Question : Exchange 2003 - mail flows in and out, but can't browse OWA

Hello

I was testing out some new backup schemes for a new network, and when I went to do a differential backup of one of my sites Exchange servers (Backup Exec 11d) it told me that circular logging was enabled. So I disabled it and tried to restart the Information Store service. The service stopped OK, but would not restart. So I rebooted the Exchange server. I thought everything was OK because I sent a test message from my gmail account, and it successfully forwarded to my primary account (on a completely different domain/Exchange). However not long after I noticed that I could not bring up OWA. It would ask for credentials, but would not browse. I got on the Exchange box itself and tried OWA locally and the same thing happened. Then I noticed the store was not mounted. It would not mount, gave some kind of error (don't recall what it was), so I restarted the server and it came up OK, including a mounted store.  After it came up I sent test messages, checked OWA and it came up successfully. A couple hours later I again noticed the same thing- OWA would ask for credentials but could not browse the mail. I fired up my Outlook client (connected via site-to-site VPN) and it wouldn't connect to the Exchange server. During this time however, I would send test messages from my gmail and it would still flow through that box and deliver the forwarded message to my other domain Exchange account. It also showed that same message (and other messages) waiting in the Local Delivery queue.

Because of time constraint I decided to re-enable circular logging just to get it back in working order, and rebooted the server. Everything came back up OK. So I have a couple questions: I'm wondering how/what delivers the message externally when it won't even deliver it locally. And why I couldn't browse the mail via OWA. And how/why the circular logging freaked everything out. Everything I've known or read has always said to disable circular logging. I guess I have always done full backups on that box, so never noticed it was enabled.

Any tips greatly appreciated. thanks!

Answer : Exchange 2003 - mail flows in and out, but can't browse OWA

The SMTP virtual server is responsible to send and receive, you were not getting the messages on your local mailbox, cause the information store wasnt mounted, you were getting it on your external gmail account, cause your smtp server was functioning properly. You couldn't beowse OWA, cause it needs to access your local mailbox, whuch again was not available because of your IS.
Now about the circular logging, that is weird, could you try to run a full backup and then disable the circular logging? I beleive you should be fine once you do a full backup.

Regards Harout