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We recently ran into an unusual Exchange archiving problem. I will try to describe my experience below.
I am confident that there is an explanation for the cause of the problem. I have not found any suitable answers on the Internet.
Our organization has two Exchange servers (EXCH01;EXCH02. Windows Server 2012R2 + Exchange 2016 std. CU23+SU7) in a DAG cluster. Mailbox databases: MailboxDB1; MailboxDB2 replicated and ArchiveDB1, ArchiveDB2 unreplicated mounted on EXCH01. The exchange organization is deployed in one site and one domain. There are no multiple domains and sites. Mailbox items are archived from Mailbox databases to Archive databases based on a retention policy.
Due to which the size of the databases has grown large, we have installed a new EXCH03 Exchange server (Windows Server 2016; Exchange 2016 std. CU23+SU7) with four mailbox databases to store the archive mailboxes. EXCH03 is not a member of DAG.
After moving the archive mailboxes from EXCH01\ARCHIVEDB1 to EXCH03\ARCHIVEDB03, we find that on the next archive, the mailbox items are moved to the "Recoverable Items" folder of the users archive mailbox in the EXCH03\ArchiveDB3 database. Mailbox items will not appear in the users' mailboxes.
If the archive mailbox is copied back to the EXCH01\ARCHIVEDB1 database, the archiving works fine again. The newly archived mailboxes will again be correctly transferred to the archive mailboxes.
If the users mailbox is moved from EXCH01\MailboxDB1 to EXCH03\ArchiveDB4 and the archive mailbox is moved from EXCH01\ArchiveDB1 to EXCH03\ArchiveDB3, the archiving also works fine.
Based on our experience, if a user's mailbox and archive mailbox are in different databases on different Exchange servers, when archiving (e.g. Start-ManagedFolderAssistant -Identity [user@example.com]), the mailbox items that comply with the archiving policy are archived to the "Recoverable Items" folder of the archive mailbox.
If the mailbox and the archive mailbox are in the same Exchange server mounted databases, there is no archiving error as described above.
Do you have any idea why the archiving works this way when the archive mailbox is moved to another Exchange server?
Thank you for your kind reply.
Sincerely,
Tibor Kiss,
Windows administrator
From Hungary
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Hi @Tibor KISS ,
I tried searching a lot but didn't see if mentioned in any Microsoft documentation that the archive mailbox cannot be placed on another server. Do you only have this problem with this mailbox at present?
If you create an unreplicated database on EXCH02 and move an archive mailbox there, is it normal?
Regards
Shaofan
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Hi @Tibor Kiss
The tag Exchange Server Open Specifications is dedicated to supporting the open specifications. You can find open specifications here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/openspecs/
Your inquiry is not related to open specifications. I have removed the tag Exchange Server Open Specifications from your post.
Regards,
Obaid Farooqi - MSFT
Hi Shaofan,
If User's mailbox is on EXCH01\MailboxDB1 and the Database of th Archive mailbox is on EXCH02\ArchiveDB , the archiving is also moves items into Recoverable Items folder of the users"s in-place archive mailbox. :(
But the MailboxDB1 hosted by EXCH02 in the DAG the archivin' works normal.
Regards,
Tibor
You mentioned "But the MailboxDB1 hosted by EXCH02 in the DAG the archivin' works normal." So, my idea is that only this server has problems or only this db has problems.
If there is no problem on the other server, it is possible that the retention function of the retention policy on the mailbox is not processing the mail.