On Premise Exchange 2019 EMS not functioning properly, many commands fail entirely, yet production continues normally

Question

Exchange 2019 Enterprise on Windows 2019 Server std.

No complaints from users regarding any form of abnormal behaviour of email flow, mailbox issues (other than normal day to day).

For example, Get-Mailbox returns only one user out of approximately 200. New-MailboxExportRequest and Get-MailboxExportRequest don't work ie:

"New-MailboxExportRequest : The term 'New-MailboxExportRequest' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again."

"Get-MailboxDatabase : The term 'Get-MailboxDatabase' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again."

I thought I would check the language settings so searched for that on the Exchange Server - got a popup apparently from c:\windows\system32\systemsettingsAdminFlows.exe - "Windows cannot acccess the specified device, path, or file. You may not have the appropriate permissions to access the item." That happens twice whenever I click on the Language part. Googling that starts talking about build. This machine is running 1809 with OS build 17763.1158 - which is quite old - but how do I update this? Check for updates doesn't help. Apparently this is done via Servicing stack updates - latest one that was installed is 10.0.17763.4640. Ran sfc /scannow at elevated command prompt - no issues.

I also downloaded HealthChecker.ps1 and ran that. I've tried to run it 3 times and each time it spits out a 33kb log file:

Highlights from that file are:

: The term 'Get-EventLogLevel' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

: Cannot index into a null array.

Get-ItemProperty : Cannot find path 'HKLM:\Software\microsoft\ExchangeServer\v15\CentralAdmin' because it does not exist.

Get-ItemProperty : Cannot find path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellSnapins\Microsoft.Exchange.Management.Xrm' because it does not exist.

Get-ItemProperty : Cannot find path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellSnapins\Microsoft.Exchange.Management.People' because it does not exist.

Get-ItemProperty : Cannot find path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellSnapins\Microsoft.Exchange.Management.PeopleICommunicateWith' because it does not exist.

Get-ItemProperty : Cannot find path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PowerShell\1\PowerShellSnapins\Microsoft.Exchange.Management.AntiSpamTasks' because it does not exist.

Get-ItemProperty : Cannot find path 'HKLM:\Software\microsoft\ExchangeServer\v15\CentralAdmin' because it does not exist.

I need some help here... Thank You

Answer 1

Hi @ jag55BC,

To better confirm your issue, please check the following:

1. What are the cumulative updates for Exchange 2019? Have you recently installed security updates?
2. Do you log on to the server with a domain administrator account? Is logging into the EAC working?

The term 'New-MailboxExportRequest' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.  

This error is generally caused by the account not having the relevant permissions to execute the command. I recommend that you double-check that your current account has domain administrator role.

 

In addition, for the command "New-MailboxExportRequest", domain administrator does not have the Mailbox Import Export role by default, which needs to be added manually.

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Answer 2

In my example, the Administrator account is assigned to a Role Group called Organization Management. That group has access to the role of Mailbox Import Export Delegating. We have to add the admin account to the role.

You cannot run the cmdlet if the admin account is not added to the role. This will not give you access to export mailboxes to PST.

We have two options:

Add admin account directly to the role

Create a new role group and add admin account to that group (recommended)

Answer 3

Exchange CU13 was installed June or July.

Yes, I am using a domain administrator account with permissions and group memberships that have enabled me to manage this Exchange server since early 2021.

As far as misspelling the commands are concerned, I do keep a log and I also know how to hit the tab key, because, I have been working with exchange (albeit on a smaller scale than most), for about 22 years...

I have exported PST files back in July of this year but now most EMS commands fail.

Thank You for your reply

Answer 4

Finally purchased a support incident and it is now solved. The problem was an issue with the administrator profile which interfered somehow with the EMS. Kudos goes to Sumit C!

Cheers