Cannot delete archive item

[JBWood]

I'm having a strange issue where users cannot delete items in the vault.  Clicking the "Delete from Vault" option from the menu or toolbar will only present you with the deletion warning message and an error that reads: "Could not delete this item from the Vault"  However, if you user Outlook's delete button or the keyboard you get the deletion warning message and the item IS deleted.  We have no problems doing on the fly restores or archives.

We are using EV2007 SP4.  I have checked to make sure the system was not in read-only mode.  I am using collections.  Below are snippets from a dtrace log of the unsuccessful deletion and the successful deletion.  Anyone have any ideas?

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Unsuccessful Deletion:

154 16:50:35.679  [9180] (StorageOnlineOpns) <8000> EV:M CVault::GetItemProperties (Exit) |Success  [0] |
155 16:50:35.679  [9180] (StorageOnlineOpns) <8000> EV:M CVault::DeleteSaveset (Exit) |False [0x1] |
156 16:50:35.679  [9180] (StorageOnlineOpns) <8000> EV:M CStoreAccessor::DeleteItem (Exit) |The specified Saveset does not exist.   [0xc0041aac] |
157 16:50:35.679  [9180] (StorageOnlineOpns) <8000> EV:M CStorageOnline::DeleteItem|DeleteItem Completed - Status: 0xc0041aac

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Successful Deletion (Same item):

969 16:52:05.069  [6064] (w3wp) <5604> EV:M CAutoStorageOnline::DeleteItem (Exit) |Success  [0] |
970 16:52:05.069  [6064] (w3wp) <5604> EV:L CAutoStorageOnline::~CAutoStorageOnline (Entry) |

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Now it looks to me like the successful deletion was done via HTTP and the unsuccessful deletion was using DCOM.  All of our clients and using the full client, not the lite version.  No one is using RPC over HTTPS.

[MarkB_2]

The DTRACE shows the following :--

|The specified Saveset does not exist.   [0xc0041aac]

so it looks like the actual .DVS isn't there. Do you run Storage Expiry? If so do you also run shortcut deletion (or orhaned shortcuts)??

Doing the delete button will delete the shortcut itself, and this also depends on what your policy is set to (as in you can do a soft delete (shortcut only) or hard delete (both))

I would start there, and if in doubt log a case..

[JBWood]

The saveset does exist, otherwise we wouldn't be able to open the item.  We do not have storage expiry running.

I have soft deletes turned off so there should be no issue with the Outlook delete button.

I did open a case and so far we have found that this only seems to be an issue in cached mode.  Turning soft deletes off fixed the issue in cached mode, but the system is doing a soft delete instead of a hard delete like I need.

I'll post more as we work through this.

[jimbo2]

Are you sure you are opening the item?

The shortcurt may contain the full email context.

Try to find the item using the search feature in EV. If the item cannot be found then the item has been deleted from the vault properly.

If found:

Click on "View Whole Item" once the item is found in the search. If the item cannot be retrieved then some other method moved or deleted the DVS file.

[JBWood]

Yes I am opening the item.  I found the items I "deleted" with EV search and with Archive Explorer.  I gave it 8 hours (actually a whole day) to have the Indexer update the listings.  Items are still available.  Since we do have the Deleted Item recovery set for 7 days, I think I may have to wait a week to see if the items have actually been marked for deletion.

Message Edited by JBWood on 01-09-2009 03:32 PM

[JBWood]

Just an update for everyone.  I STILL have a ticket open with Symantec.  The first tier tech support was able to replicate my problem but unable to solve it.  I was moved up to the next tier and they are still working on the problem.  I will let you all know when I get a resolution to the problem.  The current tech I am working with is pretty sure we have a DCOM problem.

[JBWood · Accepted solution]

OK.  So we finally got this figured out.  And boy was it something simple.

By design, you cannot do hard deletes if the user is in cached mode.  So, if you want to enforce hard deletes and have your users equipped with Offline Vault while using the full (DCOM) client, you are out of luck.

From the Registry Values guide for 2007:

When a user deletes an archived item from their mailbox, the client

tries to hard-delete it. If this hard-delete fails (which always happens

when in cache mode), the client falls back to a soft delete.

When NoSoftDeletes is set to a non-zero value, the client does not

attempt a soft-delete and instead displays an error message.