Generation of spam quarantine messages may fail because an error occurred reading the quarantine mailbox configuration

 

Topic Last Modified: 2007-11-16

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 Management Pack for Operations Manager monitors the Windows Application log on computers that are running Exchange Server 2007 and generates this alert when the event or events specified in the following Details table are logged.

To learn more about this alert, if you are using Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, do one or more of the following:

  • From the Operator Console, select this alert, and then click the Properties tab. Review the description of the alert that includes the variables specific to your environment.

  • From the Operator Console, click the Events tab, and then double-click the event in the list for which you want to review the event description. Review the events that have been logged that meet the criteria of this Operations Manager alert.

To learn more about this alert, if you are using System Center Operations Manager 2007, do one or more of the following:

  • From the Operations Console, double-click this alert, and then click the General tab. Review the description of the alert that includes the variables specific to your environment.

  • From the Operations Console, double-click this alert, and then click the Alert Context tab. Review the events that have been logged that meet the criteria of this Operations Manager alert.

Details

Product Name

Exchange

Product Version

8.0 (Exchange Server 2007)

Event ID

3004

Event Source

MSExchangeTransport

Alert Type

Critical Error

MOM Rule Path

Microsoft Exchange Server/Exchange 2007/Common Components/Hub Transport and Edge Transport/Transport

MOM Rule Name

Generation of spam quarantine messages may fail because an error occurred reading the quarantine mailbox configuration. The configuration data may be corrupt, or Active Directory may be unreachable.

Explanation

This Error event indicates that content filtering could not read the SMTP address for the spam quarantine mailbox from the Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) directory service or Active Directory directory service. The Microsoft Exchange Transport service sends all messages that are equal to or greater than the spam confidence level (SCL) quarantine threshold to a spam quarantine mailbox. You specify the spam quarantine mailbox by entering a Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) address for the QuarantineMailbox parameter of the Set-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet.

If you have deployed content filtering on the Edge Transport server, content filtering queries the local ADAM instance for the SMTP address of the spam quarantine mailbox. If you have deployed content filtering on the Hub Transport server, content filtering queries Active Directory for the SMTP address of the spam quarantine mailbox.

This error is returned only when one or more of the following conditions are true:

  • The SMTP address for the QuarantineMailbox parameter is corrupted. If you used the Exchange Management Shell to enter the value of the parameter, the SMTP address was validated as well-formatted when the Set-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet ran. Therefore, if the SMTP address is now corrupted, it is likely some other tool or process was used to alter the data.

  • Content filtering was unable to contact the ADAM instance or Active Directory.

User Action

To resolve this error, verify that the SMTP address for the spam quarantine mailbox is specified in the QuarantineMailbox parameter on the content filtering configuration object by running the Get-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet on the computer. If the SMTP address is corrupted, the Get-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet cannot run because the cmdlet tries to validate the value of the QuarantineMailbox parameter.

If the SMTP address is corrupted, reset the SMTP address by using the Set-ContentFilterConfig cmdlet.

For more information, see Set-ContentFilterConfig and Configuring and Managing Spam Quarantine.

If the SMTP address is a valid SMTP address, the error indicates that content filtering was unable to connect to ADAM or Active Directory. Follow standard networking troubleshooting procedures to verify that content filtering can connect to ADAM or Active Directory.

For More Information

To search the Microsoft Knowledge Base articles based on criteria that generated this alert, visit the Search the Support Knowledge Base (KB) Web site.

To review Exchange 2007 event message articles that may not be represented by Exchange 2007 alerts, see the Events and Errors Message Center.

If you are not already doing so, consider running the tools that Microsoft Exchange offers to help administrators analyze and troubleshoot their Exchange environment. These tools can help you make sure that your configuration is in line with Microsoft best practices. They can also help you identify and resolve performance issues, improve mail flow, and better manage disaster recovery scenarios. Go to the Toolbox node of the Exchange Management Console to run these tools now. For more information about these tools, see Toolbox in the Exchange Server 2007 Help.