Inbound Email Troubleshooting

Basic tips for SBS 2008 owners

Inbound Email Flow

With a POP3 connector setup, email is actually received from a web hosting company and pulled down into Microsoft Exchange at set intervals through a “POP3 connector.” Once the email is retrieved from the hosting company it can be accessed through Microsoft Outlook.

We’ll work from the bottom up and talk about common issues.

POP 3 Connector

Web Hosting Email

Microsoft Exchange 2007

Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft Outlook

• Verify that Outlook is connected to Exchange. If you changed your network password Outlook may need to authenticate again to update its stored password. You can see the status in the lower right portion of the status bar

• Can you access other resources on SBS? Perhaps there is a network connection issue. Try to open windows explorer and navigate to your server. For example if you server name is sbs, try to navigate to \\sbs

Microsoft Outlook

Exchange 2007

Exchange simply doesn’t break. I have seen situations were updates were applied and services were not restarted, which is the most likely case. If your installation was customized, the services you need to have running may very from those listed.

Microsoft Exchange 2007

To find out what service are running, click Start -> Administrative Tools -> Services from the task bar.

POP3 Connector Purpose

The POP3 Connector is responsible for connecting to email accounts hosted at a web hosting company and pull down the email into Microsoft Exchange. Using the email service provided by most hosting companies offers better reliability and failover. This prevents your business from having to have a complex infrastructure to ensure your network is always available to receive email.

POP 3 Connector

POP3 Connector Configuration

From the SBS Console navigate to the network and connectivity tabs. Double click the POP3 Connector.

POP 3 Connector

1. On the Mail Accounts page confirm that the email account is configured correctly.

2. On the scheduling page, click “Retrieve Now” to test the settings.

3. Make sure the POP3 connector service was started from the previous slide.

POP3 Connector Troubleshooting

If you receive an error while attempting to retrieve email, look in the event log. You can see error messages by clicking Start -> Administrative Tools -> Event Viewer from the task bar. Navigate to the Microsoft Windows Small Business Server/Operational entry.

POP 3 Connector

POP3 Connector Troubleshooting (cont.)

• Evaluate the error message to try to determine the cause of the issue. In this case, the email account I set up for the presentation doesn’t actually exist, so the connector fails to log into the email account at the hosting company.

• If you cannot determine the problem from here (such as a “transient error”) there is a few other things to try.

POP 3 Connector

POP3 Connector Troubleshooting (cont.)

Open C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Logs\pop3connector\pop3service.log in notepad and scroll to the bottom• In our example we had the following error:

[t 0] 10/20/09, 04:20:43: EVENT: The credentials provided for user account "test_user+vestalsgap.com" on the server "mail.vestalsgap.com" are incorrect. Verify the user name and password for this user account.

• What would you do if you had the following error though? See the next slide …

[t 0] 10/19/09, 06:25:07: EVENT: Because of transient or unknown failures, one or more messages (1) could not be delivered to ' test_user+vestalsgap.com' on the SMTP server 'localhost'. The messages will be left on the POP3 server. If these failures continue to occur, you can either connect to the POP3 account and retrieve or delete the messages manually, or resolve the problem causing the errors. For more information, see the log file at "C:\Program Files\Windows Small Business Server\Logs\pop3connector\pop3service.log“.

POP 3 Connector

Web Hosting Email Troubleshooting (cont.)

Several things can cause the POP3 Connector from retrieving email:• Improper message headers from spammers• Attachments size (most common that I’ve seen)• Web hosting email account changes, such as username or password.

These are easy to identify since the logs should indicate which account has the issue. Simply log into your web hosting provider’s webmail and evaluate the email.• Delete spam• Download large attachments from webmail and then remove the email• In the SBS Console have the POP3 Connector “retrieve now” to verify

the problematic email was removed.

Web Hosting Email

Know when to say when

This is a simple how-to for business owners that have a little systems knowledge. If your problem cannot be addressed through tips such as these, consider calling a professional.

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