Running Exchange 2003 sp2. After completing initial setup, tested internal email (admin@my.com to admin@my.com) and got nothing. Nothing in queues, no NDR's, nothing. When we turned on message tracking, we see this:SMTP: Started Message Submission to Advanced QueueSMTP: Message submitted to CategorizerSMTP: Message categorized and queued for routingSMTP: Message queued for local deliverySMTP: Message delivered locally to admin@my.comSMTP: Message sent to badmailWhy is a simple internal email message being sent to badmail? What do we need/change/configure to fix this problem?Why no NDR?Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Hi, The badmail folder is where undeliverable message that cannot be returned to the sender are stored. For example, SMTP receives a message which cannot be resolved. In this case the message would be bounced back as an NDR. However, if the from address also cannot be resolved then the NDR itself is undeliverable. Items in badmail folder are not processed any futher by Exchange. I suggest youdisable the anti-virus software and unhook any third party event sinks attached with SMTP server. Then restart SMTP service and test the issue again. If the issue persists, please let me know if there is any related error in event log. Hope this helps. Thanks, Elvis

We got it up and running again. Main cause: Domain name change. When you change without reloading IIS and Exchange, the server will think it can't deliver the mail due to the fact that the old metabase holds on to the old mailbox info while the mail being delivered has the new mailbox info, thus chucking the mail straight to the badmail folder. Bad thing about it was the errors (5.0.0 NDR on outside mail, 3008 application event ID) were so general, it was hard to pin point what was wrong. It would be nice when changing your domain, IP, or even FQDN of the server for the MS software to automatically wipe and rebuild the metabase of IIS, thus updating user mailboxes without having to totally rebuild the server or rebuild mailboxes. It would also have been nice to see easy to find info or instructions on what happens when making these types of changes and what needs to be done to get your server up and running again. One week of exchange down time due to gathering info from accross the web to piece together the puzzle is not fun. Updated error/event ID info would be nice too! Thanks for the response and I hope this info helps others too.

Hi, Thank you for sharing with us! It's great and helpful Regards, Elvis

I've got the same issue, except; I do not have a badmail part to the end. All that is there is "SMTP: Non-Delivered Report (NDR) Generated" I can send mail externally and i'd think internal sending works hence too, but is not being received to verify this. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. Thank you.