Exchange server stopped working after a restart

Question

Hello everyone,

Following Setup:

• Exchange 2016 on Premise
• Local Emails only
• Microsoft 365 with the Exchange OnlineArchive Addon
• Client: Outlook 2016 (License: Office Professional Pro)

I am currently experiencing a problem with my Exchange Server 2016. Initially, the address book stopped functioning properly in the Outlook clients. As a solution, I decided to restart the server. However, after the restart, I noticed that around 16 Exchange services are not running. Additionally, I am unable to connect to the Management Shell, as I keep receiving the following error message: "Error Error".

New-PSSession : [pw-mail-srv.mycompany.local] Connecting to remote server pw-mail-srv.mycompany.local failed

with the following error message : WinRM cannot complete the operation. Verify that the specified computer name is

valid, that the computer is accessible over the network, and that a firewall exception for the WinRM service is

enabled and allows access from this computer. By default, the WinRM firewall exception for public profiles limits

access to remote computers within the same local subnet. For more information, see the about_Remote_Troubleshooting

Help topic.

At line:1 char:1

+ New-PSSession -ConnectionURI "$connectionUri" -ConfigurationName Micr ...

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    + CategoryInfo          : OpenError: (System.Manageme....RemoteRunspace:RemoteRunspace) [New-PSSession], PSRemotin

   gTransportException

    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : WinRMOperationTimeout,PSSessionOpenFailed

I don't have experience with Exchange, and I really need your help to understand where to start and what to do. All local users are unable to send/receive emails.

I am using it currently for local Emails only.

I would appreciate it if you could provide me with a clear, structured, and detailed explanation of the possible causes of these issues and any potential solutions. Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Thank you very much

Moubasher

Answer 1

Try the below workaround to fix the WINRM issue.

Connect to the Remote server and run the below command from cmd as an administrator.

C:\Windows\system32>WinRM quickconfig

WinRM service is already running on this machine.

WinRM is not set up to allow remote access to this machine for management.

The following changes must be made:

Create a WinRM listener on HTTP://* to accept WS-Man requests to any IP on this machine.

Make these changes [y/n]? y

WinRM has been updated for remote management.

Created a WinRM listener on HTTP://* to accept WS-Man requests to any IP on this machine.

Also, you can check this article - WinRM cannot complete the operation

Please Note: Since the web sites are not hosted by Microsoft, the links may change without notice. Microsoft does not guarantee the accuracy of this information.

Answer 2

Hi @ Moubasher，

Exchange 2016 services aren't running after restarting, try the following solutions first:

1.Try to start the service manually:

• Press Windows+R, type services.msc, and then click OK. In the Services page that opens, select a non-running Microsoft Exchange service, right-click it, and then click the Restart option in the menu.
• Run the following command from an elevated PowerShell Window to restart all Exchange services：

Get-Service *Exchange* | Where {$_.DisplayName -notlike "*Hyper-V*"} | Restart-Service -Force
 

2.If this does not work, open Event Viewer and examine the Application log to see why the service did not start.

3.Please check that the server can still communicate with the AD domain.

 

In addition, make sure that Exchange is not installed on a domain controller, as this can cause problems such as Exchange services that may not start correctly.

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