Messages stay in MTA until traffic from destination svr is received

[fuego007]

We have an Exchange 5.5 site consisting of 2 mailbox servers and a bridgehead server. When an incoming message is recieved by the BH server, it stays in the MTA queue for the destination server until the BH server receives a message (either SMTP or for a mailbox on the BH) from the destination server.

To clarify: An external user (could be external or at a connected site) sends me an email. The message processes through the IMC, but then stays in the MTA queue for my mailbox server until the BH receives a message from my server (either SMTP or to a mailbox on the BH).

Has anyone experienced this behavior and fixed it?

When all else fails, READ THE DAMN BOOK!

 

[zbnet]

Check name resolution between all servers, both ways. Increase MTA logging and check event logs. There are some hotfixes for the MTA that came after/aren't included in the post SP4 hotfix rollup (which is the closest thing to SP5 for 5.5).

 

[fuego007]

Name resolution is OK. Ran rpings yesterday in both directions and got good results. I'll turn up logging and see if I get anything.

When all else fails, READ THE DAMN BOOK!

 

[fuego007]

OK, changing the logging levels has not resulted in any event log entries. Upon further analysis, it appears that we have the same problem with all of our connectors - the flow behaves as though the connectors were configured with the schedule set to "remote initiated", even though they're all set to "always". This is not a major problem, as incoming mail causes the traffic to flow, and occurs frequently enough that a problem is seldom noticed. If anyone has any ideas, I'm listening.

Dr. Fraser Crane

When all else fails, READ THE DAMN BOOK!