EV 10.1 Evaluation issues

[ALiving]

Hello, we are a Symantec Customer for backup exec, we have recently been looking at vendors for archiving of files and emails. The first application we are evaluating is Symantec Enterprise Vault. After reading the Administrators guide and the installing and configuring guide we began installing it and obtained an evaluation license. The application has been installed, and we have performed test archives of Exchange 2010 email, and PST imports.

We have configured Enterprise Vault to only archive on one active directory group only, and only test users are in that group.

Not long after the application was installed we started receiving reports that the test users and non test users were getting double ups in their To-do list. When the uses PST files are closed, everything is normal. When a PST file is opened, the To-Do's double. If you edit one To-Do, it edits the other. Also if you expand the To-Do list, Outlook 2010 shows the data file where the item is located, one points to the exchange mailbox, the other points to a folder on the PST, But if you browse the PST the item is not there.

I have created a new outlook profile, performed an outlook.exe /resettodobar and even started Outlook on a fresh PC. Every time you open a PST you get double up of To-Do's, if you open more that one, the To-Do's trippled.

I called support and asked if there was Evaluators support, but was told I would have to purchase the product before they would assist.

[ALiving]

We have had an interesting development. If we create a new PST, the issue does not happen. If I restore the PST from the backup before we started trialling Enterprise Vault the issue is not present. The only thing I can think that may have cause it is the PST locate job that was ran on the PC's. There is an option to Mark the PST's.

If I open the Located PST in Outlook 2007, it locks up, but running it on Outlook 2010 causes the issue as listed above.

[ZeRoC00L]

Are you doing server or client side PST migrations ?

You may want to read this article, it is for EV2007, but most of it is still valid.

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/migrating-pst-files-symantec-enterprise-vault-2007

You can look into the option Delete the PST file, this makes sure the PST cannot be opened after the data is imported and prevents the double to do items.

[ALiving]

Hi, as stated in my first post this is happening to all users with PST files, even if they are not involved in the trial.  I have disabled Mark PST option and re ran the Locate PST task over night. Now this morning the new PST I created and the restored PST from backup exhibit the same symptoms as the rest. This clearly shows that the locate PST task is modifying the PST files somehow.

How do I go about getting evaluation support for this product, clearly this is a fault.

[TonySterling]

Sorry, but the issue you are describing wouldn't be caused by Enterprise Vault.  And since you say it happens to PST's that have not been imported I think you are going to have to look elsewhere for root cause.

If you wanted evaulation support you should have gone through a partner or Symantec reseller, they could have made sure the product was setup and configured correctly.

That said, can you post a screen shot of what your are seeing, your description isn't entirely clear.

[ALiving]

I'm sorry, but I believe you are wrong. All other options have been exhausted, as I have described in my post, the issue can be replicated with either a new PST, or one restored from backup, by running the PST locate task.

As for your second point, we have been dealing with Symantec directly, and during our meetings to come up with a solution, Enterprise Vault was suggested a trial was discussed, I have emailed our contact and waiting on a reply.

In the attached image, you can see the duplicate tasks that have appeared, If you note on the highlighted task, Outlook thinks both tasks are in a folder called "Service Desk" in both the exchange mailbox and the archive folder as shown in the Outlook data file column, but as you will note there is no "Service Desk" folder in the archive PST. This PST was freshly restored from backup tape, and was functional yesterday, until I manually ran the PST Locate task.  If you delete on task, both are removed. They are the same item, this issue gets worse the more PST files you have open.

[TonySterling]

Also, are they only duplicated on the To-Do bar or are they duplicated in the Task List or in the To-Do List also?  How are you sorting?

There are several posts about this issue on various other forums and none of those solutions have to do with EV being a cause. 

What else has occurred in your environment?  Have you recently upgraded to Outlook 2010 from 2007?  That is where you are going to want to focus.

[TonySterling]

So I would recommend a test.  Disable the PST Locator task and create a brand new PST.  Wait over night and test tomorrow to see if the issue is present.

If you are dealing with Symantec directly then the SE will be your support for the evalution.  If they are responding quickly enough you might have to chase them.

Personally, I have dealt with some rather large PST migration projects and if EV caused this issue my just marking or locating I am pretty sure I would have seen it before.  It is easy to blame EV for causing an issue in the environmnet because it was the latest thing installed but I would recommend to not just soley focus on that but also consider what else might have changed.

[ALiving · Accepted solution]

Hello all

After working on this issue for quite a while, I have found the issue is related to the check box "display reminders and tasks from this folder in the to-do bar" on the PST properties in Outlook.

In Outlook 2010 this check box shows as off. If you enable it, it appears to turn on without issue, when you disable it, you get a message box "Unknown error" this is the same for Outlook 2007.

The fix for this was to open the PST file as a user who has equal or higher permissions than the account used for Symantec Enterprise Vault. Once that was done, you could toggle the box on and off, and then re open the PST as a normal user, and the duplication issue is gone. It stays this way even after Enterprise Vault re runs the PST Locate task.

I have checked file permissions and the users have full control over their PST so it is not file permission issue.

On a side note, if you open the PST using Outlook 2007, it actually locks up, and there is a large amount of read/write traffic going to the exchange server, Outlook.exe needs to be ended to exit it.

I am not sure what caused this, or what the issue is with these particular PST files, but I do know that there are a ton of these Outlook 2007 events in the event log when Enterprise Vault does a PST Locate:

The store \\?\UNC\SERVER\D$\Users\jdoe\Archive.PST is being reconciled with the indexer for the following reason: The store was last opened on a different machine.

Clearly the PST is being opened by Outlook, and for some reason their is some sort of latent bug or issue that has an effect on reminders and tasks option. The hard part now is going to be fixing these PST's without doing them manually.