Hi all,

I am trying to get some more insight related to following problem.

Our organisation decided to migrate from Online Exchange to on-premise server.  As Microsoft doesn't have any option to migrate back from cloud to physical mailboxes, I went via simple route of just exporting all 22 user mailboxes data into separate .PST files.

After Exchange 2013 was deployed and tested in-house and MX record was re-pointed to on-premise server, I went via deleting all current profiles and .ost data files and re-creating profiles with new server details and importing data back to user mailboxes. There was no any obvious problem with that, until users Outlook clients started to sync with new Exchange server and push data to Exchange database and populate mailboxes with imports from these .pst. 

The problem is still current - speed of synchronising back to Exchange is extremely slow - over last 24 hours, only 18 GB out of 70 for all 22 user mailboxes synced back to the server. I keep monitoring mailbox sizes via Recipients pane on ECP - sometimes it just stops. There is no way to see progress on user clients - in most cases it shows percentage and that's all. But even after it says "All folders has been updated", another Send/Receive starts synchronisation again.  In order to eliminate bandwidth problem (which shouldn't be an issue at all), I reduced sync to 3-4 clients only, but it still doesn't help. One of the large mailbox users (9GB) has only 5GB synced over last 24 hours. And as I already mentioned, sync stops and resumes randomly. Most popular status messages for sync process - "Synchronising Hierarchy", "Synchronising local changes of Inbox folder" etc. 

Some small mailbox users with 100-200MB mailboxes are ok, but I still have 3 users with 10-15Gb mailboxes and as this sync process disables receiving and sending of email until it's complete, I  don't want to leave users without email for 2-3 days (or train how to use OWA).

I found information about recommendation to disable Cached Mode, but it didn't made any difference. 

Please help with any advise, can this issue be related to Outlook client version or settings of Exchange Server? Most clients are 2007/2010. 

• Edited by Vitek B Tuesday, March 03, 2015 7:13 PM

are you using PST capture to import the PST into Exchange 2013?

Sorry if wasn't clear - I am importing pst to Outlook clients and then sync against empty Exchange mailboxes to populate with that data.

If you are directly importing it then it shouldn't be a problem since it is local exchange server and bandwidth should also be good.

Did you check what is the default mailbox quota on the mailbox? if the quota is set to 2 GB (default I think) and your mailbox it 12 GB then it may fail as well.

PST capture tool

http://blogs.technet.com/b/exchange/archive/2013/02/22/time-to-go-pst-hunting-with-the-new-pst-capture-2-0.aspx

I checked and allocated quotas prior to sync to every mailbox user. 

After testing everything today, it seems that all these problems were caused by trail of old solutions used on client's workstations - they had Google Apps Sync software, data in AppData\Roaming folders and some other random software for sync which is not used currently. After clearing all that, as well as deleting and re-creating Outlook profiles seems to resolved most of the problems.

Now only 2 users left with 20GB .PST files, I had a go of trying import .pst and sync to Exchange as before, but as the result - I had bunch of 0x800 related to unavailability of systems resources and mailbox sizes. Probably will need to try your suggested PST Capture option for these large mailbox users.

Thanks for tip.

I tried to install PST Capture and got error that I need Power Shell version 3.0. 

It's weird as to Windows Management Frameword v3.0 was required as prerequisite to install Exchange 2013.

you may be running Ex2013 on 2008 Server

Yes, but only way to install Ex2013 on 2008 server was to get Windows Management Framework 3.0. And I can't see any standalone msi for PowerShell 3.0. And if I try to run WMF 3.0 again - it says 'Update is not applicable'.

download powershell 3.0

http://blogs.technet.com/b/heyscriptingguy/archive/2012/09/05/powershell-3-0-is-now-available-for-download.aspx

I checked and allocated quotas prior to sync to every mailbox user. 

After testing everything today, it seems that all these problems were caused by trail of old solutions used on client's workstations - they had Google Apps Sync software, data in AppData\Roaming folders and some other random software for sync which is not used currently. After clearing all that, as well as deleting and re-creating Outlook profiles seems to resolved most of the problems.

Now only 2 users left with 20GB .PST files, I had a go of trying import .pst and sync to Exchange as before, but as the result - I had bunch of 0x800 related to unavailability of systems resources and mailbox sizes. Probably will need to try your suggested PST Capture option for these large mailbox users.

Thanks for tip.

Why not just use the built-in powershell commands to import the pst?

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607310%28v=exchg.150%29.aspx?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396

New-MailboxImportRequest

Thanks, but link in that article goes to WMF 3.0 download page.

Will it work ok if empty mailboxes already exist? Or I need to delete them prior to import?

Tried that now, got error - EMS doesn't recognise 'New-MailboxImportRequest' as cmdlet, function, script file or operable program. Get-Command doesn't list it too.
Is that something to do with Mailbox Import Export role ?

• Edited by Vitek B 19 hours 41 minutes ago

Tried that now, got error - EMS doesn't recognise 'New-MailboxImportRequest' as cmdlet, function, script file or operable program.

You need the correct permissions

Its explained in the KB article:

This cmdlet is available only in the Mailbox Import Export role, and by default, that role isn't assigned to a role group. To use this cmdlet, you need to add the Mailbox Import Export role to a role group (for example, to the Organization Management role group). For more information, see the "Add a role to a role group" section in Manage role groups. 

Thanks, I already added the role to  Organization Management group - will try now.