You notice that your Exchange Server 2010 mail enabled public folders no longer receive mail emails from internal users and when mail is sent to the public folder’s email address, a bounce back with the following message is returned:
Delivery has failed to these recipients or groups:
~ Submissions (submissions@domain.com)
There’s a problem with the recipient’s mailbox. Please try resending the message. If the problem continues, please contact your helpdesk.
Diagnostic information for administrators:
Generating server: SVREXHT12.domain.internal
submissions@domain.com
#554 5.2.0 STOREDRV.Deliver.Exception:ObjectNotFoundException; Failed to process message due to a permanent exception with message The Active Directory user wasn’t found. ObjectNotFoundException: The Active Directory user wasn’t found. ##
Original message headers:
Received: from SVREXMB11.domain.internal ([fe80::e8f0:569d:b40e:dc8]) by
svrexht12.domain.internal ([fe80::3065:992f:8e93:6541%16]) with mapi id
14.01.0339.001; Wed, 20 Mar 2013 10:02:40 -0300
Content-Type: application/ms-tnef; name=”winmail.dat”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
From: “Luk, Terence” <Terence.Luk@domain.com>
To: ~ Submissions <submissions@domain.com>
Subject: Test #4
Thread-Topic: Test #4
Thread-Index: Ac4lapdUx2SA9foMS5OUUeZMur3Jvw==
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2013 09:59:08 -0300
Message-ID: <6FFE876C24BAF5428BD9C31E6A5D5ADB6084A17A@svrexmb11.domain.internal>
Accept-Language: en-US
Content-Language: en-US
X-MS-Has-Attach:
X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: <6FFE876C24BAF5428BD9C31E6A5D5ADB6084A17A@svrexmb11.domain.internal>
MIME-Version: 1.0
X-Originating-IP: [10.40.2.10]
Solution
A quick search on the internet will show that every solution points to deleting the empty CN=Servers container in your legacy Exchange 2000 or 2003 organization that’s usually named First Administrative Group by default:
Configuration –> Services –> Microsoft Exchange –> Exchange Organization –> Administrative Groups –> First Administrative Group –> Servers:
What was confusing was that the environment I was troubleshooting has had Exchange Server 2010 installed for over 2 years and the client wasn’t all too enthusiastic about deleting the Servers container seeing how it has been working for all this time so I was asked to open up a ticket with Microsoft. As much as I would like to have gotten more information from the support engineer, I was told that they only handle break fix and would not be able to look at the root cause so not surprisingly, the engineer had me perform a manual backup of Active Directory and then proceed to delete the Servers container:
Once the container was deleted, the mail enabled public folders began receiving emails again.