago update

If you're using two NICs then you need to ensure that either both have routes to the internet and the firewall is configured so both can send out SMTP to the internet or you set the metric on the default routes in the routing table so that one NIC is preferred over the other and this one must be allowed outbound SMTP access. Once emails are sent out then you need to ensure that any sending IP has reverse DNS and is on the SPF record.

If you are using two NICs to ensure you can lose a NIC then perhaps look at setting up native server 2012 load balancing. 

What is the reason you require two NICs or two IPs as it's much simpler to use just the one?

Thanks.

I might have figured out something.  as stated before i had this exchange server working fine sending out emails. after that i added another NIC card to connect other computers to the server for a file server.  after that is where things went south.  So i took another computer set it up as a fresh windows server 2012 with enterprise and went through the set up.  i only connected one connection to the second server with a static ip. right away exchange server was working with no issues and was able to send out emails.

therefore is there a special way to set up a exchange server in a windows server that corresponds with a file server?

both NICShad different dns servers and ip addresses.

Update- just tested it again.  connected 2nd computer directly to our static IP and works fine. the issues come into play once i go through a router. i tired opening the ports 25-110-443 but no luck.  any ideas?

• Edited by rvelasco Wednesday, September 02, 2015 3:27 PM update

one NIC goes straight to one of my public IPs the second NIC goes to another public IP behind a router where our workstations are set up.

I have made sure that both NICS have access and set up the ports on the router to be open.  even tired turning off the firewall

I suspect that one of the NICs either doesn't have a route to the internet, cannot send outbound SMTP traffic through the firewall it's configured to use or is using DNS servers that are inaccessible due to routing issues. You'll need to troubleshoot these causes for each NIC.

I'd say it's best to simplify this and use a single NIC with a single default gateway configured. Microsoft recommend to use a single network adapter: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn879075%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396.

Thanks.