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Mail Items are incresing in size after archiving by Enterprise Vault

bagrationi
Level 5

Hello,

I'm using Symantec Enterprise Vault 8.03 version in the Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Environment.

I have approximately 110-120 mailboxes archiving by EVault. End users uses Outlook 2003/2007 versions as mail clients.

So, some days ago i have found kind of strange issue on the users side, that some already archived mail items was excessive in size than it was in the original state - before archiving.
Than i've tested it on my mail client also, in the meddle of the archived items and found messages that was more in size than it was in the state before archiving.

Did you have such issue and do you have some experience with it ?

Thanks in advance for your attention,

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Prone2Typos
Moderator
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So with the entire shortcut body being used for shortcuts, in message that do not have attachments. . .technically all you are doing is adding data to it. In theory they should grow. Are you seeing this issue in items with and without attachments? Also have you checked to make sure your client is not in cached mode?

 

THanks

 

J

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16 REPLIES 16

TonySterling
Moderator
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Do you have old Organizational Forms in the Exchange Org Form Library?

 

Problem


Abnormally large shortcuts are being created

Solution


Enterprise Vault scans the organizational forms on the Exchange server when archiving. If the organizational forms are of an older version, Enterprise Vault will embed the current version of the form inside each shortcut during processing. This can sometimes lead to unusually large shortcuts. in some cases the size of the shortcut can exceed the size of the original message.
 
Solution:
Upgrade the Exchange organizational forms for Enterprise Vault to the latest version.

Article URL http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH63930

CFreeX
Level 4

What is size of the original item, during pending and after archived?

bagrationi
Level 5

Not abnormally large shortcuts are being created, but they are more in size after archiving.

For example: An original mail item that is 7KB - after archiving the shortcut increases no more than 8-9KB.

 

bagrationi
Level 5

Not abnormally large shortcuts are being created, but they are more in size after archiving.

For example: An original mail item that is 7KB - after archiving the shortcut increases no more than 8-9KB. 

TonySterling
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So what is your shortcut content set to?  For example, are you doing Full message body, adding a banner, and adding Links?

If yes, that would explain what you are seeing with the smaller messages.

Prone2Typos
Moderator
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I have also seen this be falsely reported when using cached mode. I would confirm your findings from a non-cached mode profile to Exchange to see what is actually residing on Exchange. Aside from that. . .the full message body policy will not help your issue as essentially it is only removing attachments and growing your message content by adding the EV banner and such as Tony indicated

bagrationi
Level 5

Hello,

Thanks for your posts and attention for this issue.

So, the shortcut content is set to:

  1. In shortcut header - Include recipient information is checked.
  2. In shortcut body - content of shortcut body is set to: Use message body
  3. When shortcut is opened is set to: Show contents.


Also, if this will be a right solution for this issue, post here how to Upgrade the Exchange organizational forms for Enterprise Vault to the latest version.... some knowledge bases or suggestions.
FYI
I'm using Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 SP1 and Symantec Enterprise Vault 8.03 ver.


Bellow is a screenshot of the configuration of shortcut content tab: 

Prone2Typos
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So with the entire shortcut body being used for shortcuts, in message that do not have attachments. . .technically all you are doing is adding data to it. In theory they should grow. Are you seeing this issue in items with and without attachments? Also have you checked to make sure your client is not in cached mode?

 

THanks

 

J

bagrationi
Level 5

Hello,

I have checked both, Email items with attachments and without.
Items with attachments have no problems, they are archiving as expected - (for example:before archiving an item that was 2MB, after archiving it was 7KB)
But, usual mail items with no attachments that are so small in size - approximately 7-15KB are growing up after archiving - (for example:before archiving an item that was 7KB, after archiving it was 8KB)
 

As for clients cached mode, this issue was detected in both case - with users that do not use cached mode and also with users that use cached mode.

So, could you advice me a right solution to how to resolve this issue, how to stop the growth of the mail items after they are archived.

Thanks,

Prone2Typos
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I recall seeing this a few times and we found some contributing factors but never identified the root cause. I would start a case to see if they can track it in comparison to historic examples of this issue to try to narrow the focus of this issue. You may also wish  to try changing the shortcut policy from whole message body to something like 500,000 characters or something. The process that makes a shortcut is different between the two functions and sometimes issues manifest using whole message body that do not without it.

 

 

Lastly I would  try your best to estabilish steps to reproduce the issue when calling in. This will help to expidite your issues research and ensure it gets the traction it needs. Sorry I could not be of more help.

 

 

If you do narrow it down. . .please update   us .

 

Regards.

J

bagrationi
Level 5

Thanks a lot for your attention and suggestion Jason,

As for changing shortcut policy from whole message body to customize and increase something like 500 000 characters or more - it will not work in our case, and more i have tested this configuration some times ago and this is not suitable for our enterprise.

So, i try to find a best solution ... and if you have any news about this issue please notify me as soon as possible.

Thanks,

Rob_Wilcox1
Level 6
Partner

If you use the message body as your contents of the shortcut, then lots of the smaller messages (<10Kb) will grow in size.

 

That's because effectively the shortcut is the original message + additional EV MAPI properties.

 

The saving will come about with messages that are larger, eg with attachments.

 

So I would do some analysis to figure out what your average message size.  Searching around on the internet you'll see that is usually 70-120 Kb, and these will be smaller as shortcuts.

Working for cloudficient.com

bagrationi
Level 5

If so, again i've did some investigation with number of mailboxes that are archiving by enterprise vault and i've found precisely that archived items whose average size are 5-15KB - exactly they have problems, namely only this kind of items are increasing in size after archiving.
And also one interesting thing, that all these mail items after archiving are increasing with 1KB only and not more.

Large mail items and also items with attachments do not have any problem - usually they become so small in size after archiving, for example:

160KB became 12KB

2MB became 8KB

And so on.....



It is interesting for me that, it doesn't exist any KB by symantec or any resolution method for this issue.. ?

If it would be better to write or call directly to Symantec Support team.. ?


 

Prone2Typos
Moderator
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Hey bagratoni.

 

It seems like you have done a fair share of isolation on this issue and have the abilityt to reproduce it. This will aid you in working with support.

 

If you are seeking a proper resolution for this issue then I would contact support as implied above. As this is a community driven forum, frequently the users here can point you in the correct direction or even provide assistance outside of what support is willing/able to do. What you are talking about is a consistant behavior that is noted when archiving items under your policy settings.

 

When calling support I would arrange to have very specific steps to reproduce the issue so that the support representitive may attempt to reprduce the same behavior on an independatnt environment.

 

It may be that this issue gets investigated as a potential defect of the product, that support has seen this reported and is presently investigating it, or the behavior is by design as has been suggested above. For any official resolution or stance on the issue. . . .support is who you should be talking to.

 

Regards.

 

J

Rob_Wilcox1
Level 6
Partner

You are of course more than welcome to go the route towards Symantec Support.  However, I am unsure what that would achieve over and above the explanations which have been given here.  There are two factors to take in to account :-

* Each shortcut will still have the original recipient information in it - sometimes that is a sizeable part of the overall message.

* The shortcutting content policy that is in use here is "Use Message Body" in that situation EV can't really do alot to make the shortcut any smaller than the original message.

Two quick examples which I have just done.

An original mail, which was just 3 Kb, containing one recipient, a short subject, and 2-3 lines of text.

An original mail, which was 8 Mb of which 2-3 lines of that were text, one recipient, and a large text file attachment.

My current shortcutting policy is to keep 1000 characters, display attachments as links, and include a banner.

After archiving each of these items show as 3Kb in Outlook.

If I change the policy, to "use message body', and use the messages (with a copy of the nearly-8Mb-attachment, with a different filename), these again become 3Kb in size after archiving.

If I take a mail which has the text of these thread in it, that is 40 Kb.  After archiving using my original shortcuting policy the message is 3 kb in size.

If I do the same but 'use mesasge body' then the message is 29 Kb in size.

 

In other words it's not just a matter of saying whether emails are XYZ Kb in size.  It's what that size is made up, in combination with the policy that you have defined for the contents of the shortcut.

 

Hope that helps,

Working for cloudficient.com

bagrationi
Level 5

Ok, Thanks for advices Rob.

By the way i will try to test one account and a will check how it will work after changing "use the message body" to "custom" and to set the characters from 100000 to 2000000. Just i'll try.

For any news, i'll post an info here

Thanks,