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Retry Remote Delivery Queue Length - sustained for 30 minutes - Red(>1) - Hub Transport.

 

Applies to: Operations Manager Management Pack for Exchange 2010

Topic Last Modified: 2011-08-02

The Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 Management Pack for System Center Operations Manager includes a performance data collection engine that is used to query performance counter objects on computers running Exchange 2010. For this Operations Manager rule, data is collected by using the performance counter specified in the Details table.

To review the value of the performance counter that generated this alert, in Operations Manager, double-click this alert, and then click the General tab. Review the description of the alert that includes the variables specific to your environment.

Details

Product Name

Exchange

Product Version

14.0 (Exchange 2010)

Object Name

MSExchangeTransport Queues

Counter Name

Retry Remote Delivery Queue Length

Instance Name

_Total

Sample Interval

60

Server Role

Ex14. Hub Transport

Critical Error Threshold

1

Rule Path

Microsoft Exchange Server/Exchange 2010/Hub Transport/Transport Queues

Rule Name

Retry Remote Delivery Queue Length - sustained for 30 minutes - Red(>1) - Hub Transport.

Explanation

The Retry Remote Delivery Queue Length performance counter measures the number of messages currently in the retry remote delivery queue. Messages in this queue are in a retry state because there an issue prevented their delivery. If the issue is transient, a subsequent reattempt to send the message may be successful.

This alert indicates that the retry remote delivery queue length has been greater than 250 for five minutes. This alert may be caused by any of the following:

  • A domain to which you send a large amount of e-mail is down or experiencing problems.

  • A computer on your network may be infected with a virus which is sending messages through your Exchange servers.

  • Your DNS server may have some issue resolving fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) to IP addresses.

  • There may be a network connectivity issue that is preventing your server from correctly connecting to destination servers or the Internet. Some possible issues that could affect your connection are:

    • Router or routing issues between your server and the destination.

    • Proxy or gateway server issues.

    • Internet Service providers (ISP) issues, such as a cut line, downed system, routing issues, global disturbance, or some other issue.

User Action

The resolution to this alert depends on the root cause of this alert. Try one or more of the following to identify and resolve the problem causing the high volume of messages in the remote delivery queue:

  • Check the destination addresses for the messages in the retry queue. If the messages are all addressed to a single domain or small number of domains, verify that the specified domains are valid and functional using the steps detailed in Use Telnet to Test SMTP Communication.

  • Verify that there are no machines on your network that are infected with a virus which might be sending messages through your Exchange server(s). Take steps to remove the virus from the infected machine, or remove the machine from your network.

  • Check where the retry messages are being sent to, if there a large number of messages addressed to companies that you do not know, do not regularly work with, or with unusual subject lines that look to be spam in nature.

  • Confirm that your DNS server can resolve the FQDNs of the affected domains mail exchanger (MX) resource records to IP by using the Nslookup command-line tool. For more information about the Nslookup tool, see Nslookup.

  • Confirm that there are no network connectivity issues preventing your server from correctly connecting to destination servers or the Internet. Use the Ping or PathPing command-line tools to test basic connectivity. Use Ping to isolate network hardware problems and incompatible configurations. Use PathPing to detect packet loss over multiple-hop trips. For more information, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 325487, Advanced network adapter troubleshooting for Windows workstations. Some possible issues that could affect your connection are:

    • Router or routing issues between your server and the destination.

    • Proxy or gateway server issues.

    • Internet Service providers (ISP) issues, such as a cut line, downed system, routing issues, global disturbance, or some other issue.

After you have isolated and corrected the issue, you can manually resubmit messages that are located in the mailbox delivery queues without waiting for the time to pass that is specified by the MaxIdleTimeBeforeResubmit parameter. To do this, use either Queue Viewer or the Retry-Queue cmdlet and specify the Resubmit parameter. For information about how to retry a queue, see Retry Queues.

For More Information

If you are not already doing so, consider running the Exchange tools, which have been created to help you analyze and troubleshoot your Exchange environment. These tools can help make sure that your configuration aligns with Microsoft best practices. They can also help you identify and resolve performance issues and improve mail flow. To run these tools, go to the Toolbox node of the Exchange Management Console. To learn more about these tools, see Managing Tools in the Toolbox.