I have two Dell PowerEdge 2950 servers both running Windows Server 2008 Standard x64. Server1 is a domain controller, global catalog, and DNS. Server2 Is running Exchange 2007. The issue that I am having is that the System Attendant and Information Store services will fail to start if the exchange server starts before the domain controller. When this happens I receive the following errors in the event viewer on the exchange server. --------------------------------------------------- Log Name: Application Source: MSExchange ADAccess Event ID: 2104 Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1588). None of the domain controllers in the domain are responding. This event can occur if the domain controllers in local or all domains become unreachable because of network problems. Use the Ping or PathPing command-line tools to test network connectivity to local domain controllers. Run the Dcdiag command line tool to test domain controller health. --------------------------------------------------- Log Name: Application Source: MSExchange ADAccess Event ID: 2120 Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGYSERVICE.EXE (PID=1588). Error ERROR_TIMEOUT (0x800705b4) occurred when DNS was queried for the service location (SRV) resource record used to locate a domain controller for domain ********** The query was for the SRV record for _ldap._tcp.dc._msdcs.********** . The DNS servers used by this computer for name resolution are not responding. This computer is configured to use DNS servers with the following IP addresses: 192.168.1.201 . Verify that this computer is connected to the network, that these are the correct DNS server IP addresses, and that at least one of the DNS servers is running. For information about correcting this problem, type in the command line: hh tcpip.chm::/sag_DNS_tro_dcLocator_messageB.htm --------------------------------------------------- Log Name: Application Source: MSExchange ADAccess Event ID: 2501 Process MSEXCHANGEADTOPOLOGY (PID=1588). The site monitor API was unable to verify the site name for this Exchange computer - Call=HrSearch Error code=80040a01. Make sure that Exchange server is correctly registered on the DNS server. --------------------------------------------------- Log Name: Application Source: MSExchangeIS Event ID: 1121 Error 0x96f connecting to the Microsoft Active Directory. --------------------------------------------------- Log Name: Application Source: MSExchangeIS Event ID: 5000 Unable to initialize the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service. - Error 0x96f. --------------------------------------------------- This only happens when the exchange server starts before the domain controller. I can solve this issue by restarting the exchange server or manually starting the services, but Im looking for a solution that will do this automatically for me. I have tried setting the recovery options for all failure to restart the service, but this did not work. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Hello Andrew, Well, As we knowExchange depends on DC, GC & DNSandthoseare not available then it definitely fails to start the services. If you are eagerly looking for any automated solution then you may create a powershell script to check Exchange services and if those are not running then start and ifthose arerunning then don't do anything. Schedule it to run every 10-15 minutes in Task Scheduler so it doesn't require manual interference.

Thanks for the quick reply. This is my first Server 2008 and Exchange 2007 deployment. I do understand that exchange depends on the DC, GC, and DNS roles. I was hoping that I was just missing something that would make these services keep trying until the other roles were available without running some kind of script. I am sure there are plenty of environments out there that only have a single DC with an exchange server. I am just curious. Is there any way of doing this without scripts?

Well, then let's check the service recovery options. Do you set "Reset fail count after:" to 0 days? If so then change it to 1, "Restart service after:" to2/5 minutes and "First/Second/Subsequent failure:" to Restart the service. The reason behindchanging "Reset fail count after:" to 1 days is explained in this article. http://blogs.msdn.com/jcalev/archive/2008/01/10/some-tricks-with-service-restart-logic.aspx Let us know how it works.

This did not work unfortunately. I have set both the information store and system attendant to both restart after failure. I didnt try setting the Reset fail counter after field to 1 till just now, but it did not change anything. Any other ideas?

Hello Andrew, Since you changed the Reset fail counter after to 1 recently and so far it was 0 that means it was set to try just first failure. I would suggest you to simulate the full situation with this settings like shutdown the DC & Exchange and bring the Exchange up and then DC and check the service status and situation whenever you have scheduled downtime next time and let us know the result.

I have done this many times. These servers are not yet deployed and I plan to resolve this issue before doing do. Even when I boot the server at the same time the exchange information store and system attendant fail to start because the domain controller takes just a bit longer to boot. Thanks for all your help so far. Is there any other information that may help us solve this?

Event ID:5000 MSExchangeIS http://technet.microsoft.com/ru-ru/library/bb232026.aspx http://support.microsoft.com/kb/224977 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/153326http://www.innovativetechnologyconcepts.com/Exchange_Error_1120.html http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/ee/transform.aspx?ProdName=Exchange&ProdVer=6.5.6940.0&EvtID=5000&EvtSrc=MSExchangeIS+Mailbox+Store&LCID=1033 http://www.eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=5000&eventno=499&source=MSExchangeIS&phase=1

Event ID:1121 MSExchangeIS http://www.microsoft.com/technet/support/ee/transform.aspx?ProdName=Exchange&ProdVer=6.0&EvtID=1121&EvtSrc=MSExchangeIS&LCID=1033 http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb266900.aspx http://support.microsoft.com/kb/329599 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305392 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896703 http://www.eventid.net/display.asp?eventid=1121&eventno=1728&source=MSExchangeIS&phase=1

event id 2501 MSExchange ADAccesshttp://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2396940&SiteID=17 http://msmvps.com/blogs/ehlo/archive/2008/06/12/1634433.aspx http://blogs.technet.com/networking/archive/2008/03/19/don-t-be-afraid-of-dns-scavenging-just-be-patient.aspx http://www.0x80004005.net/item/408 http://www.themssforum.com/ExchangeAdmin/Event-errors-677601/ http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.exchange.admin/msg/3943f4320bab82cb

event id 2120 MSExchange ADAccess http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb217823.aspx http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3482104&SiteID=17 http://forums.msexchange.org/m_1800475415/printable.htm http://forums.msexchange.org/m_1800490951/mpage_1/key_/tm.htm#1800490964 http://www.tech-archive.net/Archive/Exchange/microsoft.public.exchange.admin/2008-03/msg00623.html