Archived Items stuck in a 'pending' state.

[Peter_West]

Hi there,

We've got an issue with our EV 7 Server that, despite my best efforts, i've been unable to resolve.

On of our developers has reported that he has a large volume of e-mails in Outlook which still have the pending icon against them.  I've taken a look at the issue and thus far have done the following.

1. Implemented a SQL Backup and Maintenance Plan against the databases relating to EV.  For some reason this hadn't been done and there were entries in the event log stating that the databases had not been backed up.  This also created an issue because the Transaction Logs hadn't been truncated.

2. I manually ran each process in the Maintenance Plan (including the Integrity Check) until all processes had run without any issues.

3. I removed the option to 'Remove Safety Copies after Backup'.  The new backup solution we are using does not modify the 'A' attribute on the files after backup so this option needed to be changed.

4. I removed the Archive Attribute on any files that had it by using the 'attrib *.* -a /s' command.

I am now seeing Event ID's 2245, 2850 and 2270 in the Event Log.  I believe at least one of these errors could relate to the issue I am seeing.  I've double-checked and the user involved still has the same icons in their Outlook Inbox.  I've also tried manually archiving one of these items and it just states that the item is already archived.

Can anyone offer any suggestions here please?

[Peter_West]

A Quick Update.

I'm now sat looking in Performance Monitor at the Exchange Mailbox Task #2 queue and I can see a large  (approx 34,000) number of messages in the queue.  I've also checked the Vault and I can see that it's not growing in size.

Am I correct in assuming that these messages could be related to the conversion of the 'pending' events into 'completed' events?

Perhaps it's working after all but it's just taking some time to plough through the backlog.

[EdLacey · Accepted solution]

Check the A1 queues on your EV box, that's the Change Pending to Shortcut queue.

If you're using the IgnoreArchiveBitTrigger.txt in your backup process read

http://seer.entsupport.symantec.com/docs/294372.htm

as this maybe applicable to you

[Peter_West]

I've checked the queues in System Management and the only queue with any messages backing up is the A1 queue.  I'll continue to monitor the queue and hopefully the backlog will eventually clear.

[Peter_West]

Excellent news - I arrived at work this morning and the queue is now totally empty.  And all the items shown as 'pending' have updated.  :D

[MarkB_2]

Peter,

You can use the Vault Store Usage report (right click on the Vault Store icon in the VAC). This will show you how many items EV has awaiting backup.

As you know, then the .dvs file is backed up, and the archive bit or ignorearchivebittrigger.txt file is created, and after a storage service restart (or 12hrs by deafult) the StorageFileWatch process scans the WatchFile table (in the archives database) and then checks the physical .dvs file - if the archive bit is clear, it will put this onto the A1 queue and the archive task will process it. Another table that is used is the JournalArchive table (this shows what items are awaiting backup and indexed).

Do you backup every night? If so, I would check to make sure its always successful. It can be a real pain when this happens, as by default of 3 days, the Pending items can be reverted to normal and then re-archived. Best to always check the Vault Store Usage report daily in my opinion.

Mark

[Peter_West]

Hi there,

We continually backup using Symantec CPS.  This means that as files are written/changed on the Vault Store a copy if automatically replicated to a remote location.  Unfortunately this kind of 'bit-level' backup doesn't rely on the Archive Bit being set and this is why we experienced the issues we did.

Now that we're removing the Safety Copies immediately after archive we should no longer see any issues.

The only issue remaining now is to deal with some issues relating to the Provisioning Groups.

Thanks for all your help.

Cheers

pete