Exchange server not responding

[John_Price]

I have 9.1 installed on a 2003 server and am trying to use the remote agent to also backup another 2003 server that also has exchange server on it. After I start the backup job I eventually get this error: Final Error Code: a000fe30
it also says the exchange server is not responding. Backup set cancelled. Any ideas why this is happening? Any help is appreciated.

[Dave_Bunye]

It almost sounds like your Information Store service on the exchange server is not running. Have you verified all services for Exchange, as well as the BE remote agent, are running on the Exchange server?

Do you have an Exchange license installed? (As in, was this an eval version of BE and you had Exchange jobs running prior to installing a license, and now the jobs no longer work?) Have you had previous successful backups of this Exchange server?

Do you have full rights to the server, as well as rights to Exchange?

[John_Price]

Yes I have Echange license installed. No I haven't had a successful backup as this is the first time setting up this backup job. Also When I look for services on the remote exchange server I don't see the Information Store Service at all, its not on the remote computer. Maybe that's the problem?

[575211929]

hi

Pls look for " Microsoft Exchange Information store " service. The service will have to be there if exchange is working fine.

[Dave_Bunye]

You should see 9 Micorsoft Exchange services, and maybe a tenth service for Active Directory Connector if you are suppporting Exchange 5.5 as well as 2000/2003.

[John_Price]

Ok I started the Microsoft Exchange Information Store service and I'm not getting the Exchange server not responding error anymore, now I get this error. Final error Oxa00084f9 - A communications error has occorrued between the backup job and the exec remote agent. I have checked to make sure the backup exec services are all running and it still gives me this error.

[Dave_Bunye]

At least one problem is solved. :)

When you say you verified the Backup Exec services are running, was that only on the local machine where BE is installed, or did you also verify that on the remote exchange server that that BE Remote Agent service is runnning as well?

[John_Price]

Yes it is running on both the local machine and on the remote machine as well.

[Dave_Bunye]

Check your exchange server and make sure every mailbox store and public folder store is mounted. If any are dismounted, it can cause a failure when BE goes to back it up.

Sorry if I asked this before but I can't see the whole thread while responding, are you backing up only the information store in this job?

Before you submit the job, change your log details to high, instead of the default of summary only. That should show us if anything in particular is causing the failure.

[John_Price]

I checked the mailboxes and information store and both are mounted.

No I am backing up both information store and mailboxes.

I'll resubmit the job and put details on high. Trying to back up roughly 200gigs worth of data so takes some time. When it fails again I'll see what the detailed errors say.

Thanks for the help so far.

[Dave_Bunye]

FYI, generally you want seperate jobs for the Information Store and Mailboxes. It won't hurt anything by combining them, but the Information Store by itself will backup much faster because the Mailboxes have to go through the MAPI routine, and that slows your backup down tremendously.

Of course, an added bonus is that if a mailbox is courrupt and fails the job, it won't affect the Information Store backup. :)

[John_Price]

Do you recommend just backing up information store or do you have to backup both information store and the mailboxes to make sure every email is covered?

[Dave_Bunye]

You should backup both, for convenience. Backing up the Information Store is all you need to do a recovery should you lose the server. (along with a normal flat file backup of the volume it was installed on) The IS will contain all mailboxes and messages in the database.

The mailbox backup however allows you to restore individual mailboxes, messages, etc. So if User A wants a mailbox restore you do not have to restore EVERYONE's mailbox by bringing down the exchange server, restoring the full IS and then bringing the exchange erver back up. You can restore mailboxes or messages while the exchange server is running.

I have my IS and Mailbox backups seperate mainly for the speed. The IS backup job is donw quickly, rather than being tide up waiting for mailboxes to get backed up. I do this because you never know when a server will fail, so why wait. :)

[John_Price]

Ok thanks for the advice

Now if only it would stop giving me the communications error...

[John_Price]

I tried backing up the Information store in a seperate job nd it connects just fine and backs it up normally with no errors. Then I created another job to backup the mailboxes. This time it gives me a new error. Error 0xa000848c - Unable to attach to one of the drives. The mailboxes are mounted. I have ensured that the backup exec is running on the remote machine with the mailboxes. I have also made sure it attaches with the correct user name and password. Any ideas? Thanks.

[Dave_Bunye]

Yup, the IS is much easier and less problem to backup than the mailboxes themselves. :)

Under Tools\Options change your job logs to be full information and then post where the job log indicates the error occurs on the mailbox job so we can have more detail.

[John_Price]

This is the error I'm getting...

WARNING: Media servers cannot completely protect remote
Windows-based servers or workstations unless the Backup
Exec Remote Agent is installed
and running on each remote Windows-based server or
workstation to be protected. Data loss can occur if the
Remote Agent is not running
while backing up remote Windows-based computers.

Please refer to the documentation or online help for more information.
Unable to attach to \\AHNEX\Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes.
Unable to attach to \\AHNEX\Microsoft Exchange Mailboxes.

I check before each run to make sure the remote agent is running on this server, and it is. Also I noticed after every failed job my selections are greyed out and I have to go restart the remote agent service on the remote server.

[Dave_Bunye]

Is it possible the machine is logged in with a user accoutn which does not have rights to start the remote agent or some other rights issue? I am not sure as to what could cause the remote agent to go offline only when doing a mailbox backup, but work with everything else.

When creating the job and the agent is running (nothing is grayed out in sleections) you can expand and select any mailbox you want?

Before submitting the job, check the credentials node of the job properties and make sure it is set to use the correct login account for the mailbox resource.

[John_Price]

I have checked the account it is logging in with and it has rights. Just to be sure I even created a new account with rights and that one didn't work either. I have also checked the credentials and tried with both accounts that have rights. That wont work either.

Yes I have checked my selections for mailboxes when it is not grayed out and I can select mailboxes individually. Then if I submit the job while none of my selections are grayed out, I will get the above error in my previous post, plus now when I check the job all the selections are back to greyed out even though the backup exec service is still running on the remote computer.

I'm running out of ideas to try, do you have any more? I appreciate the help.

[Dave_Bunye]

You may want to try uninstalling the remote agent, reboot the server, and then push install the agent again. Perhaps something is simply corrupted on in the existing remote agent.