Exchange 5.5 DS/IS Sync error - "Error 0xfa6 occurred while synchronizing the directory service"

  • Thread starter Thread starter Marty Egan
  • Start date Start date
M

Marty Egan

I've been tidying up a number of problems in our Exchange environment.
We are part way through a migration from NT4/Exch5.5 to
Win2k/AD/Exch2k. I am not going to consider Win2003 or Exchange 2003
until I've got a clean migration completed from NT4 / Exch5.5 to Win2k
/ AD / Exch2k.

I've described our environment in full at the bottom of this message.

Problem - There are 6 Public Folders for which I see the following
error on the Exch5.5 application log, every 15 minutes. (In the error
text below, I've replaced our site/company specific names with
"generic" names.)

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeIS Public
Event Category: Replication Errors
Event ID: 3082
Date: 5/25/2004
Time: 4:11:18 AM
User: N/A
Computer: EXCH55BOX
Description:
Error 0xfa6 occurred while synchronizing the directory service with
the information store for folder /O=MY ORG NAME/OU=MY
SITE/CN=RECIPIENTS/1 OF 6 PUBLIC
FOLDERS9C4E75FC9C4E75FC9C4E75FC7478AC8B002B0E.

-- What I've done --

I have looked for invalid mailbox / user accounts, and the other
common mixed mode replication problems I know about.
I ran the DS/IS Consistency Adjuster and selected "All
Inconsistencies" and "Remove unknown user accounts".
I have searched web and usenet and MS high and low and get nothing
useful. There's a some mentions of Event ID 3082, but nothing useful
where the message text includes "0xfa6". I ran error.exe on 0xfa6 and
it comes back with:

c:\>c:\temp\error 0xfa6
Error 4006 (0xfa6) = DS_E_BAD_ARGUMENT

-- What I've not done --

I have not run the DS/IS Consistency Adjuster on the IS with the
"Synchronize with directory" option because I am worried about that
warning message that pops up, and also, since these folders aren't
from "unknown sites", I'm not sure it would help anyway. Is that all
this option does is fix an unknown site? The site is correctly listed
on the PFs properties as the site we're in. I'm also worried about it
screwing up permissions on our PFs, they are pretty complex. Am I
being paranoid? Do I need to run this off-hours?

And finally, here's the details of my environment.

We've got:

Exchange 5.5-SP4 running on an NT4/SP6a domain controller with 2/3 of
our user mailboxes on it. (yuk! not my legacy to have made it a DC in
the past.)

3 Win2000, SP4 AD DCs.

1 Win2000 SP4 member server, running Exch2k - SP3, plus post SP3
roll-up. 1/3 of our user mailboxes are on this box.

1 Win2000 SP4 member server, running Exch2k - SP3, w/o the post-SP3
rollup. No user mailboxes.

The Exch5.5 box and the first Exch2k box also have full replicas of
the contents of our complete PF tree. The second Exch2k box has no PF
replicas on it.


Many thanks in advance.

Marty Egan
 
Back the 6 public folders up by exporting to a pst file on the Outlook
client as a safeguard.
Remove the replicas from the 5.5 server if you do in fact have replicas on
the 2000 box.
Seems that there is some sort of corrupted directory entry.

--
Nicholas Basile(MSFT)
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft PSS

Please do not send email directly to this alias is for newsgroup purposes
only!.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
I forgot to mention that I have already tried removing the replica of
1 of these 6 PFs from the 5.5 server, and it still gave the error. As
you say, it seems to be directory corruption, so removing the replica
from the 5.5 system doesn't remove the directory entries, or does it?
How would removing the replica from the 5.5 system remove it's entry
in the 5.5 directory? I also tried using 5.5 admin gui to make the
2000 server the "home server".

When I export the folder, with all its sub-folders, will permissions
be maintained in the pst? The permission structure is pretty
complicated, and there are Folder Asst rules on a folder, and so
forth. I don't want to lose that config. Are you saying to go ahead
and run the DS/IS checker with the option I mentioned "after" making
the backup?

Thanks in advance.
 
The Outlook pst will not retain the permissions. You can extract the
permissions with pfadmin:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;[LN];199319

Are all your PF's currently homed on 5.5? If they are, run the DS/IS.

--
Nicholas Basile(MSFT)
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft PSS

Please do not send email directly to this alias is for newsgroup purposes
only!.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
 
Hi
Did you ever get a solution to this?



Marty said:
*I've been tidying up a number of problems in our Exchange
environment.
We are part way through a migration from NT4/Exch5.5 to
Win2k/AD/Exch2k. I am not going to consider Win2003 or Exchange
2003
until I've got a clean migration completed from NT4 / Exch5.5 to
Win2k
/ AD / Exch2k.

I've described our environment in full at the bottom of this
message.

Problem - There are 6 Public Folders for which I see the following
error on the Exch5.5 application log, every 15 minutes. (In the
error
text below, I've replaced our site/company specific names with
"generic" names.)

Event Type: Error
Event Source: MSExchangeIS Public
Event Category: Replication Errors
Event ID: 3082
Date: 5/25/2004
Time: 4:11:18 AM
User: N/A
Computer: EXCH55BOX
Description:
Error 0xfa6 occurred while synchronizing the directory service with
the information store for folder /O=MY ORG NAME/OU=MY
SITE/CN=RECIPIENTS/1 OF 6 PUBLIC
FOLDERS9C4E75FC9C4E75FC9C4E75FC7478AC8B002B0E.

-- What I've done --

I have looked for invalid mailbox / user accounts, and the other
common mixed mode replication problems I know about.
I ran the DS/IS Consistency Adjuster and selected "All
Inconsistencies" and "Remove unknown user accounts".
I have searched web and usenet and MS high and low and get nothing
useful. There's a some mentions of Event ID 3082, but nothing
useful
where the message text includes "0xfa6". I ran error.exe on 0xfa6
and
it comes back with:

c:\>c:\temp\error 0xfa6
Error 4006 (0xfa6) = DS_E_BAD_ARGUMENT

-- What I've not done --

I have not run the DS/IS Consistency Adjuster on the IS with the
"Synchronize with directory" option because I am worried about that
warning message that pops up, and also, since these folders aren't
from "unknown sites", I'm not sure it would help anyway. Is that
all
this option does is fix an unknown site? The site is correctly
listed
on the PFs properties as the site we're in. I'm also worried about
it
screwing up permissions on our PFs, they are pretty complex. Am I
being paranoid? Do I need to run this off-hours?

And finally, here's the details of my environment.

We've got:

Exchange 5.5-SP4 running on an NT4/SP6a domain controller with 2/3
of
our user mailboxes on it. (yuk! not my legacy to have made it a DC
in
the past.)

3 Win2000, SP4 AD DCs.

1 Win2000 SP4 member server, running Exch2k - SP3, plus post SP3
roll-up. 1/3 of our user mailboxes are on this box.

1 Win2000 SP4 member server, running Exch2k - SP3, w/o the post-SP3
rollup. No user mailboxes.

The Exch5.5 box and the first Exch2k box also have full replicas of
the contents of our complete PF tree. The second Exch2k box has no
PF
replicas on it.


Many thanks in advance.

Marty Egan *
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