Uninstalling the MSMQ effect on EV server

[John_Santana]

Hi people,

Does by uninstalling and reinstalling the MSMQ causing any data lost to the current EV archived items ?

Please suggest me what is th best way to perform MSMQ reinstallation safely on Windows Server 2003 and EV 9.0.4 to avoid any data loss.

Thanks,

[John_Santana]

ok, so how can I make sure that I can empty / quiesce / drain stop the queue safely ?

[Pradeep-Papnai · Accepted solution]

Make sure your archiving scheule set as Never (from the properties of excxhange archiving task & site setting) &  all your queues are empty. Then follow Tech note below.

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH48588 (How to reinstall Microsoft Message Queues (MSMQ) on a system running Enterprise Vault)

[Ben_Watts · Accepted solution]

So long as the MSMQs are completely clear then you are good to uninstall and reinstall.

Follow this technote and you will be fine  -  http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH48588

You can purge some of the queues but the ones to DEFINITELY NOT PURGE are the A1, J1, P1 etc (you get the idea) queues as these relate to pending items awaiting Post Processing by Enterprise Vault.

You will need to wait for Post Processing to happen (After backups and EV comes out of Backup Mode) before they clear down.

EV MSMQs explained -  http://www.symantec.com/docs/HOWTO37380

[GabeV · Accepted solution]

You need to take a look at the queues before uninstalling the component. If you see any items in the A1 queue or the storage queue, I'd suggest you to clear these queues before uninstalling MSMQ, since you might have duplicates items in the archives or items in pending state in the mailboxes.

Once you have confirmed this, you can go ahead and follow this technote:

http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH48588.

Since you would be reinstalling the MSMQ, Windows will install it in the system drive by default. You might need to move the MSMQ location off of the system drive and apply the right permissions to the MSMQ storage directory per the EV best practices. Just follow these technotes:

How to move Microsoft Message Queues (MSMQ) on an Enterprise Vault (EV) server.
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH48896

Correcting Security Permission Issues After Moving Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) off the System Drive
http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH53243

I hope this helps.

[Pradeep-Papnai · Accepted solution]

You need to check status of queue from computer managment.

1. Open "Computer Management"
2. Expand "Message Queues"
3. Expand "Private Queues"

As Ben suggest you can purge all queue except A1, J1, P1 as it require post processing to be completed. But it's good to wait till these queues automatically process items.

For purging the queue, just expand the MSMQ, hilight queue message, right click and select 'purge all item'

[Pradeep-Papnai]

Is there any more information do you need regarding MSMQ topic?

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

Waiting for queues to clear is redundant nowadays If the queues are purged or corrupted or lost, it does not equal data loss, at the most it's annoying because you have pending items that never get turned in to shortcuts You can just do a pending shortcut time out, it will reset the item and be archived next time Duplicate items from an A1 purge hasn't been an issue since 9 SP3, and even then there's the duplicate item cleaner knocking about to clear that up Honestly it can be faster just to run the reset pending rather than waiting out queues to clear, though that being said, anything stuck in storage or A1 queues may suggest issues that need to be addressed but could be related to exchange connectivity and/or backup mode

[Ben_Watts · Accepted solution]

As much as the above may be correct the process would take just as long either way, especially as the policy needs to be changed and synced as well.

The item has already been archived we are simply deleting the original and replacing with a shortcut, whereas Pending Shortcut Timeout would have to do a clean up job and change items back to IPM.NOTE, surely it is better to just get those pending items into fully archived leaving you in a much better situation to upgrade.

I agree with you though, if you have items stuck in the A1 queues even after post processing then that is a completely different situation altogether and needs looking at before the upgrade happens.

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

The do not purge at all costs thing is really old advice and have seen it slow down a lot of projects, and I think it's more from the fact that the duplicates issue being fixed wasn't widely advertised Plus best practice is to have a pending shortcut timeout set regardless of whether you intend to use it or not as there should be no reason that a shortcut should stay pending for two days But really the mentality of must not purge when items in the x1 queues just delays things as a system may be having issues but now a customer is paranoid because they must get those items out of A1 at all costs etc

[John_Santana]

ok, so in this case, I need to stop the EV services to clear up the queue before uninstalling the MSMQ and reboot the server.

after the reinstallation of the MSMQ, I can then start all of the EV services again.

[JesusWept3 · Accepted solution]

Well you can't uninstall msmq with the services started And you can't start the services without msmq If you're insistent on the queues clearing, you can't stop the services as the queues will just sit and not move

[Prone2Typos · Accepted solution]

Interesting advice here in this posting.

If the posts resolved your issues please note the porper posting for a solution so that others still needing help can get it.

Persoanlly, I would not seek to use the "duplicate cleaner" as a solution to inappropriately cleared queues. My expierence with this utility is that if I can avoid having to use it at all... I will.

Regardless I hope you got your concern addressed and it all worked out as expected.

Regardes

[John_Santana]

Yes, that does make sense people !

thanks for the replies and the explanation :)