MSMQ has several hundred a5 messages - Preventing upgrade from 5.0 to 6.0

[Stu_Packett]

I'm going through the documentation to upgrade from 5.0 SP4 to 6.0 SP2 and one of the first steps says to check the MSMQ. It turns out each of my three Exchange servers has at least 120 messages for each a5 queue.

Example:
enterprise vault archiving service for server1 a5 = 120
enterprise vault archiving service for server2 a5 = 152
enterprise vault archiving service for server3 a5 = 380

Also, I have one message in the a4 queue.

Any ideas on how to clear these out so I can proceed with the upgrade? Thanks again.

[TonySterling · Accepted solution]

You can purge those. The a5 is the request to process a mailbox for a schedule archive run and it is not uncommon to have those in there.

With the services stopped, just expand the queue and right click Queue Messages and select All Tasks, Purge.

After you purge, refresh the console and you should see them in an Admin queue, purge that as well.

[TonySterling]

As for the a4 queue, I am not a big fan of purging those queues, but I think in this case I would to be able to do the upgrade. After a couple the days the pending item should revert back to a normal icon and be archived later. :)

My opinion anyway.

[Stu_Packett]

Thanks Tony. I deleted and purged all the a5 and single a4 message. I have proceeded with the upgrade. Thanks.