Sunday afternoon’s Exchange database compression activity was completed successfully and resulted in a large volume of increased storage space on one of the Exchange servers.
Thank you, again, for your cooperation during this necessary Exchange service activity.
On Sunday, April 26, beginning at 3:00 p.m. until approximately 6:00 p.m., IT system administrators will compress one of the databases that resides on one the MS Exchange servers. The reason for this activity is to allow for increased storage space on the server.
During this process, some users (@mso.umt.edu) may experience the inability to access their email accounts during this time. GrizMail service (@grizmail.umt.edu) will not be impacted by this activity. No email will be lost during this time.
Thank you in advance for your cooperation. We apologize for any inconvenience this activity may cause. Questions may be directed to IT Central at 243-HELP.
Yesterday’s issue with sending mail through the Exchange system appears to have resolved itself while our system administrators were researching the problem. It’s possible to speculate on causes that are related to either the central service, to client issues, or to both, but we don’t – and perhaps won’t -know what actually caused the problem.
During the course of yesterday’s episode, IT system administrators looked closely and thoroughly at both the central Exchange service and the SMTP gateway service. We found no problems with either of those services that could have caused the errors that some users were reporting and we could not replicate the errors ourselves. Both Exchange and SMTP appeared to be working fine for the majority of UM-Missoula campus users, we received no trouble reports from the other UM campuses that use those services, and no one reported any issues with OWA.
Because we could not identify any issues with those services, we made no changes to fix the trouble that was reported, yet the problem seems to have disappeared. So, we’re reasonably sure that it was not related to the central services but other possible causes are only speculative.
We appreciate the patience of everyone who was affected by this issue episode and we hope that anyone who may be continuing to experience problems sending e-mail through the central Exchange and/or SMTP services will let us know as soon as possible.
This afternoon some email users are experiencing problems with outgoing email service. IT staff are working to determine and resolve the problem. If you or your users are experiencing problems with outgoing email service, please contact IT Central at 243-HELP, and provide specifics about the user and any other relevant details (user name/email address/email client/error messages). Thank you.
To UM faculty and staff:
We are once again facing the problem of insufficient free space in the Exchange environment faculty/staff areas. Currently in our Exchange environment there is a retention period of 30 days on permanently deleted items. This is adding to our space issues. In order to address the problem to avoid further email service issues, we ask for your help. Users may archive items to remove them from the server and we are asking everyone to delete and purge deleted items. This is a two step process. Simply deleting items will not clear up server space, but deleted items must also be purged in order for the space to be reclaimed.
To delete items in Outlook
1. Clear your Sent Items of unwanted messages by either archiving or deleting them.
2. Empty your Junk Email (right click on the Junk Mail folder, select ‘Empty Junk Email Folder’). Since this permanently deletes junk email, you must purge deleted items from this folder. Follow the purge steps below.
3. Delete the messages in your Deleted Items (right click on the Deleted Items folder, select ‘Empty Deleted Items Folder’). Follow the purge steps below.
To purge deleted items in Outlook
MOST IMPORTANT! You must follow these steps to purge your deleted items. Unless you purge the deleted items, server space remains unavailable.
1. Click on the folder you want to purge (deleted items, junk email, sent items).
2. Click on Tools on the Menu Bar and select Recover Deleted Items.
3. To select all, click on the first icon on the toolbar. Click on the last icon (‘X’) to purge all deleted items. (Note: In Outlook 2003, Recover Deleted Items is only available in the Deleted Items folder.)
To further alleviate the current space problems, IT plans to reduce the retention time for messages retained in the Recover Deleted Items area in Outlook from 30 days to 14 days. Resetting the retention period to 14 days should yield some immediate results. We plan to take this step very soon.
Please direct questions about this announcement to IT Central, 243-HELP (x4357).
We are currently experiencing an issue with one of the central Exchange servers that is impacting MSO email service for some users. Our Exchange administrators are working on the issue and hope to have a resolution very soon. For those impacted, we thank you for your patience during this time.
