Hopefully this is the right forum for this issue, so here goes.. a customer has two mail servers, one running Exchange 2007 and the other running Exchange 2003.All emails are received at the Exchange 2003 server and all the mailboxes are hosted on the Exchange 2007.this was in intermediate configuration with thenext step being the decommissioning of the Exchange 2003 server.due to a variety of reasons it was decided to move one user's mailbox back to the Exchange 2003 server on a temporary basis.This user has about 97K items in his mailbox and the transfer took about 3 hours to complete.the transfer completed without any errors.the problem though is that the Exchange 2007 server shows the mailbox still there with a total of 2 items and the Exchange 2003 server also shows the mailbox with the rest of the items.the user connects to the Exchange 2003 server and any emails that originate internally from the other users that are all hostedon the Exchange 2007 can take as long as 25 minutes to show up on the user's mailbox.both server are in the same domain and have all the latest patches and updates.without getting into how this could have happened, any help on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.attempting to move the mailbox in either direction results in failure.thanks in advance.Ted S. Antonakis

Couple of things can check here... ~ Is that user getting email after 25 minutes in OWA and in Outlook when it is configured with online mode? You may try by recreating outlook profile... ~ Where mailbox shows on Exchange 2007 server? Can you run Clean-MailboxDatabase on the mailbox where mailbox was sitting earlier and check? It may take some time to refresh the information store cache for disconnected mailbox and shows as a connected which will be corrected if you run this cmdlet...Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

seems to have done the trick. thanks.Ted S. Antonakis

i am constantly running into this problem when moving mailboxes between these two systems.even though the mailbox move completes without error, the destination shows the mailobox as disconnected or the user's Outlook client is diverted to the server that used to host the mailbox.any insight as to what may be happening or how to troubleshoot this would be appreciated.thanks.Ted S. Antonakis

does mailbox retention hae anything to do this reluctance by the server to release control of moved mailboxes?Ted S. Antonakis

Nothing requires related to retention to be changed. Do you have KB940012 hotfix installed? Looks like your Exchange 2003 server requires it to remove mailbox object properly after moving to Exchange 2007. A stub object is left behind in the source database for certain users after a move mailbox operation is complete in Exchange 2003 Service Pack 2 http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940012 Also make sure that you are using Exchange 2007 Management Console/Shell to move mailboxes back and forth to Exchange 2007 server.Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

the moves are always done from the Exchange 2007 Management console.The situation at this point is as follows:mailboxes have been moved using the Exchange 2007 Management console to an Exchange Serer 2003 SP2 from an Exchange 2007 SP1 server with the latest rollups and updates.The Exchange 2007 server thinks that the mailboxes are still on the Exchange 2007 server. And the Exchange 2003 server shows that the mailboxes are in its mailstore but it shows them disconnected. any attempts to reconnect them fail. any attempts to move them back fail.any attempts by the Outlook client to connect to the respective mailbox and the client is pointed back to the Exchange 2007 server and never connects.i am in the process of applying the KB940012 hotfix. aside from this, how do i recover from this situation?thanks.Ted S. Antonakis

How long do you wait after move? AD replication and store cache takes up to 2 hours to get refreshed and work correctly with outlook clients so don't fight with it immediately after move completes... :) I have done many back and forth movement and I usually prefer doing it during night time so users won't be affected during movement, you can get mailbox opened in OWA bit earlier than outlook clients. Other than that I don't see any problem... You may reduce the store cache in registry but it will affect your Exchange server performance and still AD replication is a black hole...Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

all moves are done late at night. since this last move, there was a gap of over 12 hours between the move and the users accessing their mailbox.there is no back and forth moves since once this condition happens mailboxes can not be moved in either direction.the hotfix outlined in kb940012 has been installed on the Exchange 2003 server. not noticeable difference at this point.here is an interesting observation:using the Exchange Management Shell on the Exchange 2007 server and running the Get-Mailbox cmdlet a list of mailboxes is listed. by incliuding the -domaincontroller switch and alternating between the two different domain controllers on this domain the value displayed under the ServerName column changes.which implies that there is a replication issue between the two domains controllers, doesn't it?Ted S. Antonakis

Yes, looks like . . . :) Check AD replication between DCs with Repadmin and some other AD replication management tools...Amit Tank | MVP Exchange Server | MCITP: EMA | MCSA: M | http://ExchangeShare.WordPress.com

without questions replication is not happening. so i went looking...one of the repadmin commands whose result caught my eye was this: c:\program files\support tools>repadmin /getchanges server dc=domain,dc=localUsing empty cookie (full sync).=== SOURCE DC: server ====[d:\nt\ds\ds\src\util\repadmin\replctrl.c, 472] LDAP error 53 (Unwilling To Perform) Win32 Err 1003.the path shown in brackets doesn't exist on this serveras that drive has been removed due to a disk failure.any direction as to where to look on how to resolve this would be much appreciated.thanks.Ted S. Antonakis

additionally, i have shutdown the 2nd domain controller, which apparently was the dc that the exchange 2007 server favored.by doing this i was hoping to have both the Exchange server have a meeting of minds, so to speak, by both referencing the same server.so the exchange 2007 server thinks that the mailboxes are on itself, while the mailboxes are hosted on the exchange 2003 server.for a variety of reasons it is not possible to offline the other domain controller.so the active directory database running on the online dc things the mailboxes are on the exchange 2007 server when in fact they are on the exchange 2003 server.any suggestions on how these two servers can be reconciled now that the dc replication issue is out of the picture?thanks.Ted S. Antonakis

the split mailbox issue has been resolved as follows:the backup domain controller was shutdown, effectively taking it offline.restarted both of the exchange servers to make sure that both were looking at the same dc.at this pointa small number of mailboxes were on both the exchange 2007 server and on the exchange 2003 server.these mailboxes were shown as disconnected on the exchange 2003 server but were shown as normal on the exchange 2007 server.a mailboxmove for these mailboxes was initiated from the exchange 2007 server to the exchange 2003 server. the move failed as it was expected to sincethe mailboxes already existed on the destination server.the exchange 2007 move wizard, as part of its recovery procedure, marked the mailboxes in the destination server for deletion and they were gone after running the exchange2003cleanup agent.and as long as the backup domain controller is out of the picture everything is stable.if that backup domain controller is recoverable, or not, will be the subject of another thread on a different forum.thanks for all your help.Ted S. Antonakis